Top 10 KNX weather stations for your smart home

Weather can’t be changed, but once equipped with an external KNX weather station you can change how your home reacts to it, save energy and protect it. Weather station incorporates all important sensors for evaluating meteorological data in a single compact device.

What makes a KNX weather station great?

By monitoring the weather (using a weather station for wind, rain, temperature, sun and combining it with a weather forecast) your blinds can be automated to raise to protect them from strong winds, the garden lamps to turn on when it gets dark or the garden watered when there’s drought. Instead of a pushbutton, the blind control triggers without your intervention, based on weather conditions.

During the day, the KNX weather station can take control over your smart lawn mower, shading control and in the evening you can configure it to lower the sunshades and turn on the outside lighting. All triggered by the weather station's light sensors and other KNX sensors.

Why a weather station and not just a temperature sensor?

A weather station can monitor extreme changes in weather during a heatwave or cold winter and adapt the underfloor heating or the A/C system. This is especially true when the temperatures drop substantially in a matter of a day or two.

Without it, or just with temperature sensors, the system doesn’t know that the building is cooling rapidly due to the massive drop in external air temperature, and therefore cannot react until the actual internal temperature has dropped as well. By that time the building has lost a substantial amount of heat and will require some time to recover. If you have floor heating it can even take up to two days for the temperature to raise again.

With a weather station, this is not a problem as each weather change gets logged almost immediately and the home reacts instantaneously. This short reaction time is what makes a personal weather station worth having.

The KNX weather station brings a peace of mind

There is a certain comfort and peace of mind in knowing your home will react to the environmental changes. You can also visualize the KNX weather stations to show you data in a mobile app or on a tablet with some stations offering more detailed data on absolute and relative humidity, the direction of the wind, the weather forecast etc. apart from just brightness and temperature.

PROTIP: When building a smart home it’s impossible to foresee all the possible uses for all the sensors a KNX weather station offers, which isn’t a problem if you’re integrating Apple HomeKit. It allows you to create automation based on your weather station anytime all by yourself, no need for a professional’s visit. For instance you can easily set up the garden lamps to turn on every day at dusk and turn off at midnight. HERE’s how to create Apple HomeKit automation with your KNX devices.

While weather stations are growing in popularity for private use as well, we feel the need to research them and help you with the decision. But just as big as the price differences are the differences in performance that are covered by each station. Depending on your needs, very different brands, functions and price ranges come into question.

The basic features of EVERY one of these stations are:

• Wind speed sensor
• Brightness sensor
• Temperature sensor
  

Most of them also measure rain, all other features only come in the high end versions of the stations. For example the more advanced stations include GPS to determine their exact position and location and to receive location data such as the time zone, date and time. This way it can act as a master receiver. At the same time the KNX GPS receiver also determines the geographical location required for calculating the position of the sun.

If you'd like more in-depth datasheets, they can be found at each manufacturer's webpage.

Top 7 KNX weather stations

(By 7 manufacturers)

Here’s an overview of the 10 best weather stations of our choice. This selection should help you find the one product that covers your wants and needs, and also meets your budget.

GIRA Weather Stations

(Standard & Plus GIRA KNX Wetterstation)

GIRA KNX Weather Stations come in two lines: Standard and Plus. The first one has a basic measurement range and the Plus offers a wider range of measurements and extra features such as measuring humidity, air pressure and global radiation.

Both offer operation without a 24-V supplementary power supply. However if you choose this, then the rain detection is deactivated. The Gira KNX Plus Weather station also integrates a GPS/GLONASS receiver for automated positioning and it can also detect wind direction, not only strength.

The Gira Plus offers the most functions out of the ones we’ve showcased here. In addition to the usual values, parameters such as the air pressure, the perceived temperature and wind sensors are also available.

a) GIRA 215004 KNX/EIB Standard Weather Station

b) GIRA 207400 Plus Weather Station

THEBEN Weather Stations

(140 & 140 S)

Theben offers a really wide range of weather stations in their Meteodata line, ranging in price from 300€ all the way to 800 € as well as in the features they offer.

We are presenting two options, the first one is from the basic end of the spectrum and second one is a  high end station. The latter offers integrated GPS receiver and an automatic calculation of both elevation and azimuth, that are the main benefits over the first model of THEBEN Meteodata 1409205.

Since Theben is among the front-runners in the KNX weather station segment, they offer an excellent price-performance ratio for each product.

a) THEBEN 1409205 Meteodata 140 KNX basic Weather Station

b) THEBEN 1409204 Meteodata 140S KNX Weather Station

MDT Weather Station

MDT SCN-WS3HW.01 Weather Station + MDT SCN-RS1R.01Rain Sensor

MDT offers a KNX Weather Station that’s slightly smaller and significantly lighter than most of the other candidates, but still with all basic features and at a relatively low price.

With a 3 years guarantee and priced at around 250 € this is definitely the most affordable station you can get. GPS is not included in this basic station either. In order to be able to use all functions, both components (the weather station and the rain sensor) must be installed.

ELSNER Windancer KNX

The Windancer KNX(-GPS) weather station for the KNX building bus system measures temperature, wind speed, brightness and detects precipitation. All values can be used to control limit-dependent switching outputs. The states can be linked via AND logic gates and OR logic gates.

The Windancer KNX-GPS model additionally receives the GPS signal for time and location and calculates the exact position of the sun (azimuth and elevation). The integrated shading control allows the intelligent control of the sun protection of up to eight façades.

JUNG 2225 KNX Weather Station  

This weather station is function-wise something between a Gira Standard and a Gira Plus model. It offers measuring air pressure and the perceived temperature, and is priced in the mid-range.

SIEMENS KNX Weather Stations

(AB61 & AB 51)

Siemens also has a wide array of weather stations, ranging in price from 300 € to 700+ €, differing mainly in the presence of GPS-sensor and a higher sensitivity to rain, light and wind changes. Firstly we are presenting one station from the higher end, and then the low end of the spectrum.

a) SIEMENS 5WG1257-3AB61 GPS KNX Weather Station

b) SIEMENS 5WG1257-3AB51 KNX Weather Station

MERTEN MEG6904-0001 Basic V2 KNX Weather Station

Very similar device to a mid-range Theben device from their Meteodata line.

At the end, which KNX weather station is suitable for you depends both on the range of functions you want and the money you’re willing to invest into a personal station. Each of the listed weather stations is convincing as a high-quality KNX system component and enables simple control of your smart building with the ever-changing weather in mind.

It’s useful and feels great to have an overview of meteorological data in your mobile app as well as have the flexibility of changing the automation that is linked to your weather station whenever you feel like it.

Connecting your smart home to Apple HomeKit, Google Home or Amazon Alexa smart platform is a great way to gain this functionality. Meet easiest way to integrate smart assistants to your KNX smart home:

• Integrate Apple HomeKit into KNX
• Integrate Google Home to KNX
• Integrate Amazon Alexa into KNX

Here you can find the German version of this article: Die Top 10 KNX Wetterstationen für Ihr Smart Home

Want to learn more about weather stations?

Check out our podcast with Bastian Elsner where we spoke about KNX Weather Stations:

Take a look at the results of our extensive weather station survey with almost 300 participants: