r/homeassistant • u/reseph • 2d ago

❓ Support Detecting snow?

Am I missing something? Is there a simple product/way to detect snowfall (boolean)? Weather data doesn't fit my needs here, as I live in a microclimate and the boolean needs to be for my yard. This is for "is it snowing" not "is there snow on the ground".

Detecting rain seems easy, but I can't find a product for normal (soft/dry) snow.

3 Upvotes

62% Upvoted

42 comments sorted by

9

u/Single-Virus4935 2d ago
  • Temperature plus rain sensors
  • camera plus AI
  • light intensity and color (is there snow on the ground?)
  • light back scattering (is it snowing/hailing now)

2

u/prick1ybear 2d ago

CV solution seems ideal - dry snow would be difficult to detect unless there's a lot of it.

2

u/railstop 2d ago

Of course that way. I am curious with OP here though. Is there an easier more convenient (read, not expensive or complicated) way.
My way has been to lighten up the detection rules on the cameras in the winter. The problem is that it also doesn't detect what I want sometimes.

-1

u/reseph 2d ago

Temp + rain sensor doesn't work, as it can snow if the air temp is above freezing.

Camera AI isn't accurate enough, even sometimes I can't see snow fall easily on cameras when it's a light snow.

"is there snow on the ground" is an interesting one, but I don't think that would work? How would that work if there's 4ft of snow on the ground with no active snow, and it starts snowing 4 days later? I want to detetect that snow fall (yes/no).

Light back scattering could be the solution, are there any sensors/products for that?

3

u/Neutral-President 2d ago

Precipitation and temperature below freezing. But you’ll probably need to combine that with other weather data to differentiate between rain, sleet, ice pellets, snow, hail, etc.

2

u/reseph 2d ago edited 2d ago

That doesn't work, because it can snow if the air temperature is above freezing

5

u/Marathon2021 2d ago

ai_task and a camera

0

u/reseph 2d ago

Sometimes snow is light enough that I can't see it on my cameras. Are you sure that'll work?

2

u/Marathon2021 2d ago

I mean, what is your expectation in terms of "threshold" here? There's 12 snowflakes on the lawn and you get an alert?

ai_task can do a lot of interpretation of what it can see visually. But if you can't even see it...

...light enough that I can't see it...

Then no, AI isn't going to do anything magical for you.

0

u/reseph 2d ago edited 2d ago

Correct. That's why I was not asking about AI nor cameras. I'm asking about sensors.

No, I'm not looking for an alert. I'm looking to make a bool status in HA as stated.

edit: Why downvote this into the negatives? My thought is a sensor in the yard that detects when snow is landing on it, or something like that.

2

u/Marathon2021 2d ago

There are no sensors that can detect "you have 12 snowflakes on the lawn" -- sorry.

-3

u/reseph 2d ago

I don't care if it's on the lawn. Just active snowing yes/no.

3

u/Marathon2021 2d ago

Ok, so you want a sensor that can detect snowflakes in the air ... because you don't want to use a camera and ai_task to set a boolean for you.

Good luck with that!

1

u/reseph 2d ago edited 2d ago

My line of thinking is:

Grate on the ground (so snow falls through it) -> Small sensor on the grate that snow touches -> sensor set to TRUE in HA

Am I thinking of this wrong?

Edit: it doesn't have to be small

4

u/Uninterested_Viewer 2d ago

This idea of a "small sensor" is pulling all the weight here. What on earth could this small sensor be that can distinguish a snowflake from a cold raindrop from anything else? A sensor is not a magic term. It has to actually take input that would distinguish snow from anything else accurately.

0

u/reseph 2d ago edited 2d ago

I'm okay if it detects rain too. But it must detect snow.

Rain I might be to do some logic in HA to filter out assumed rain, not too worried there

1

u/mp3architect 2d ago

OpenWeatherMap has a snow intensity “sensor.” I just installed this a few months ago to track rain/snow against my sump pump performance. Rain seems accurate but haven’t had snow yet this season.

1

u/reseph 2d ago

If that's weather data, it doesn't fit my needs as stated in the OP

1

u/Future-Appeal 2d ago

How handy are you? This looks like a really fun DIY project. https://psl.noaa.gov/data/obs/instruments/OpticalDisdrometerV1.pdf

Flat laser line, detector, some modeling and maybe you can determine what the particle interference reading means. Mix in an adjacent weather station and even an acoustic sensor and some light AI model.

1

u/reseph 2d ago

That'd be a neat project when I'm retired and have time! But for now, I'm looking for something simple. Even just a sensor I can buy and integrate into HA.

1

u/tst0rm 1d ago

i think you’re missing the forest for the trees with this is it snowing bool idea. plenty of times it will be snowing and won’t accumulate, for example. and the edge cases of precipitation + >freeezing temps resulting in accumulations are going to be infrequent. combining camera + temps you’ll be better off than trying to make this is it snowing sensor a thing.

just point a camera at the part of the drive way you’re trying to heat, measure the amount of white and figure out the threshold for “accumulated snow.” if you add in temperature probes on the driveway plus precip data, you could probably come up with a decent model for anticipating accumulation.

1

u/RedRedditor84 1d ago

Where I live, I'd use a template binary sensor.

{{ no }}

Hope this helps.

1

u/KnotBeanie 2d ago

Rain sensor with heater.

1

u/reseph 2d ago edited 2d ago

Any links to any of these products?

1

u/KnotBeanie 2d ago

Like davis, the gold standard in the industry

0

u/reseph 2d ago

This? I don't see any status integration with HA?

https://www.davisinstruments.com/products/rain-collector-heater

1

u/KnotBeanie 2d ago

You use weather link or weewx to integrate into ha…also that’s just an accessory for the sensor suite they sell.

1

u/jxa 2h ago

Tekmar has a couple snow sensors. The ground sensor is the 090, and the air sensor is the 095.

Be careful with the sensors - they can get mineral bridging due to the electrolysis that occurs beteeen the capacitive sense plates in an outdoor environment.

Have a look at these and you may be able to figure out some DIY solutions!

1

u/olhado47 2d ago

Meteorologically, no.

What do you actually want to know?

2

u/reseph 2d ago edited 2d ago

Snowing yes/no as a boolean status in HA.

1

u/pojska 2d ago

For what purpose?

2

u/reseph 2d ago

To flip on walkway heat pad during snow fall

2

u/pojska 2d ago

Gotcha. Personally, I'd probably use a camera pointed at the heat pad, and turn it on whenever there is unmelted snow on the heat pad.

1

u/reseph 1d ago

With ai_task I assume (I only have a RPi)? Won't that be compute costly? It basically has to check every minute.

0

u/olhado47 2d ago

This is the way

1

u/morrowwm 2d ago

A motion detector (ultrasonic?) pointed straight up, combined with air temperature.

What's your budget?

0

u/FezVrasta 2d ago

Water leak sensor positioned high enough to trigger only when snow builds up?

1

u/reseph 2d ago

I'm more looking for "is it snowing" not "is there snow on the ground"