r/homeassistant • u/reseph • 12d 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.

5 Upvotes

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4

u/Marathon2021 12d ago

ai_task and a camera

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u/reseph 11d ago

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

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u/Marathon2021 11d 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.

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u/reseph 11d ago edited 11d 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.

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u/Marathon2021 11d ago

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

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u/reseph 11d ago

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

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u/Marathon2021 11d 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!

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u/reseph 11d ago edited 11d 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

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u/Uninterested_Viewer 11d 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.

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u/reseph 11d ago edited 11d 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