#209

Hacking of 433 MHz or other RF devices is a human right for makers because these devices usually use proprietary protocols. Today we will reverse-engineer a so-called “professional” weather station from China and enable it to send its data via MQTT. Then we will hack the remote control of our outdoor awning and use an ESP32 to build a fake twin which understands MQTT. We will use a Raspberry Pi and Software Defined Radio (SDR). You will be astonished how professional this will get.
Links:
Raspberry 3 SD Image: drive.google.c...
Frank's Setup Guide: bit.ly/2P8Ccc3 (no more up-to date)
Sketch for ESP32: github.com/Sen...
Raspberry Pi: bit.ly/2tNdULR
SDR-Dongle: s.click.aliexpr... or bit.ly/2NcRMT2
Weather Station: s.click.aliexpr...
ESP32 board: bit.ly/2yV4vqp
For my German speaking viewers: bit.ly/2KGIope
rtl_433 setup: www.sensorsiot....
Supporting Material and Blog Page: www.sensorsiot.org
Github: www.github.com...
My Patreon Page: / andreasspiess
My Bitcoin address: 19FSmqbBzb5zsYB1d8Bq4KbxVmezToDNTV
If you want to support the channel, please use the links below to start your shopping. No additional charges for you, but I get a commission (of your purchases the next 24 hours) to buy new stuff for the channel
For Banggood bit.ly/2jAQEf4
For AliExpress: bit.ly/2B0yTLL
For ebay.com: ebay.to/2DuYXBp
www.facebook.c...
/ spiessa
www.instructab...
Please do not try to Email me or invite me on LinkedIn. These communication channels are reserved for my primary job
Equipment in my lab: www.sensorsiot....

[@sausagehider]

Well, my brand new 16gig micro SD card came today. Just downloaded the image file and it doesn't fit on a 16gig card. Oh no! Does the software really take up 16gig or is there lots of space on the image? If a lot of space, can anyone point me in the right direction to reduce the image size just a little to enable it to fit on a 16gig card please. Thank you Martin

[@AndreasSpiess]

Not all 16G cards have the exact same size. So yours is probably a few bytes smaller. I do not know how to solve it other than start from scratch with Frank‘s script or use a bigger card

[@ronstarmk]

I'm having the same issue. I'll give Frank's script a shot.

[@sausagehider]

Hi Ron, I have now tried 3 different makes of 16gig cards and none of them are big enough. Also, I have used a computer running Linux Mint and tried several methods of shrinking the image including 'Truncate', all have failed. The image appears to be 145meg too big. The same figure on all 3 micro SD cards I have used. The other option I tried was to copy the files to a new card by first setting up the correct partitions on a micro SD card and then copy the files from the image to a boot (Fat32) section and the files to an EXT4 section, but after using root/admin to copy, some of them just refuse to copy over. I am now at a loss of what to do. The actual data in the image is only about 10gig so there is lots of space that can be removed to shrink the image. If you find a way, please share. Thank you Martin

[@ronstarmk]

Martin Ellis I just did a fresh Stretch install on my 16gb card. I had a couple of specific sensors I was looking to see information from that were already part of rtl_433, so I used the script referenced above to get it installed and it’s working great. Not sure how we can shrink Andrea’s image down, but thank you for your efforts.

[@sausagehider]

Hi Ron (And anyone else), I had another go at reducing the image file size today and this time it was successful. I had to use something called a loopback to get the image into gparted, then resize, then exit the loopback then fdisk it then ..... well you get the picture. Anyway, I halved the image to 7.5gig and I am using it now on my Pi3 to leave this message. The RTL program is running but finding nothing. I do live in the middle of nowhere though. Anyway, if you or anyone would like this reduced image size file, please let me know. Thanks Martin

[@asiw]

Wow, all that in 11 minutes. Another fantastic video with so many options for using these techniques for all kinds of projects. Thank you. Arthur

[@AndreasSpiess]

I read that the average span of attention is about 8 seconds. So this one is still too long ;-)

[@wassfila]

Your introduction to the SDR is also great, the links about the demo and tools install encouraged me to cross the step today, I was hesitating for long, I ordered an RTL-SDR and an ADALM-PLUTO. It's good to know there's a community behind to help with tools an faced issues. So I'll definitely follow you up on SDR content.

[@AndreasSpiess]

So enjoy your new tools as I do!

[@raguaviva]

I like how well you structure the contents and how thorough you are in your analysis. Very inspiring!

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you for your feedback!

[@dffabryr]

You can use your wheather station signal to fire up or down your heater, activate a below zero and/or wind alarm. Very interesting video Andreas, as always!!

[@AndreasSpiess]

I use it for our awning. It extends when the sun is shining, the temperature is above 22 degrees, and winds are calm. Like that we do not get lots of direct sun in summer

[@nigeljohnson9820]

The problem with 433.92MHz equipment is that there are far too many, resulting in blocking. I was reciently forced to replace my central heating thermostat, because it was regularly jammed in the on state by other devices in the locality. My replacement thermostat still uses 433.92MHz, but has a duplex protocol, ensuring the command message is received and acknowledged. Because of the congestion on this frequency, I think any home made projects using this frequency should use a bi directional protocol. This is particularly important when controlling a motorized device. RF modules to do this are available at very low cost, around £5 to 10.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Fortunately this was not the case here :-)

[@nigeljohnson9820]

Andreas Spiess my brother and I designed a system to receive the Oregon weather station modules, the earlier ones used OOK am modulated signalling,the later ones are FM. Our system injects the decided signal on to our common CCTV modulator. This displayed the CCTV and the weather information on all the TVs in the house. Unfortunately the modulator is only PAL, not DVB-T. The price of DVB-T (2) are coming down so I should be able to update the system to support newer televisions that only support DVB reception.

[@nigeljohnson9820]

Andreas Spiess you may be interested to know that the sky satellite remote control system that uses the red-eye IR receivers, convert the the remote control IR signal to a 7.2MHz OOK modulated signal that can be sent over the aerial coax to remote the s sky receiver in another room. I built a demodulator for this which was used to remote control the CCTV DVR. Unfortunately technology made the system obsolete when we installed a television/radio/ satellite distribution amplifier. The problem is that the red eye transcoders are powered by 12 volts sent through the TV aerial coax. This is not compatible with the voltage control signal used to switch the satelilite LMB.

[@zerog2000]

I think alot of devices/implementations may not be following the regional rules for duty-cycle/use-cases, etc... For a great overview of regulatory compliance, check out this TI paper: www.ti.com/lit/an/swra048/swra048.pdf

[@WJCarpenter]

@@zerog2000 Thanks for the great link

[@jaromanda]

Excellent work. I'm mainly interested in the 433 receiving side for the moment. So, I burned your image onto a 16GB SD, connected the cheap dongle that just arrived from Banggood, switched on ... and everything just works! There should be more people in the world like you!

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you for your feedback. I was just the transmitter of the good work done by others.

[@huseyint]

@@AndreasSpiess As long as you tx, we are rx'ing ;)

[@bardenegri21]

Great video! I did not know about URH it seems great. For my weather station I did it the caveman way with SDR# recording rf as audio, then looking at it in Audacity and writing it down by hand. For tiny remotes and simple stuff there is the 'rc-switch' arduino library that can decode and reproduce most of them, would have been worth a mention since it's super simple. Also loved the Ave reference at the start :)

[@AndreasSpiess]

In the past I also used Audacity. But now it can be completely replaced by URH. So I did not mention it.

[@ezhik01]

Soon as I heard 'treat especial,' I ctrl+f'ed for 'AvE' in the comments :D

[@GRBtutorials]

0:25 Hacking the remote control of my outdoor awning for adding an anemometer is exactly what I want to do! Mine didn't have one and I've got no idea how much the wind is blowing, so... Thank you, Andreas! But unfortunately, I'm pretty sure my remote control uses rolling code. I inspected it with the oscilloscope and a 433 MHz receiver module (which is much more tedious) and got a different code each time. But I found the manual of the awning's motor and receiver combo and it tells you how to add a new remote control. So if I reset the control (there's a reset button) and then inspect how it's added to the receiver, I might be able to add my own transmitter. Or maybe they use a bad PRNG, which would be able to be easily cracked with the SDR. Just get a few samples and if it isn't a CSPRNG, you'll be able to get the method used and the seeds (and therefore predicting all other values).

[@AndreasSpiess]

So good luck! It seems that I was lucky...

[@threepointonefour607]

"treat especial" Didn't know I was watching AvE!

[@AndreasSpiess]

But I do!

[@chrislambe400]

He is using it wrong just like all the non native speakers use bullsh*t incorrectly. His context was "giving something special treatment" as opposed to "being in for a special treat". Angry pixies LOL

[@AndreasSpiess]

I think he speaks also French and just mixed the two languages as he often does.

[@Rattletrap-xs8il]

lol, I caught that too.

[@michaelknauth943]

This was a fantastic glimpse into the possibilities of the SDR and common 433MHz devices. Thank you Andreas.

[@AndreasSpiess]

This was the goal. So I am glad it helped.

[@LeonardoSofia-IU2-QEB]

Fantastic Andreas! Unti now I have used Raspberry and some SDR usb dongle to build a FlightRadar station and an ACARS messages decoding station. But now I will start to explore the 433Mhz sensors world. Thank you for this useful video. Bye.

[@AndreasSpiess]

And you can do much more with it. Stay tuned!

[@fiveangle]

Wonderful Andreas ! I’ve been meaning to design and build a gateway for controlling my 3 meter projector screen with my universal remote and this guide will be the perfect jump start. Thank you as always for your real-world useful topics and projects !

[@AndreasSpiess]

So good luck with your debugging! I hope it will be as easy as it was with mine...

[@FilipeNeto616]

What a great tutorial! Quick, without going to the details, but very succinct and easy to follow. The Best of it is introduce a full workflow to solve a problem from A to Z using a set of different tools like SDR, decoding signals and mqtt integration. Many thanks for sharing your work. For sure this method can be used to an infinity of solutions

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you. I hope it will help also for other situations...

[@jameswilkinson8851]

I really enjoy your videos, really well produced and packed with accurate and useful information. Thank you for making them.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Glad you like them! Then it is worth the effort.

[@mike95826]

Thanks for the video. I knew about rtl_433 but hadn't heard about Universal Radio Hacker, used to have to use Audacity to capture waveforms. Great find. Just an FYI, I believe that the RFM96 radio that is used for LORA can also be programmed to do OOK and AFSK. What would have to be done is to connect an I/O pin to D2 (not done on most combo boards) and program the RFM96 to OOK mode. So far the RADIOHEAD libraries don't have that implemented but it shouldn't take too much hacking to figure out the configuration file. That would allow you to move the frequency just a little away from the 433.92 standard, as long as the new chosen frequency is still within the unlicensed band for the country of use. That is in one of my up coming projects. I have an Acu-Rite temperature sensor that I was going to use to figure it out but it saved me the time and fell off the tree into the mud and died.

[@AndreasSpiess]

You can get much cheaper chips to do OOK on 433. And there you probably would get the library support. Moving away from the frequency is probably easy for our chips, but not for my awning or the weather station...

[@sewashburn0529]

I've purchased a LaCrosse 79400 weather station, but you are exactly right about not needing to buy one, as I am receiving signals from a neighbor's Acurite 5 in 1 system.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Bad luck ;-) At least you can now compare the results...

[@adriyyyy]

I'm a guy with a poor English knowledge but your explanation is clear. Your videos is tooooooo interesting ! ❤

[@AndreasSpiess]

Many viewers use this channel to practice English because I speak slow...

[@cashel1111]

i cannot believe the quality of these videos! i am subscribing, but i wont understand half of them

[@AndreasSpiess]

Welcome aboard the channel. How boring it would be if you understood already everything. Like that you will learn some new things with watching the videos.

[@cashel1111]

Thanks :) i agree entirely, especially if someone like you shares the skeletons of their knowledge for us to then research

[@davesemmelink8964]

I finally got this to work! I've been trying to use cheap 433 receivers, but couldn't decode the messages. I eventually gave in and got an SDR dongle, and it worked right away with your SD card image. The SDR dongle is expensive here (in South Africa, 5x the price of a dumb receiver), so I'm hoping I can find other projects to do with it.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Glad to read it worked!

[@jean-huguesbouchard1045]

0:32 "And we will use the most sophisticated hacking equipment you can buy for 10$ + a raspberry pi" Lol what a gem

[@AndreasSpiess]

True. RTL Dongles are gems...

[@HamzaHajeir]

I was searching to read and actuate RF signals . This Video is too useful to me. Thanks Mr.Adreas

[@HamzaHajeir]

But Mr.Andreas, I am looking for a way to read a signal which in transmission wire between the RF receiver and Main board of a Car security system. So i can simulate it to open/close my car from my mobile application.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Modern cars use encrypted codes.

[@HamzaHajeir]

Andreas Spiess Thanks for replying 😊☺ Well, My car is manufactured in 1997, The security system is installed as external unit . I don't think it's time-based encrypted, because receiving unit or remote controller loses power sometimes.

[@AndreasSpiess]

To sniff logical signals you need a logic analyzer. I did once a video about that (something like " make Invisible signals visible")

[@HamzaHajeir]

Andreas Spiess I'll check it out . Thank you ☺

[@jesuschal3802]

Very interesting! An alternative to unknown protocols with static values, e.g. on/off status, plight can be used. With pilight you can listen to the divice (plight-debug) capture the raw string and reproduce it or send it back (pilight-send -p raw -c "[raw string]"). pilight can also decode signals (plight-receive) although it is not as complete as rtl_433.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you for this info. I did not know pilight.

[@anuadu]

I would love for you to get into integrating your ideas such as this one to a Homeassistant setup. Yes there are other youtubers doing this, but someone with good electronics background like yourself would make it super awesome.

[@AndreasSpiess]

For the moment I plan more basic videos. Maybe one day...

[@gte24v]

Andreas, as usual you show me something new, thank you. Like most people I started out with Audacity and was working on an Arduino version of URH that I can now simply drop, as the rpi will serve my purposes perfectly, I just need to use this as the perfect excuse to buy a model 3B Plus. :-) Thanks again! (Ian Till)

[@AndreasSpiess]

Don't quote me for the 3+. I did not use this model ;-)

[@alinayossimouse]

I didn't know about rtl_433. This is fantastic, because a lot of my neighbors seem to have weather stations and I can just fire up rtl_433 to find out how warm and moist it is.

[@AndreasSpiess]

That is probably true in many areas. I did not find one with the wind and rain sensor, though.

[@brocktechnology]

I'm not new to electronics but this is way over my head. I just watched this twice I can't even figure out what to Google to find out more. Looking forward to your introduction to software defined radio.

[@AndreasSpiess]

This has a few strings which come together. So it is not easy to start with. If you are interested in electronics I suggest you start with Arduino and ESP8266 or Raspberry Pi. And maybe you watch my videos to keep you motivated. We all started with a first step. Enjoy the journey!

[@martyewise]

Great video. Good to see some SDR stuff (not that everything else you publish isn't awesome). I really enjoyed the video and it brought to light URH and other tool that I wasn't aware of. Thanks!

[@AndreasSpiess]

You will most probably see more stuff on that topic as I m very much interested in its possibilities

[@Ender_Wiggin]

wow this project is like amazing I am blown away. it only took 200 videos worth of experience and know how. summed up in a 11 min video

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you! And maybe before the 200 videos, there was also 59 years of life ;-)

[@CoinJarMusicVideos]

Just remember how hard this was 30 years ago.. nothing was ready to connect to anything.. now we have it 'easy'.. it's practically plug and play.

[@Soggytiri]

Love it! Piggy back your neighbours weather station...

[@AndreasSpiess]

But now I have my own...

[@JanicekTrnecka]

In fact, several neighbours of mine are having wide variety of weatherstations (and a wide variety of wireless 433/868 devices) ...so I can do comparisons, or I can have a "backup".

[@geekmystique]

thanks Andreas, that was a really inspiring overview!

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you!

[@horrorhotel1999]

Potential workaround for some systems if you are dealing with rolling keys, and can live with completely replacing the involved remote with your alternative: isolate remote from receiver and record a number of signals (e.g. 200 signals) now you can use these 200 signals to control your device before you need to re-record signals Typically, these rolling keys work on a ratchet, so if you ever send a signal with your remote again, you invalidate all your recordings. There is also a strong possibility that the same ratchet is used for the different buttons. In that case, you'll have to record desired combination sequences instead of individual signals. As you can see, this method is really only practical for very simple devices which are rarely actuated, but it can be an acceptable hack if no other solution is available

[@AndreasSpiess]

I agree with your analysis. However, I am happy that our garage door opener still is "old fashioned" and I was able to hack it with a simple system.

[@Dennis-ew1xs]

Great video and hands down for your knowledge

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you!

[@RichardT2112]

5 years later, I m finally getting to do this project!

[@AndreasSpiess]

Maybe you look also at the OpenMQTTGateway. If it supports your sensor, it is much easier.

[@RichardT2112]

@@AndreasSpiess cheers mate! Will look at it!!! Greetings from Canada!!

[@wherami]

you have a great amount of info. lovely work

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you!

[@hmax1591]

This is so interesting. Just finding out about sdr. Can you add just one ad to help you pay for the channel? One ad is ok, all those ads in other channels every two minutes is a pain in the neck. I can put up with one ad if it's going to help you. Great job.

[@AndreasSpiess]

I have an ad at the beginning and at the end. With my Patreons I can pay for the channel. Glad you like the content!

[@Aemilindore]

Hey Andreas, welcome to the world of software defined radio

[@AndreasSpiess]

:-)

[@sethrd999]

Great video, SDR is alot of fun and really cool. I would suggest putting GNU Radio in your toolkit. I have 2 Nooelec USB SDR dongles that work real well, both use external ( provided ) antenna's

[@AndreasSpiess]

I agree. It is already in the tool kit. Just not used in this video. And some nice HW like a HackRF and a Pluto...

[@CrazyA9999]

Another awesome video herr Spiess! Thank you for your time and effort

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are welcome!

[@hanpahomeautomation4101]

I don't understand why it didn't work with ESP8266. My guess is that you have to use delay() in combination with delayMicroseconds() since the latter does not give any time for the network stack. Maybe this works with ESP32 since this has dual cores. Try using delay() for ''N' and perhaps also for 'L'.

[@AndreasSpiess]

As I said I gave up. Not before trying a few things... Maybe the delaymicroseconds() was the problem. But I needed it in this concept.

[@Sys-Edit0r-1995]

Well for me, since I'm into ham radio and I like weather spotting I would listen to my home weather station's data and pipe it into an APRS station so the data can be shared to other ham stations or to the local National Weather Service office.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Good idea. AFAIK you can also share it with some online services if you want.

[@iaing]

Excellent fantastic video. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this.

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are welcome!

[@northshorepx]

It's all go in the PI front eh? Great tutorial Andreas! I wonder if the scanner has a text or api output. If it does it might be possible auto gen the sig gen functions.

[@AndreasSpiess]

I did not check for an output file because I did not need it.

[@tobi_n]

Would it be possible to use a 433 MHz receiver module instead of the SDR dongle? Since you used a generic module to send your messages, a generic receiver should have been able to do the receiving/sniffing. Then you could omit the use of a Raspberry PI and one ESP32 could do the whole job.

[@AndreasSpiess]

This is of course possible. And I will probably go this way later on. But for hacking an SDR is much more versatile, because in the beginning, you do not know anything. Only after hacking you know which 433 receiver chip will do the job (ASK,FSK,PSK for example). And maybe you even do not know the frequency. This one was simple...

[@tobi_n]

Thank you for the answer. I didn't even realize that there are differences in the 433MHz modules. After looking around I assume that CC1101 based transceivers are a good choice because they cover a variety of modulations. Cheers!

[@masterluu8]

Something to consider though is there's a lot of ready to use software for the RTL based SDR dongles. Using your own 433 MHz receiver you'll likely have to write a lot of tooling yourself.

[@dankendell]

Very interersting video! Thanks. :D I was wondering what your observations are on the reliability of the system? I was looking into using MQTT for a grow room controller (not even with 433mhz RF), but I encountered enough glitches (just messages not making it all the way to the end) that I thought I should probably err on the side of caution when it came to the lighting and stick to a local timer. After all, artificial light for plants is literally a life support system! I then began wondering about feeding back so that you know for sure that what you instructed did actually happen. In my case, an LDR for each light would do the trick. When you mentioned the awning possibly being damaged in high winds, it just made me wonder if there was anything in the data along the lines of a message confirming that it had actually been fully retracted?

[@AndreasSpiess]

I use MQTT on an RPi zero for a few months for my lab light. No problem and quite stable so far. You can use QOS1 in MQTT if you want to be sure that the message arrives. But you are right, the system has to be stable..

[@thesimbon]

You may also consider a direct communication from the weather station to the esp32: by adding an RF433 receiver to the esp32 you could get directly the data from weather station without the need of node-red and mqtt (just in case anything happens) but keep them for home automation

[@AndreasSpiess]

This is stuff for more work. This protocol is a little more complex. But I will try it.

[@thesimbon]

Andreas Spiess I didn't say it is easy :-) but I think it would be worth having 2 systems doing the same thing for increasing reliability (you want to prevent any damage from the wind in any situation)

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are absolutely right!

[@elcomentador2408]

Because we are makers we will change that. Andreas Spiess 2018 I like your videos very much, I've been following you since I saw your video about the low power consumption of esp8266.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you for your continued support! This is already a long time.

[@TheUnofficialMaker]

well done, I will try this on some door sensors I bought. Now I have to buy an awning...kidding.

[@AndreasSpiess]

I made a second video about 433MHz. Maybe you watch this one, too. It shows a simpler solution which probably works for you, too.

[@Tvde1]

I recently started a project that needs this. Than you so much for the help!

[@AndreasSpiess]

Glad to read that!

[@PhG1961]

Awesome great video ! I might consider building this in as a portable device, then start to roam and have fun with peoples awnings....

[@AndreasSpiess]

Don’t even think about that! It is for sure somehow forbidden ;-)

[@PhG1961]

Ah well, these days almost everything is forbidden... but ok, I'll be nice and keep it simple with only a weather station as an example to test things out. But first of all I want to finish my workshop in the back yard.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Still not finished? Must be a "monument" ;-)

[@PhG1961]

I just finished the foundation of the 'extended wing'. Next is the roof, followed with cladding. I expect to be over the major works after the summer holiday. If necessary I consider giving up my motorcycle holiday... ist't that horrible ? Btw, it is rather a monument. In case of a nuclear holocaust, you have your basement and I'll have my shed in the back yard. It's not quite the same, but it's getting close... ;-)

[@TheFleetz]

Brilliant Andreas! 👍👍

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you!

[@TheFleetz]

@@AndreasSpiess no thank you! 😀👍

[@zerog2000]

Thanks for tip about UHR... Wish I had that when working on arduino and rtl_433 for acurite wx station!

[@AndreasSpiess]

Maybe for the next project ;-)

[@HunTomiBp]

Thanks for video! Tamás, from Stockholm

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are welcome!

[@bgable7707]

OMG, Awesome!!! That's another home run! Or GOOOOAAAL as one might say in "Football" over there. ;)

[@AndreasSpiess]

I assume you liked the video ;-)

[@zane62135]

Wow, awesome tutorial! Didn't know this was possible!

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you!

[@cbm80amiga]

Andreas, there is good library for Arduino RCSwitch, which I used a few years ago to control all my RC sockets with one single Arduino. With one example program you can easily grab codes from existing remotes and then you can use them in your application. I think it should work also with your 433 devices.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Do they also work for the ESP?

[@cbm80amiga]

I don't know, it was before ESP chips. Maybe somebody already ported it or other one exists.

[@AndreasSpiess]

I got another link to an ESPilight library which seems to work. I will give it a try...

[@willwho2512]

RCSwitch library works with ESP8266. It might not be able to decode weather station protocol, but works for those cheap fix code remotes.

[@jaimemotavaz3999]

Yes it works! I use it in my home! You can also use this gateway: github.com/1technophile/OpenMQTTGateway

[@codemannix]

I subbed when you said "A SPECIAL THANK"

[@AndreasSpiess]

Welcome aboard the channel!

[@weatherchaser1166]

I'm off to a good start when you use the same weather station I have

[@AndreasSpiess]

Then it should be an easy project, I think...

[@wm6h]

If you are in the USA, 433 MHz is in an amateur radio band. So use the 800 MHz version. Or maybe the power is so low they are legal on 70 cm. I don’t know. You should check first I think.

[@AndreasSpiess]

It is the same here. But parts of it are also ISM. So it is legal for everybody, not only for us :-)

[@maxximumb]

Very impressive video. Thanks for sharing.

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are welcome!

[@electronic7979]

Excellent project

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you!

[@blazlenko]

Hello Andreas! Since you've had this weather station for a while now I'm wondering how happy are you with it? Is it still working and is it somewhat accurate? Very much thinking of buying one! Regards

[@AndreasSpiess]

Mine stopped delivering values few weeks ago. So far I did not make the analysis of the root cause.

[@jenskaa4044]

Nice video as always. But I think its a bit overkill to use a RPI when you have the ESP32. Why not use ESP32 for both transmitting and receiving? 433 receivers are also very cheap. But I think that you should keep the MQTT for both ends. In that way you can controle your Sun Blinds through ex. Node-red, also for other devices (Lux sensors, buttons etc.).

[@AndreasSpiess]

If you provide me the code for decoding the Weather Station Signal I go for it. In the meantime I do not consider it as an overkill. I use a Zero plus a dongle. Not so expensive. And to decode the code of the station is probably a little more complicated than the remote control with 4 buttons.

[@oleost]

Would be great to see an ESP device receive the weather station signal. Big price difference between ESP and a Pi.

[@jenskaa4044]

I have no expirience with SDR and rtl_433, but since this is opensource software and it can decode the signal, I would look into the source code, ex: github.com/merbanan/rtl_433/blob/master/src/devices/fineoffset_wh1080.c Perhaps this code would give some input on how to decode the signal.

[@rantalbott6963]

I'm currently researching an ESP8266 to allow computer/Alexa control of IR devices. The libraries I've been looking at say the ESP8266 has problems with IR remote decoding (but not encoding). I think it's due to the multitasking of running the radio screwing up the capture timing. I'd expect similar problems trying to capture the demodulated RF pulses. ESP32 _might_ work better, because I think it has a separate CPU core run the radio. But the Pi Zero+SDR makes a nicer environment for exploring: it's easy to retune the radio to hunt for the right frequency, and you have more tools available for formatting/storing the results.

[@AndreasSpiess]

+oleost: I use a Pi Zero

[@opless]

Awesome work... more tools to add to my collection!

[@AndreasSpiess]

:-)

[@erichuang2009]

very smart project. glad to learn from the video.

[@AndreasSpiess]

:-)

[@rommiei]

Hi Andreas, this is very helpful. Planning to buy this cheap weather station in Aliexpress and they are still selling it.. Just a quick question.. Is you setup still up and running after more than 3 yrs now? Just little concern on quality.. Want this to integrate to my Home Assistant

[@AndreasSpiess]

It stopped working a few days ago. So far I do not know why. It is on my bench...

[@Gualcm]

Hey Andreas! Great video as always. I have a question. Why was there a need to send the messages via MQTT? Could we have built a 433 MHz receiver/transmitter that would read messages from the weather station and then that same device would send the messages to retract the outdoor awning via 433 MHz?

[@AndreasSpiess]

The weather station is off the shelf and it’s data is logged in a database. You could of course replace the electronics of the station to transmit a message directly to the awning.

[@Hugatry]

Very well made video. Thanks for showing the rtl_433 software. It will no doubt be useful in future... Why add another wireless temperature sensor, if I can tap into the data sent by commercial units. Thanks!

[@AndreasSpiess]

Fortunately, I did not discover a wind sensor in the neighborhood. Otherwise I would have made a bad purchase ;-)

[@Hugatry]

And unfortunately I did not discover a wind sensor in my neighborhood. Oh well, temperature logging is what I'm after and there are couple of temperature sensors. Cheers!

[@rantalbott6963]

For me, the advantage is that you *can* add another sensor: our weather station with the internet interface only supports two, and I want to monitor the temperature in the unheated/uncooled workshop, as well as the office and outdoors. This will let me add a couple of sensors to watch the workshop floor and attic. And add sensors at my house without having to spend a bunch of money on an internet-connected weather station. Thanks, Andreas!

[@thegrubyak]

great project, thanks for sharing. is your esp32 battery operated?

[@AndreasSpiess]

No. It sits inside the house.

[@GpanosXP]

Nice video! Does the weather station use ASK as well ? I wonder if it would be worthwhile making a simple receiver for that using another esp32, so you don't have to dedicate the rasp pi just for that job.

[@AndreasSpiess]

I did not look inside this protocol. But it is for sure much more complicated than the device with 4 buttons.

[@chuxxsss]

Lucky about that node-red setup. Lol. I am glad you help me a long time ago with it. Very good show mate. May have to place this one in my video library as I have lots of ideas. Just place this in my node-red folder on my channel for later.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Fits nicely in my node-red setup...

[@ggarza78]

Hello Andreas, I am a big fan of you here in Mexico. I made the same hack with the RTL-SDR Dongle and the weather station you are using, and I am uploading the information to Weather Underground, but I have a doubt on the "rain", the information says it is a counter with increments of 0.3mm, do you have more information about it, the displays shows it as a totalization for 1h. Thank you!

[@AndreasSpiess]

The counter just counts up with each bit of rain and you have to do the calculations (per hour/per day, etc)

[@ggarza78]

Andreas Spiess Thank you very much! and congratulations for your KZbin Channel!

[@publicmail2]

Drive a uhf 440mhz 200 watt amp and close as many awnings as you can on windy days and then open them when wind calms.

[@AndreasSpiess]

And maybe it would be legal. I do not remember the power limit on 70cm

[@charlesdorval394]

Wow, nice! I'll put that on my (never ending) todo list hehe

[@AndreasSpiess]

I hope you are not as old as I am. Then you have time for the list ;-)

[@plopprocks]

Awesome! Pity my shutters use indeed a rolling code and I have no idea how to tackle that.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Next time spend less ;-) The cheaper seems to be less sophisticated.

[@asiw]

Couple of small issues. Links are to ESP8266 not ESP32 and Pi image is to a 404 message.

[@AndreasSpiess]

The link to the Pi image should work by now. What other link does not work?

[@MrCravenhaven]

Same here, www.sensorsiot.org/transferfiles/Hacking_Raspbi3.zip 404 page not found

[@AndreasSpiess]

This link was wrong. I changed it in the comment.

[@pedotec]

I loved to see my Aercus (AKA Fine Offset WH24)finally spit out the measurements. I had tried with RFLink (your video) but it was not recognised . Excellent work. My troubles began with trying to pipe the results to Mosquito (rtf_433 -F json -U etc), got Error:Connection refused. Is node-red in the SD image? I can't figure out.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Maybe you use the image of the "Ultimate Pi Server". There you find Node-Red and RTL_433

[@science4allworld587]

Great as usual

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you!

[@paullacatus8975]

Great tutorial , Andreas!

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you!

[@paullacatus8975]

Andreas Spiess , was so good that I am looking now to buy a SDR dongle !

[@dan-nutu]

This just gave me an idea to solve something that annoyed me for a long time: the Samsung Horizon DVR box that Virgin Media (Liberty Global) provides comes with a remote control that uses both infrared and radio. Which means my (Swiss-made) Logitech Harmony universal remote control is not so "universal" when it comes to this particular type of DVR. Most of the buttons on the top of the Samsung remote work fine via the Harmony remote but a few (the DVR buttons) and the keyboard underneath don't work. I wonder if this Samsung remote control unit uses the same 433 MHz band and if the codes could be decoded and sent by an ESP32 with a cheap 433 MHz transmitter. If this is possible then I could take your "Babel Fish" Infrared Remote Protocol Translator idea (video #254, same Samsung remote control) and extend it even further! Thanks for the idea, I'm able to "stand on the shoulders of some very skilled colleagues who shared their know-how"! ;-)

[@AndreasSpiess]

Good luck with your project!

[@TonyLehto]

How did you find the exact 433Mhz weather station frequency? If the transmitter sends data infrequently, using urh is a pain..

[@AndreasSpiess]

Most of the devices use the same frequency. I do not remember which one. But using SDR you find it easily because you can simultaneously watch a broad frequency band

[@dagg497]

Could this work with Nexa system? Dince they are the largest power outlet/IR sensor/Button maker. I think Nexa uses pairing or rolling codes on different bands...

[@AndreasSpiess]

I do not know.

[@RaspberryStraw]

Great video. Very useful.

[@AndreasSpiess]

:-)

[@marinehm]

Andreas; I just came across this video. I want to know if you can do the same with video transmitters. Specifically back up cameras for your vehicle that come with a dash mount display? I’d like to find a way to discover the frequency of the camera transmitter. Like those little remotes that run of 433 mghz. Is there a standard for this cameras?

[@AndreasSpiess]

I have no knowledge in this area :-(

[@klassichd10]

Thanks for this great method. It will be helpful if a device is not supported by the RFLink SW running on a MEGA2560.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Is the RFlink only running on the Mega? This seems to be quite limiting. I would like it on a ESP32

[@klassichd10]

Unfortunately up to now it seems to be limited to the MEGA - as far as I know. But for me it is more or less an intelligent frontend for ioBroker which maintans the datahandling etc. There also exists a Sonoff RF Bridge between 433MHz and Wifi. It costs around 10 EUR and is supported by Tasmota SW system. But up to now I am just using RFLink and ioBroker.

[@avejst]

Nice project, Thanks for sharing :-)

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are welcome!

[@michaelgraff6978]

Good video. I have many now unused 433 MHz alarm sensors around the place I could perhaps repurpose. Unrelated, what is the brand and model of 3D printer you use? I understand you like it very much and am considering purchasing a printer for myself. I suddenly find the need to print many small one-off parts.

[@AndreasSpiess]

I have a Prusa Mk3. Not cheap but worth the money if you want to print and not to enhance your printer.

[@et752]

Just finding this video... seems a very interesting topic. Your dongle link is dead by now though. Can you suggest a new one? Would an ATSC dongle work too? (I am in Canada). Tks for your great videos!

[@AndreasSpiess]

The second link still worked. I updated the first one. So both should work now.

[@JerryDoe]

you could just use an esp8266 (cheap soc) or the more expensive brother the esp32 with a superhetrodyne 433 receiver/transmitter module use the rfswitch.h library (easiest to decode most common 433 sensor codes) for decoding weather station data there are other libraries around that support various models and brands. with around $12 in parts ive build a main receiver to relay all sensor data to "Telegram", i can also send codes to enable/disable my alarm and open my garage door. since Telegram uses its own "mqtt" protocol and encryption i dont have to worry about security issues and server reliability

[@AndreasSpiess]

Does the rfswitch library support the ESP8266 for receiving? And does it support weather stations? I only found a library which works on Arduino Mega for that purpose. BTW: My config (Rpi zero plus dongle) is also not too expensive.

[@JerryDoe]

yes it does, check the library code RCSwitch.cpp from github.com/sui77/rc-switch/ (it has support build in for esp8266) you need to define ESP8266 in your arduino code then it compiles and works properly for receiving and sending. for the weather station there are some good existing libraries, for arduino/esp8266. the RC-Switch library doesnt support directly weather stations but you can either include a 2nd library into the same project and code since both libraries can work together since they are not interfering with eachother. or you can modify / add some extra code to the RC-Switch library to support your weather station next the regular sensor/remote codes. if people dont have an SDR tool to reverse engineer a particular sensor or weather station, you can make your own 433mhz sniffer with very few parts: rayshobby.net/wordpress/interface-with-remote-power-sockets-final-version/ rayshobby.net/wordpress/reverse-engineer-wireless-temperature-humidity-rain-sensors-part-1/ Rpi is also great if you like comfort to work with a wide array of programming languages and multithreading, i like to work with the esp8266 or esp32 for the reason it is cheap, robuust and for the things i need it to it has more then enough power to process the information.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thanks for your info. I also use the ESP's a lot. But for RF hacking I prefer the RPi and SDR because at the start you usually do not know a lot about your device. At the end of the hacking, you know it and you can build it into an ESP. Which I did for the transmitter (I could have used HackRF) and will probably do for the receiver as well since I know now the modulation and the protocol...

[@donnyf12]

Thank you for posting this. I got it working great thanks to the image you provided. Can you tell me what a good antenna is for 433 MHZ and the RTLSDR? I'd like to snoop on other weather stations around me before I buy one but the little aerial I got with the dongle only picks up one temp/humidity sensor. What are you using?

[@AndreasSpiess]

I use a simple 433 MHz "coil" antenna of AliExpress which come with some modules. But I do not have to bridge big distances.

[@duelago]

www.conrad.de/de/p/aurel-gp-433-ground-plane-antenne-antenne-190073.html

[@tomrous]

Your videos are great! I started playing around with RTL-SDR and hunting weather balloons! And I want to ask if you know how to make this with TTGO 433 MHz board (same as used for balloons). And what about recording and playing the signal again just with this board. Thank you for your service to community!

[@AndreasSpiess]

I once copied a garage door opener on 40MHz. A similar thing could probably be done with a TTGO. But I assume you are on your own to create the code. And also make sure your device does not use an encrypted (rolling) code. Watch also my other 433MHz videos. I built another 433MHz receiver

[@tamkepa]

Great stuff thank you. I am definitely going to try this for my rolla blinds. Do you thing it would work with my car alarm to lock my car at a set time?

[@AndreasSpiess]

Car remotes (fortunately) use encrypted communication. So they cannot be hacked without high effort.

[@werner.m7200]

is there anyway to get more details i'm now getting Battery : 1 Temperature: 36.0 C Humidity : 37 Wind Gust : 0.0 m/s Wind Speed: 0.2 m/s Direction : 45.0 ° Rain : 19.6 mm Integrity : CHECKSUM The most important one is rain , seems to be a total, i would like the present value so i can program my sunscreen to go up when it starting to rain...

[@AndreasSpiess]

I create a difference from the total for the hour and the day. If you want to trigger on rain, you have to check if the value changed.

[@iKingRPG]

Exporting to Excel would be a cool feature.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Maybe you watch my new video where I use influsDB. It has a possibility to export CSV files

[@willy.verbiest]

Very interesting video. The link from Aliexpress to the SDR dongle refers to another model is this dongle also compatible?

[@AndreasSpiess]

They are all compatible. The one in the link should contain a slightly better chip.

[@Kugelblitz1050]

Superb work, Andreas! But I run in 1 major and 2 minor problems: The minor: 1) Which is the SSH password used in the image? 2) I have to do some adaptions to your script, because I have 3 different time slots for signal and break The major: I use an Arduino Nano and FS1000A TX. The primary signal computing looks good, but TX has a slow falling level at end of signal, so the breaks are not recognised by the RX correctly (far away from 0 line or noise level). Have you a idea, this failure depends on poor 433 modul or poor output on Arduino? 73 de OE1FEA, Erwin

[@AndreasSpiess]

1. Usually, I leave pi and raspberry from the Raspian installation. 2. Remote diagnostics is hard. Maybe you can split your setup and test parts of it independently?

[@foilandwater]

Hi Andreas, thank you for the interesting videos. I found your channel recently and I feel like I cannot learn about SDR quickly enough! In the last 2 years I have been building some weather stations which use the Acurite 5-in-1 and a Raspberry Pi with SDR. Needless to say they have been exciting projects for me who is very new to all this stuff... one of the sites which has a weather station using 433mhz is giving me a lot of trouble over the last few months and I have tried troubleshooting everything. My latest theory is that there is another device nearby which transmits on the same 433mhz frequency and blocks the packets on the weather station from reaching the Pi. Now I'm trying to use the Pi + SDR dongle along with gnuradio companion to try and prove my theory and to solve this intermittent problem! I would be so grateful if you had any suggestion to offer me on my quest, thank you!

[@AndreasSpiess]

I do not think your theory is right. These packets are very short and I have a ton of other sensors without issues on my receiver. From time-to-time they might interfere, but not too often. Maybe you watch my other videos about the topic. There you find a much simpler way to receive 433MHz signals...

[@foilandwater]

@@AndreasSpiess Thank you for the reply. I do not think it's another sensor that is hogging the same frequency but instead another type of transmitting device that is not build well, or legally. I cannot think of any other reason why the packets will be received from weather sensor to pi every 3 seconds for weeks at a time, and then suddenly stop for extended periods of time.

[@UnimatrixYoutube]

Very useful video, thanks. I have a Pi3B but it runs Pihole and I preferably want to run a project similiar like yours side by side with Pihole and I don't want to delete the Pihole/OS config with another image so I guess I'll have to go with HB9FXQ's manual. Any tips before I take this route?

[@AndreasSpiess]

Yes

[@mitsosliak]

@Andreas Spiess , could you please provide some info about applying settings to native rtl_433 through iotstack? I am currently using rtl_433 installed on rapbian and it's working fine , receiving readings from my 2 weather stations and passing data to homeassistant through mqtt. I can't find any way to apply the same procedure to rtl_433 looking into container . I don't know how to edit or where should i apply the settings. Thanks.

[@AndreasSpiess]

You find the info on how to setup MQTT in the wiki: sensorsiot.github.io/IOTstack/Containers/RTL_433-docker/ How to filter particular sensors I do not know how to do it in the container. You have to ask in the discord channel. I use rflink www.rflink.nl/blog2/ for my productive environment kzbin.info/www/bejne/pYrJk3ivr7lgfdU

[@joncurtis9102]

Thank you for this very information video ! I have a Bresser 5-in-1 operating over 868 MHz and I am trying to connect to it using an LPRS eRA Connect2Pi Transceiver Dongle. So far no success with the suggestions provided. Is there anything that I am missing ? Thanks again

[@AndreasSpiess]

I have no idea. I do not know this device. :-(