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Iggyort

Plug-in Turbine Turns Your Smart Phone into a Wind Meter

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I have one of these, just bought it a few days ago at Dasco supply in Whippany. It's marketed as a CFM meter for balancing forced air systems ductwork. It works awesome and was only $40. Never thought of using it for shooting.

 

This is the one I have.

http://www.airflowbalancing.com/index.html

 

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I have one of these, just bought it a few days ago at Dasco supply in Whippany. It's marketed as a CFM meter for balancing forced air systems ductwork. It works awesome and was only $40. Never thought of using it for shooting. This is the one I have. http://www.airflowbalancing.com/index.html

Just curious if this app is a battery burner?  

 

Luckily, I have an older, spare smart phone that I can use as a dedicated wind reader and ballistic calc....

 

 

Eric

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Just curious if this app is a battery burner?

 

Luckily, I have an older, spare smart phone that I can use as a dedicated wind reader and ballistic calc....

 

 

Eric

I haven't used it for more than a few minutes so far. Hard for me to say. Check Google play reviews.

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My app doesn't have MPH so it's pretty useless for anything other than a CFM meter. I wonder if the app for the one listed by the OP would work with my device it looks identical. I was reading the reviews on Google play for my device, many guys were saying they wished it had MPH wind speeds in it. The owner of the company commented back and said, "other companies beat us to that feature already" I'm going to see if my meter works with the other application now.

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Honestly, Deerslayer, you probably just need to download the proper app, to get readings in MPH.  As far as the hardware, a turbine is a turbine....

 

Try deleting your current CFM app.  Then, downlaod and run " WeatherFlow Wind Meter".

 

 

Eric

 

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Just curious if this app is a battery burner?  

 

Luckily, I have an older, spare smart phone that I can use as a dedicated wind reader and ballistic calc....

 

 

Eric

Ok, I got my WeatherFlow wind meter, this weekend and have a short term review:

 

I bought mine form Amazon for the princely sum of $34.95 + free shipping.  It comes in a nice protective case/holder.  Basically, it's a small wind vane that plugs into your phone's headphone jack.

You need to download the app from the Android Play Store(or Apple store).  I used an older Motorola Droid Bionic spare smart phone I had laying around.  being that the phoen was new enough, the app and vane worked perfectly.  I just turned on the wifi(on the phone) and downloaded the app fro the Play store.  Once donwloaded, you just open the app, plug the vane into the headphone jack, make a couple of selections on the set up screen and press "Start". (pic #1)

 

post-8150-0-17241000-1425316224_thumb.png

Once you run it, it gives you 3 data outputs; avg wind speed, gusts and directional heading. (pic #2)  This info is self explanatory.

 

post-8150-0-53384600-1425316249_thumb.png

As far as battery life, the app seems to be a moderate consumer of your phone's battery life.  On my spare phone, I left the app running for 12 hours. With a fully charge phone, I still had around 75% battery left.  Not bad.  Granted, this wasn't constant use. I ran it constantly for a half hour, then turned it on and used it once every 10 minutes.  With heavier use, I feel this should still get thru a whole day on a single charge.  Also, I had all the radios of the phone shut off (wifi, cellular, etc).

 

For accuracy, I compared it to my Kestrel 4500.  For wind speed, I would get comparable readings within .1 or .2 MPH.  That's close enough for government work!  It seems very accurate.

 

Waht the WeatherFlow doesn't do, compared to the Kestrel, is give me temp, barometric pressure, dewpoint, windchill, altitude and is NOT waterproof.  Obviously, you get what you're paying for, in terms of extra features.  You need to decide which features really mean anything to you. As far as being waterproof, I jsut throw my cell phone in a small ziplok bag, so I'm ok with the moisture issue.

 

To summarize, if you want a small, accurate quick and dirty wind meter that gives you windspeed, avg windspeed, gusts and directional heading, this is for you.  I can open an app and plug it into my phone and be up and running in a minute.  Also, Im happy that my old smart phone has a new job too.  IF you decide to go with this, just make sure that you have a smart phone operating system that is compatible.  WeatherFlow has a partial list of what phones/op systems work.  More importantly, they have a short list of phones that WILL NOT work.  Either way, it's only $35.  I'm pretty happy with it.  My Kestrel just left my range bag and now lives in the back of the safe, lol.

 

 

Eric

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