Contact   Imprint   Advertising   Guidelines

check this out: a very cool new wind meter

Forum for kitesurfers
User avatar
chirojoseph
Frequent Poster
Posts: 387
Joined: Sat Jul 27, 2002 1:00 am
Local Beach: All of Quintana Roo Mexico
Style: wave kite, wave FOIL kite
Gear: zeeko, Shinn, Fone, SShot, Naish, AXIS surfboards
Brand Affiliation: None
Location: mexico
Has thanked: 5 times
Been thanked: 0

Re: check this out: a very cool new wind meter

Postby chirojoseph » Tue Mar 25, 2014 11:44 pm

Good to hear thanx Juan!!

User avatar
ryanroberts1983
Frequent Poster
Posts: 335
Joined: Fri Nov 20, 2009 1:42 am
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: check this out: a very cool new wind meter

Postby ryanroberts1983 » Thu Mar 27, 2014 7:05 pm

I am the creator and product manager for this product at WeatherFlow. Previous founder of CAMRIG (sold privately - no longer own).

In a very candid manor... The initial design of our product was geared toward the US market and US phones, some units leaked into the EU market and were not functional on those devices due to volume restrictions (power output on the headphone jack). The EU limits how loud your speakers go... We have since updated to a new circuit (literally changed one resister in the electrical engineering). The updated circuit is still battery free but fully compatible with the EU phones. If for some reason you live in EU and are having trouble we will replace your unit free of charge no questions asked (with the exception of some basic debugging to ensure there really is a problem). All units now ship with this circuit, from all 7 of our warehouses and from every point of distribution.

Lastly, we are working on a NIST certification for our quality control standard. Although we are incredibly strict out of the factory right now we are taking it to a totally different level by installing a wind tunnel in our factory http://www.nist.gov/calibrations/air_sp ... uments.cfm this is our highest priority at this time.

Our competitors have a really long way to come, especially on the scientific side. I wont bother mentioning names but a few mentioned in this thread averaged a steady 20% off and some contained major major aerodynamic design flaws. My goal isn't really to "push" this item on forums as much as I am interested in feedback, etc... our banner on forums is the offset / advertisement :)

Here is a list of devices we have tested end to end...

iOS Compatibility:
iOS 7.x, iOS 6.x, iOS 5.x
iPhone 5 / iPhone 5s
iPhone 4S / iPhone 4
iPhone 3GS
iPad (Gen 1 - 4)
iPod Touch (Gen 3 - 5)

Android Compatibility:
Android 2.3, 3.2, 4
Samsung Galaxy S2
Samsung Galaxy S3
Samsung Galaxy S4
HTC Evo 4G
HTC Evo 4G LTE
Motorola Xoom
Droid 4
Droid Razr, HD, M
Droid Maxx & Ultra XT1080

Just because you do not see your phone listed here does not mean our wind meter wont work.

Thanks for your help everyone

Eduardo
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 1214
Joined: Mon May 05, 2003 2:41 pm
Kiting since: 2003
Favorite Beaches: Anywhere with a left break
Style: waves and foiling (X big-air junkie)
Gear: Ocean Rodeo and Cabrinha kites. North and Slingshot boards. Lift foils.
Brand Affiliation: None
Location: World Traveler
Has thanked: 23 times
Been thanked: 31 times

Re: check this out: a very cool new wind meter

Postby Eduardo » Thu Mar 27, 2014 7:55 pm

bravo on the invention.

my favorite wind meter is a cotton baseball hat. Hold the brim into the wind. If the hat flops down, not enough wind. If the hat stays horizontal, 12 meters. If the hat flaps, 9 meters. If the hat flies out of your hands and gets blown away, 6 meters. But as with prior criticisms, I will admit this is a directional sensor. It also does not have social networking features integrated in the basic model.

I suggest every beginner/intermediate to have a wind meter though. They tend to be the most off in estimating and they are also the least likely to be able to compensate if they rig too big or too small.

Seasoned kiters can benefit too if you go to different spots. Looking at the water can easily fool you with a strong (unseen) current building up or cutting down chop. Also, low temperature tends to make me overestimate wind and that's the time I definitely don't want to have to come back in to put up a new kite.

User avatar
POACHER
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 1784
Joined: Tue Jul 08, 2008 5:48 pm
Kiting since: 2002
Gear: *
Location: MidWorst
Has thanked: 206 times
Been thanked: 206 times

Re: check this out: a very cool new wind meter

Postby POACHER » Thu Mar 27, 2014 9:44 pm

Thanks for your help Ryan!

I emailed Joe and he took care of it right away. That's respectable service.


If I may contribute:
you may want to look at the most popular "unlocked" GSM phones from Amazon or otherwise. The unlocked GSM phones are really taking off in the U.S. as people are catching on to the big carriers contract BS. I've bought several U.S. and international phones, threw my sim card in and they work flawlessly. Just about all of my friends have ditched their contract phones and bought unlocked.

My short list of very popular phones to test:

Samsung Note 2
HTC One (just released a new model M8)
Sony Xperia Z1 (and Compact)

Thanks!

User avatar
chirojoseph
Frequent Poster
Posts: 387
Joined: Sat Jul 27, 2002 1:00 am
Local Beach: All of Quintana Roo Mexico
Style: wave kite, wave FOIL kite
Gear: zeeko, Shinn, Fone, SShot, Naish, AXIS surfboards
Brand Affiliation: None
Location: mexico
Has thanked: 5 times
Been thanked: 0

Re: check this out: a very cool new wind meter

Postby chirojoseph » Fri Mar 28, 2014 12:34 am

excellent points in your commentary Eduardo and THANK YOU RYAN for taking the time to answer our questions in this forum!! I suspected that perhaps a difference in hardware of the phones could have been the cause but now it makes PERFECT sense what you are saying about limits to the audiofonos being different in other countries..like a governor on a car..and I appreciate very much that you cleared that up for us.

I will communicate directly with your customer service people via your webpage or call using skype to try to set up an interchange of meters. As I stated earlier, I like the idea VERY much and I hope that future iterations of the APP software can allow the user to generate simple graphs of readings made in the same spot over time (every year I swear Im going to log the days kited, and days when I just measure wind and DONT kite..to generate some sort of tables/history of REAL readings and not just Windguru predictions...and of course I never do) ...perhaps youre already implementing this I have to admit I havent played with the options of uploading the readings since I knew they were not the true wind speeds. (due to my wussy headphone jack output I guess..jeje)

keep up the innovative work and GOOD WINDS!

User avatar
ryanroberts1983
Frequent Poster
Posts: 335
Joined: Fri Nov 20, 2009 1:42 am
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: check this out: a very cool new wind meter

Postby ryanroberts1983 » Sun Apr 06, 2014 3:49 pm

chirojoseph wrote:excellent points in your commentary Eduardo and THANK YOU RYAN for taking the time to answer our questions in this forum!! I suspected that perhaps a difference in hardware of the phones could have been the cause but now it makes PERFECT sense what you are saying about limits to the audiofonos being different in other countries..like a governor on a car..and I appreciate very much that you cleared that up for us.

I will communicate directly with your customer service people via your webpage or call using skype to try to set up an interchange of meters. As I stated earlier, I like the idea VERY much and I hope that future iterations of the APP software can allow the user to generate simple graphs of readings made in the same spot over time (every year I swear Im going to log the days kited, and days when I just measure wind and DONT kite..to generate some sort of tables/history of REAL readings and not just Windguru predictions...and of course I never do) ...perhaps youre already implementing this I have to admit I havent played with the options of uploading the readings since I knew they were not the true wind speeds. (due to my wussy headphone jack output I guess..jeje)

keep up the innovative work and GOOD WINDS!
No problem, glad to help. Keep in mind this works with all of our apps as well, and most of them are specifically tailored to the individual sport / activity. For example iKitesurf is great for kiters - and we have a huge announcement coming this week! Download any of our mobile apps for Android or iOS and the wind meter will work there. You can also view recent posts from other users in those apps... here is a screenshot:



http://new.ikitesurf.com
http://windalert.com
http://sailflow.com
http://iwindsurf.com
http://fishweather.com


We have had everyone from fisherman to wind energy people using the wind meter and it was recently featured in USA Today's tech blog and will go out in all of their syndicated news papers.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/colu ... s/7080275/

For any of you in the Charleston, SC area both of my startups will be at Digg South event with a booth from the 9th to the 13th. Be sure to come see me!
Attachments
unnamed-1.jpg
unnamed.jpg

User avatar
ryanroberts1983
Frequent Poster
Posts: 335
Joined: Fri Nov 20, 2009 1:42 am
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: check this out: a very cool new wind meter

Postby ryanroberts1983 » Mon Apr 14, 2014 6:28 pm

Check this out, we were just featured on USA today, and a ton of syndicated partner sites...


USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/colu ... s/7080275/

User avatar
ryanroberts1983
Frequent Poster
Posts: 335
Joined: Fri Nov 20, 2009 1:42 am
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: check this out: a very cool new wind meter

Postby ryanroberts1983 » Tue Apr 22, 2014 3:21 am

How about use with no wind?


User avatar
brokenarrow
Medium Poster
Posts: 90
Joined: Sun Jul 05, 2009 6:27 am
Style: All
Gear: airush shinn slingshot dakine
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: check this out: a very cool new wind meter

Postby brokenarrow » Mon May 05, 2014 5:55 pm

Will this work with my LG dare?

User avatar
finnkc
Medium Poster
Posts: 60
Joined: Fri Mar 09, 2012 5:34 pm
Local Beach: Southern Ontario Great Lakes
Style: freeride
Gear: 2012 Blade Fat Lady 17m
2012 Liquidforce Envy 12m
2011 Naish Bolt 10.5m
2011 Crazyfly Allround 145x41
2011 Naish Haze 141x41
Brand Affiliation: None
Location: Southwestern Ontario.
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0
Contact:

Re: check this out: a very cool new wind meter

Postby finnkc » Mon May 05, 2014 9:37 pm

Nexus 4 and 5 didn't work.
LG Optimus One worked.


Return to “Kitesurfing”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: cmilea, headintheclouds, knotwindy, mrcrss, Puddle Pirate, purdyd, rStorms, VElars, Vivo3d, vladi elthve, voodoospirit, Windwarrior and 358 guests