Detecting rain

• Hydreon RG-9
  • Overview
  • Specifications
  • Pinout
  • ESPHome config
    • UART sensors
    • Using the OUT header
    • Template binary_sensors for rain detection
    • Using the MCLR pin
• Z-Wave tipping bucket: POPE700168
• Weather APIs
• References

Hydreon RG-9

This Hydreon RG-9¹ is a rain gauge that uses IR light sensors² to detect rain falling on its curved plastic lens, and can reliably detect rain very fast.

Faster at detecting current rain than a "tipping-bucket" style sensor, more local and accurate than weather APIs.

Overview

I am using the RG-9¹ model, which is specifically designed for "is it raining now?"³ use cases.

The Hydreon RG-9 Solid State Rain Sensor is a rainfall sensing device intended to detect and communicate when a pre-selected rain intensity has been reached or exceeded. The RG-9 is rugged, reliable, and maintenance-free.

The RG-9 uses beams of infrared light within a plastic lens about the size of a tennis ball. The round surface of the lens discourages collection of debris, and the RG-9 has no moving parts to stick, and no water-pathways to clog.¹

Hydreon also makes other models⁴ designed for other use cases⁵ (for example irrigation control and codensation sensing).

The rain gauge uses a serial protocol over UART⁶. There is also has an OUT header connected to open collector⁷ (NPN transistor) output.

The main output is NPN Transistor Collector, commonly known as an Open Collector.

When the output is activated (will differ on when this is done for the RG-9 and RG-15) the collector is pulled low and whatever load resistor is connected will also be pulled low.

The beauty of an open collector system is that it can be used for level translation. The internals of the RG-9 and RG-15 are 3.3VDC. You are not restricted to that range with the open collector. The only requirement is that the ground is common⁸.

When the rain gauage detects rain, it will both send a command over the UART bus and pull the OUT pin LOW.

Specifications

Pinout

The J1 headers have screw terminals and are mounted horzontally, and does not have headers for the UART serial interface.

The J2 headers are standard Dupont dual-row 8P connectors with 2,54mm pitch.

All of the headers in J1 are also available on J2.

ESPHome config

The rain guage uses UART for serial communication¹⁰, so first configure a UART bus:

uart:
  - id: ${uart_id}
    tx_pin:
      number: ${rg9_pin_tx}
    rx_pin:
      number: ${rg9_pin_rx}
    baud_rate: "9600"

Most ESP32 boards have 2+ hardware UART interfaces that can be used with any available GPIO pins. Avoid using any strapping pins, as they can be pulled HIGH/LOW on start.

The default baud rate used by the rain gauge for UART is 9600 bits/s, though it seems to support up to 57600bits/s⁹.

UART sensors

Then configure the hydreon_rgxx component for the sensor data that is read over serial:

sensor:
  - platform: hydreon_rgxx
    model: "RG_9"
    id: "rg9"
    update_interval: 20s
    disable_led: false
    moisture:
      id: rg9_rain_lvl
      name: "Rain level"
      state_class: measurement
    temperature:
      name: "Device temperature"

binary_sensor:
  - platform: hydreon_rgxx
    hydreon_rgxx_id: "rg9"
    too_cold:
      name: "Temperature status"
    lens_bad:
      name: "Lens status"
    em_sat:
      name: "Emitter saturation"

Using the OUT header

To read the OUT pin, set up binary_sensor using the gpio platform.

binary_sensor:
  - platform: gpio
    id: rg9_rain_gpio
    pin:
      number: "${rg9_pin_out}"
      inverted: true
      mode:
        input: true
    name: "Rain detected GPIO OUT"
    entity_category: ""
    device_class: "moisture"
    publish_initial_state: true

The rain gauge will pull OUT to LOW to signal rain.

Template binary_sensors for rain detection

Use the template platform to create a binary_sensor using the rain level readings over UART:

binary_sensor:
  - platform: template
    id: rg9_rain_uart
    name: "Rain detected UART"
    device_class: moisture
    entity_category: "diagnostic"
    lambda: |-
      if (id(rg9_rain_lvl).has_state()) {
        int rain_lvl = id(rg9_rain_lvl).state;
        return rain_lvl > 0;
      }
      else {
        return {};
      }

To have one single sensor for "Is it raining?", make another binary_sensor using the template plateform:

binary_sensor:
  - platform: template
    id: rg9_rain
    name: "Rain"
    device_class: moisture
    lambda: |-
      bool uart = id(rg9_rain_uart).state;
      bool gpio = id(rg9_rain_gpio).state;
      return uart || gpio;
    filters:
      #  Optionally set a delay for the binary_sensor to turn off
      - delayed_off: !lambda |-
          return id(rg9_rain_delay_off).state;

Using the MCLR pin

If you wired the MCLR pin, you can use that to restart the rain gauge:

switch:
  - platform: gpio
    id: rg9_mclr
    name: "${hostname} RG9 MCLR"
    entity_category: ""
    pin:
      number: ${rg9_pin_mclr}
    on_turn_on:
      - delay: 500ms
      - switch.turn_off: rg9_mclr

Since there is no button component for the gpio platform, you need to use an on_turn_on automation to pull the pin back to LOW after restarting the rain gauge.

Z-Wave tipping bucket: POPE700168

A tipping bucket-style Z-wave rain sensor.

Weather APIs

Using weather APIs.

References