Calypso Ultrasonic Wind

[GTom]

Missed that on the mobile website. As good as useless than.

[Recy]

Product Description

Specifications:

- Wind speed: 0 to 45 m/s (180 km/h, 112 mph)/
- Wind speed accuracy: Accuracy: 0.5 m/s (1.8 km/h, 1 mph)
- Wind direction accuracy: 5 degrees
- Units: m/s, km/h, mph, knots, Beaufort.
- Wireless Specifications: Wireless connection between module and station : Long range 100 m / 330 ft.
- App compatibility: iOS 7 or higher, Android 4.0 or higher, WP 8.0 or higher

Wind direction accuracy 5 degrees is not good enough for sailing.

[Sailmonkey]

Originally Posted by Sailmonkey

I’ve been eyeballing one of these. The size suits our small boat, and I have no other nema 2000 gear aboard, so the output is just right.

https://calypsoinstruments.com/shop/...c-anemometer-9

Has anyone got any real life use out of these? How is the build quality? How about direction accuracy (primary use would be to steer the autopilot close hauled)?

I know I’m necro-posting on my own old thread, but I’ve finally bought one of the anemometers. I grabbed the wireless portable version and nmea connect plus (high end).

It’s not on the boat yet, but so far I’m liking the anemometer. I’ve only gotten to look at the data on the app, but so far so good. It’ll be 2 weeks roughly before this thing is mounted at the masthead.

Now the bad.

My nmea connect plus arrived DOA. And contacting anyone for support is near impossible. The seller in California doesn’t answer the phone. I’ve gotten very little help from calypso in Spain other than to send me links to videos that didn’t address my problem.

As I’m a moving target right now I just bit the bullet and ordered a 2nd connect plus to hopefully get a working system sooner rather than later.

The seller has posted on this thread so we’ll se what transpires. And I’ll report back once it’s connected as a working system.

[Sailmonkey]

Well…….to follow up I’ve abandoned the calypso system. The first nmea connect plus I purchased was DOA coupled with no interest in supporting it from anyone. The second nmea connect plus I purchased had an effective range of roughly 2’ even though the published specs put the Bluetooth range at 50 meters in free space.

Again, no interest from calypso in supporting this gear.

If I was to do it again, I’d get the wired ultrasonic and a 0183 to N2k converter. But that’s assuming I’d want to do this again.

[alanfw]

Originally Posted by Sailmonkey

Well…….to follow up I’ve abandoned the calypso system. The first nmea connect plus I purchased was DOA coupled with no interest in supporting it from anyone. The second nmea connect plus I purchased had an effective range of roughly 2’ even though the published specs put the Bluetooth range at 50 meters in free space.

Again, no interest from calypso in supporting this gear.

If I was to do it again, I’d get the wired ultrasonic and a 0183 to N2k converter. But that’s assuming I’d want to do this again.

Another year and I bit down the track... Any developments?

I'm giving serious thought to the wireless version with the NMEA2000 Connect Plus (I have no idea what the nonworking sensor on the mast is, or what cabling is already in the mast, and I would rather not try to run another cable in the mast).

My biggest concern is whether the Bluetooth signal will be received if the Connect Plus is placed inside the cabin.

I've thought about mounting the sensor at the stern behind the Bimini/solar panels. I imagine there would be considerable accuracy issues when close hauled, but I'm not racing so I can put up with that.

[markxengineerin]

A recent Sam Holmes youtube video featured this sensor, and he reported meeting the "owner", that he was a good guy, etc. I did not read this whole thread, but surprising to hear the support is bad. I like the concept of alternative mast wind instruments-- but maybe this isn't a winner.

[Sailmonkey]

I’ve not touched the anemometer for a year, and no longer have the NCP receivers as one didn’t work and the other had an effective range of less than 1m. So I’ve got no idea if there are any bugs that have been ironed out of if anything has changed.

[SailorMcCruise]

Hello dear people of planet sail,
I have not been reading the forum for a while so I missed this thread.
I bought an Calypso Ultrasonic Portable back in 2021 as I liked the idea of a no cables, no moving parts device with an open ( Bluetooth LE ) data transfer.
I have been engaged helping with the development of an open source python driver for it that exposes the captured data to either NMEA0183 or signalK protocols.
This software can be found at:
https://github.com/maritime-labs/calypso-anemometer
Originally there was also a plugin for signalK but it seems that the development had been abandoned ( https://github.com/decipherindustrie...pso-ultrasonic )

My device started to have some issues with connectivity and performance early on and then stopped working completely.
Unfortunately the manufacturer, Calypso Instruments needed me to send the defective device via their distributor for warranty exchange which did cost some significant money back and forth ( half of what the unit costs actually ).
However that might be the issue with any small company.
To me it seems that there was some sealing issue with the solar panel which probably allowed some moisture in. But this is pure speculation, mind you.
It might just have been a lemon.

My experience with the support of the company in general is a bit en par with what people have been writing here already.
Emails had been unanswered for a long while or with only half thought out responses.
Sometimes referring to older invalid support documents or documents without any relevance to the problem. A bit of the usual "call-center" feeling.

As for the device itself: Originally they marketed the device to have also a gyro and temperature sensor ( the latter not being too important ) with the accompanying settings in their iOS and Android application ( compass calibration, heel, pitch, etc. )
Also reflected in their Bluetooth LE developer document.
Exposed data was: Wind Speed, Wind Direction, Battery level, Temp Level, Roll, Pitch, eCOMPASS
The company has changed this a while ago to: Wind Speed, Wind Direction, Battery level only, citing the "secondary sensors" are not part of the newer models anymore and have been removed from marketing material as well "... our units used to have secondary sensors a couple of generations ago, but the models nowadays do not have secondary sensors ..."

The manufacturer does provide a firmware update application but no real changelog info on the updates afaik. Also the firmware update software seems a bit "wonky" and half baked to me which leaves a bit of an uncertain feeling about such an important procedure.

As the exposed data via the Bluetooth LE protocol is easy to deal with the device seemed to be a good idea for the basis of an open source driver.

Our open source driver works as a standalone software that can easily be integrated if you already use an open computer system on your boat.
I use a raspberry pi running openplotter with signalK currently as a wireless data broadcaster.
The anemometer data is fed into the NMEA stream, using either a signalK connection when broadcasting the signalK protocol or sending NMEA directly via UDP.

So far I am quite content with the software and we are in advanced beta testing with only minor connectivity issues being ironed out ( as much as this is possible with only the Bluetooth LE connectivity exposed by the manufacturer and the rest of the functionality being a kind of black box )

In general it's hard to say what goes on with the manufacturer and log term support / development. Covid and other issues might play a part so I am not inclined to draw too many conclusions. Compared to experiences with other "open" manufacturers I would say that the developer support leaves something to be desired.

If any of you are interested in testing the driver in their systems, feel free to head over to the above mentioned github page and play with it. Your feedback might be helpful in finalizing the software.
Mind you, this is not supposed to be a plug and play for anyone not using something like openplotter or other systems already. In this case the "NMEA connector" sold by the manufacturer seems to be the better option.

In conclusion:
I do not need an anemometer, I usually judge the wind by my boats behaviour.
My use scenario therefore is more of a "nice to have" kind of thing
Long term experience and reliability with the device is still to be determined to judge if it will be usable to other sailors who depend on an anemometer reading.

There used to be another party open source anemometer albeit with moving parts called openwind but I am not sure if the company still exists. ( their website is not working anymore )

Fair winds!

[SailorMcCruise]

Quick edit / update the openwind webpage ( http://openwind.de ) is up.