Mastodon is 100% the early days of social media all over. Some of you will already be familiar with this story.

My weather station (a very nice Netatmo that has served very well) crapped out after nearly 10 years of excellent service. I asked for recommendations here for a new station that would play nicely with #HomeAssistant, and hopefully, also HomeKit. I received *many* recommendations, with Ecowitt (and the brands it manufactures for) taking the lead.

A connection on here offered me their *unopened* Ecowitt weather station for a very generous price. It arrived yesterday, and I set it up, and it's already doing a great job. Works offline, talks to Home Assistant without any problems. I just need to do a couple of bits of configuration jiggery-pokery and it will pass data to HomeKit.

This is very much how things were when I first joined Twitter in 2007. In spite of attempts at #enshittification of everything, the #fediverse is putting up a good fight.

May your day online be as satisfying as mine was yesterday.

LATER EDIT: I’ve been thinking, and I do realise this good experience isn’t necessarily what happens for everyone. It’s still the case that too many good people don’t find a welcoming place here, especially if they are queer or of color. If this is you, know that I see you, and that I will always try to be welcoming and listening, even if you have things to say that bring me discomfort.

@trib The Ecowitt detail is quietly perfect too. A device that works offline, talks locally to Home Assistant, doesn't require a cloud subscription that evaporates when the company pivots, it's the hardware equivalent of the same fediverse philosophy. Own your data. Own your tools. Reduce dependency on entities whose interests quietly diverge from yours.
@bayo there are so few companies that explicitly don’t need you to sign up to their service. I like that Ecowitt offer it as an option, but absolutely do not require it. That’s good corporate manners.