Ecowitt weather station in Home Assistant: local rain, wind and soil sensors

Your forecast says “light rain.” Your watering schedule says “go.” An Ecowitt station gives Home Assistant the missing vote: what is happening outside right now. Add a soil probe and you can see whether the bed needs water, too.

This research-based guide uses Ecowitt manuals and Home Assistant documentation.

The short answer: buy the kit, then add soil sensors

Choose the Ecowitt GW2001 Wittboy kit to start from scratch. It bundles the GW2000 gateway with the WS90 outdoor array. You get rain, wind, outdoor temperature, humidity, light and UV readings, with Ethernet or Wi-Fi between the gateway and your network.

Best all-in-one array: WS90, already included in that kit. Its ultrasonic wind sensor has no spinning cups, and its piezoelectric rain sensor has no tipping bucket. Buy the kit once—you don’t need another WS90 alongside it.

Best soil add-on: WH51B. Put a probe where you actually water and send its moisture reading through the same gateway. It measures soil moisture, not soil temperature, and needs the gateway to reach Home Assistant.

These US picks use 915 MHz. Match that frequency when adding sensors; Ecowitt also sells other regional versions.

Start from the Home Assistant hub if you’re building the rest of your setup alongside the weather station.

What each piece does

Piece	Reports or connects	Power	Choose it for
GW2000 gateway, included in GW2001	Receives sensor radio data; Ethernet or Wi-Fi upload; indoor temperature, humidity and pressure	USB power	A complete outdoor setup with a wired-network option
GW1100 gateway	Receives sensor radio data; Wi-Fi upload; indoor temperature, humidity and pressure	USB power	An existing compatible sensor collection with Wi-Fi nearby
WS90 array, included in GW2001	Outdoor temperature/humidity, wind speed/direction, rain, light and UV	Solar with two AA backup batteries; separate supply for heater	A compact all-in-one outdoor array
WS69 array	Outdoor temperature/humidity, wind speed/direction, tipping-bucket rain, light and UV	Solar with two AA batteries	A traditional wind-cup and rain-bucket arrangement
WH51/WH51B probe	Soil moisture	One AA battery	A bed, planter or watering zone

A gateway alone won’t tell you whether it’s raining. Its built-in temperature reading is indoors; the outdoor array supplies the outdoor weather. The sensors use Ecowitt radio, so your Zigbee coordinator stays out of this job.

Already own a cheap 433 MHz thermometer or rain gauge from another brand? The rtl_433 SDR guide can pull compatible sensors into HA with a USB radio instead.

GW2000 or GW1100?

Choose GW2000 when you want Ethernet. You can wire the gateway into the network and still place the outdoor array separately. It also supports Wi-Fi; Ethernet doesn’t make it a PoE-powered device.

GW1100 is the Wi-Fi-only route. If you already own one with compatible sensors, configure its custom upload before replacing hardware. The GW1100 manual covers that gateway; the kit recommendation here uses GW2000.

WS90 or WS69?

WS90 makes a tidy package: ultrasonic wind sensing and a piezoelectric surface for rain. WS69 uses the familiar moving wind cups and tipping bucket. Pick the arrangement you want to mount and maintain, rather than treating the newer design as an automatic accuracy upgrade.

For rainfall-focused watering decisions, read Ecowitt’s useful detail: drop size and wind can affect WS90 rain readings. Its manual recommends adding a WH40 rain gauge when individual-event rainfall accuracy matters. That’s a sensible upgrade path if rain totals become central to your watering plan.

Mount it for weather, not roof runoff

Power the gateway indoors, connect it to Ethernet or Wi-Fi, then follow its sensor-pairing instructions. Check live readings before you climb a ladder or tighten the final mounting bolts.

For the outdoor array, follow the maker’s mounting, alignment and levelling directions. Give rain a clear path to the sensor, keep it clear of roof runoff and sprinklers, and avoid a spot where a wall or nearby obstruction dominates the wind reading. Secure the mount so it stays steady.

WS90 uses solar power with two AA backup batteries. Its heater needs a separate external 12 V / 1 A supply; solar power alone doesn’t run that heater. Follow the current manual’s battery guidance, including its recommendation for lithium batteries in cold conditions and its warning against alkaline batteries during heated operation.

The WS90 manual and WS69 manual are the right references for the exact array you buy. Keep the gateway’s indoor probe away from equipment heat if you want a useful indoor reading.

Send Ecowitt data straight to Home Assistant

The core Ecowitt integration is Local Push: your gateway uploads readings to Home Assistant’s callback endpoint. The gateway’s embedded web interface lets you configure the connection without creating an Ecowitt account. The Ecowitt mobile-app route requires one.

1. Connect the gateway to your local network and confirm that its sensor readings are updating.
2. In Home Assistant, open Settings → Devices & services → Add integration, then select Ecowitt.
3. Keep the integration’s setup values handy: Server IP / Host Name, Path and Port.
4. Open your gateway’s web interface. Select Weather Services, then find Customized.
5. Select Enable and set Protocol Type Same As to Ecowitt.
6. Copy the values supplied by Home Assistant into the matching fields and Save.
7. Return to Home Assistant and check the new device’s entities. Rain, wind and soil readings appear according to the sensors connected to your gateway.

Ecowitt uploads use HTTP, not HTTPS. If Home Assistant accepts only HTTPS, use the integration’s documented TLS/SSL arrangement to provide a reachable local HTTP endpoint. Keep the weather upload on your local network.

Prefer the Ecowitt app? Its documented path is Devices → your station → … → Others → DIY Upload Servers → Customized. Select the Ecowitt protocol and enter the same values. In that app, remove the path’s first slash: the app adds it itself. Then save.

Recipe 1: rain gets a vote on watering

The useful question is “should this watering run start?” Put the weather check in your existing watering automation, at its scheduled start. That covers rain already in progress as well as rain that began a moment ago.

1. Keep the watering automation’s Time trigger.
2. Under And if → Add condition → Numeric state, select the station’s Rain rate entity. Set Below to a small dry-weather threshold in that entity’s displayed units.
3. Add another Numeric state condition for Daily rainfall, with the amount that should cancel a watering run for your planting and soil.
4. Keep the existing watering action. For the first trial, replace it with a phone notification saying “Watering would start,” then Save.

For example, you might try rain rate below 0.1 mm/h and daily rain below 3 mm. Those are starting preferences to tune, not a crop prescription. Use matching units and let missing or unavailable readings pause watering; don’t turn missing rain data into zero.

Daily rainfall means the current calendar day, not the previous 24 hours. If you need a rolling rain window, build that separately before using it to control watering.

A WH51 adds another useful condition: water only when that bed’s moisture is below your own chosen level. Compare readings before and after watering first. Different soils need different calibration and thresholds.

Recipe 2: the “bring those plants in” nudge

Give yourself a heads-up before a cold night gets interesting. In a new automation, choose When → Add trigger → Time pattern and enter /15 in Minutes. That checks every 15 minutes.

Under And if, add a Numeric state condition for the array’s outdoor temperature. Below 3°C is an example early-warning setting; choose the temperature that suits your plants or exposed plumbing, using the entity’s units.

Under Then do, select your Companion app phone-notification action and write something useful: “It’s getting cold outside—protect the tender plants and check exposed pipes.” Save. This repeats while the condition holds, so choose a checking interval you’re happy to hear from.

Periodic checks read the current temperature even if it was already cold when you enabled the automation. For individual indoor cold spots, use the room-by-room temperature sensor guide alongside your outdoor station.

Recipe 3: wind warning for the awning

Use the awning maker’s wind limit and the Wind gust entity, in matching units. Keep the awning’s own wind protection enabled; Home Assistant can add a phone heads-up.

Create a Time pattern trigger with Minutes: /1. Add a Numeric state condition for Wind gust Above your chosen alert threshold, then a phone notification: “Wind gusts are up—retract the awning.” Save.

This checks once a minute and repeats while gusts stay high. It also catches an already-high reading after you enable the automation. Put the threshold somewhere you can act before reaching the awning’s limit, following its instructions.

Make the dashboard—and test the useful bits

Start with current temperature, wind gust, rain rate, daily rain and each soil probe. Give probes names that identify what they monitor, so the watering condition selects the right one.

The WH51 manual explains its wet/dry calibration. Watch a probe through a watering-and-drying cycle before setting alerts. For indoor CO₂, particles and radon, use the separate air-quality guide; this weather kit doesn’t measure all of those pollutants.

Test notification delivery with Run actions. That bypasses the automation’s conditions, so test the full recipe separately: temporarily use a short Time pattern and a safe condition that is currently true, Save, then inspect the resulting trace. Restore your intended settings and Save again. The Time pattern, Numeric state condition and Companion notification docs explain those pieces.

Start with GW2001 for outdoor weather, then add WH51 probes where watering decisions need them. Get the readings flowing first; make rain, cold and wind useful one automation at a time.