Davis Instrument news

[f4phlyer]

I'd guess this is the most relevant spot to post this. It started with steel, then trains, oil, banks, now "DATA" is KING! Especially weather data, IBM sucked up WeatherUnderground, Apple sucked up Dark Sky to name a few.

I just stumbled upon this and hadn't seen anything about this on the site, so.......
https://www.davisinstruments.com/blogs/ ... nstruments

July 31, 2019
Davis Instruments
Union Park Announces Acquisition Of Davis Instruments
Hayward, CA – July 31, 2019. Union Park Capital, a Boston based private equity firm focused on lower middle-market industrial technology investments, today announced the acquisition of Davis Instruments Corporation (“Davis”), based in Hayward, CA. For over 50 years, Davis has been recognized as a leader in developing and manufacturing precision weather, marine and environmental instrumentation. With customers across the global, Davis has become the trusted brand for meteorologists, educators, farmers, students, and discerning hobbyists. The business will join Union Park’s Advanced Environmental Monitoring platform (“AE Monitoring”), and will partner with the current businesses within the AE Monitoring family, including OneRain, High Sierra, Vieux & Associates, FTS, and Lambrecht Meteo. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

[PaulMy]

And since then Davis has expanded their weather monitoring lineup with the WLL, the AirLInk, and now Air-Dryr https://www.davisinstruments.com/products/air-dryr-1000

Enjoy,
Paul

[mcrossley]

A low power heater?! Aren't there ton's of these things available already?

[HansR]

Yeah.... but none so pricy

[f4phlyer]

So, I really need to sharpen up my game! I saw the “story” on the Davis website, I mean I was predeposed to thinking it was a “new” story. So when I’m reading your posts I realize that it was 2 years old.

But think about it, WLL and Airlink. Both would contribute to the data received.

So it was a case of I thought I was wrong but I was right!

[mcrossley]

Don't most 'air driers have a fan

[prodata]

For anyone interested, the Davis name came from the original founder Bill Davis who sold a plastic sextant. Then Bob Selig and Jim Acquistapace seem to have bought that business around 50 years ago. At the time the business was focused on marine (ie boating) products and part of Davis still services that market. The move into weather instrumentation seems to have happened around 30 years ago with the acquisition of Digitar and in the intervening years Bob and Jim drove the growth of Davis as a prosumer weather brand.

In the past few years, Jim & Bob obviously made the decision to retire and sell the business and AEM was presumably the highest bidder. The deal went through a couple fo years back. More background here:

https://www.tradeonlytoday.com/industry ... y-good-run

AEM has a portfolio of broadly weather/environmental-related businesses as described here:

https://hsierra.com/company/ae-monitoring-family/

We're not really expecting (and to date have not seen any) major changes in the way Davis operates or in its product line-up. But I'm sure that the various businesses will be looking at ways to collaborate, though they are mostly businesses with distinct product offerings, eg data or software or expertise rather than any possible development partners for Davis. The one exception to that is Lambrecht, but so far no news on that front - COVID may have had some slowing impact here.

[f4phlyer]

John, thanks for the great info. I'm just a retired airline pilot with a interest in computers and weather. Just thought I'd share some observations.

I first got really interested in the data end of weather while flying trans-Atlantic circa 2000's. Satcom, CPDLC, and modern jet engine fuel control transitioning to digital, etc were just coming on line. United Parcel Service was working on downlinking atmospheric data from the digital fuel control systems to NOAA. That's when I learned about Marsden squares. IBM bought WeatherUnderground and viola came up with their https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/IBM-I ... m%20(GRAF). IBM Global High-Resolution Atmospheric Forecasting System (GRAF).

With more data and a more flexible "grid" the Mardsden squares get a lot smaller.

My grandson is a data scientist. He uses analytical systems such as "SnowFlake" and builds "dashboards". Where's the data, in the cloud of course! His clients are factoring in weather into their sales comparisons. Data is the future, and I think weather data is near the top. Business's are making more and more decisions with weather factored in. I see WeatherFlo with their Tempest (have you looked at their station map?), I have one sited right next to my Davis Vantage Pro 2+. The data is virtually a mirror. Then take a look at website startup's like Windy.

Computers are being designed with Cloud computing in mind, Apple used to be weak on "networking". now they've increased the battery life. Cloud computing doesn't require the networking of past. Just connect to the cloud. There's lot's of other hardware innovations to facilitate the transition. IoT, IFTTT just to mention a few.

Upon reading one of the links, I was reminded of the great employees at Davis support. I've had two Vantage Pros since 1998. When ever I had an issue I'd be on the line and the tech that I spoke with always gave me as much time as i needed. Never took a shortcut and always steered me to the best course of action.