I've successfully transitioned many devices to local control using Zigbee, Z-Wave, and ESPHome, but not all integrations have been straightforward. A notable exception has been the WeatherFlow integration for my Tempest weather station.
WeatherFlow offers two types of integrations. The first relies on the cloud, where the weather station sends data to the Tempest cloud service, and the WeatherFlow cloud integration then pulls this data into Home Assistant at intervals.
The second method utilizes the fact that the Tempest weather station broadcasts weather state changes via UDP on the local network. The local WeatherFlow integration in Home Assistant listens for these broadcasts. However, my setup had the Tempest weather station on a different network VLAN than my Home Assistant server. Since UDP broadcasts typically don’t cross VLAN boundaries, this local integration wasn’t working.
I had multiple reasons for placing the Tempest weather station on a separate VLAN. Primarily, the default behavior of sending frequent UDP broadcasts can lead to significant network traffic, especially impacting wireless networks. Additionally, I segment my network for security purposes, preventing devices on the Tempest's VLAN from scanning or connecting to computers on more secure VLANs.
