i’m always glad to give some unsolicited advice: so here you go.
as you probably know, the more sensors you can use to gather data, the better. being able to compare sensor data, calculating delta values and comparing them is really helpful in determining conditions like cloudiness, or light intensity. i’m using an outside sensor board that measuress temperature, luminosity and air pressure on the balcony, that is partly exposed to direct sunlight. this of course messes up the temperature readings, since the temperature can go up to over 40° or 60° C. but since i also have a thermometer in the backyard, that is never exposed to direct sunlight or even wind, the balcony temperature sensor acts as a pretty good indicator of sunlight intensity, which i can verify or calibrate with the luminosity sensor readings. actually i’m using this data to determine how much water gets dripped to the balcony plants by my connected watering system.
the outside luminosity sensor is of course combined with an inside luminosity sensor, which also helps calibrating the outside sensors.
it’s also amazing how much the weather data from dark sky, that homeassistant queries every 30 minutes, is off the actual measurements. it’s probably due to the fact, that my outside weather sensors are close to buildings, which reduces the amplitude.
btw: have you had a look at mysensors? i’m struggeling always with overcrowded wifi frequencies and try to reduce esp8266 or raspi wifi usage as much as i can. mysensors also uses 2,4 ghz bandwidths, but has a much smaller rx/tx footprint and works really reliably. the only downside is that you always have to wire a radio to an arduino (or esp8266). this effort can be reduced by a great deal, by using these RF-nanos that really work great.