Weather Bug not reporting rain again

[TJF1960]

It appears my weather bug station (KBAB) is not reporting current rain data again. The next closest station also is not reporting rainfall. Weather Underground is however. So I have modified my weather program on the pogoplug to parse the days rainfall and send it to an integer variable on the ISY. The weather program strips the decimal and leading zero before sending to the variable. So .42" = 42 in the variable.

 

I have been following the advice IndyMike has been giving other forum members (btw, Big thanks to you IM) and have set the following in the climate module:

Water Applied per ir. cycle: 0.386"

Allowable Dep. 0.27"

 

My thinking is to create an ISY program which will run an irr. cycle complete at the end of the day if the Weather Underground reports more than .386" of rain but the Weather Bug doesn't. For example:

 

If
       Time is 11:55:00PM
   And $iPogoWeather_RainAmountToday >= 38
   And Module 'Climate' Rain Today < 0.38 "

Then
       Irrigation - Cycle Complete

Else
  - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action')

 

Does this sound about right or am I incorrect in my thinking?

 

Thanks,

Tim

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Tim,

 

This is not good ... we are in the beginning stages of a solution that might support multiple Weather services.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[jmed999]

Hi Tim,

 

This is not good ... we are in the beginning stages of a solution that might support multiple Weather services.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

This is GREAT news!!!!

[MWareman]

we are in the beginning stages of a solution that might support multiple Weather services.

That would be sweet. I *far* prefer Weather Underground personally - they have a reliable station about 20 yards from my house. Currently, the closest station is about 2 miles away with the current provider.

 

I'd like to think that the new solution could pull data directly from local sensor hardware as well? Give the option to completely remove the Internet dependency from the equation. Pretty please?

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Michael,

 

Fortunately/Unfortunately, we (as in UDI) cannot do anything with WUnderground as they wanted to charge us 10s of thousands of dollars just to become a partner. It will be up to you and other 3rd parties to actually get the data to ISY.

 

Yes, you can anything that can communicate events and get commands from ISY.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[jmed999]

I don't understand your last sentence...it's it me or is there a word or something left out? Thanks!

 

So, I wonder how free apps like sunnyday, raindair, tempest, etc just to name a couple and many websites get the Weather Underground data. Surely they aren't paying that much for it.

 

Sent using my Galaxy S4 and Tapatalk!

[Michel Kohanim]

Sorry:

Yes, you can use anything that can communicate events and get commands from ISY.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[arw01]

I don't understand your last sentence...it's it me or is there a word or something left out? Thanks!

 

So, I wonder how free apps like sunnyday, raindair, tempest, etc just to name a couple and many websites get the Weather Underground data. Surely they aren't paying that much for it.

 

Sent using my Galaxy S4 and Tapatalk!

 

Since their opensource, take a look at the code. It may be that because they are opensource they have a access model. For profit, like UDI, would have to pay. Just my WAG.

[MWareman]

Hi Michael,

 

Fortunately/Unfortunately, we (as in UDI) cannot do anything with WUnderground as they wanted to charge us 10s of thousands of dollars just to become a partner. It will be up to you and other 3rd parties to actually get the data to ISY.

 

Yes, you can anything that can communicate events and get commands from ISY.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

I'm able to get data from WUnderground by signing up for a personal API key and using that in my script. As long as I don't poll the API faster than every 5 mins, I stay within the free use API tier. You could support WUnderground by providing a place for us to enter our own API key - and you would not have to become a partner. The API is public ally documented.

 

An alternative is to allow us to push weather data into the ISY thru the REST interface. Is that what you are intending to do? That way, if we have our own rain gauge, for instance, we could push rain data into the ISY relatively real time. That way, you avoid ALL licensing issues.

 

Michael.

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Michael,

 

The latter would make much more sense since the former was discussed and we were still liable for $$$ licensing fees and making sure the polling intervals are not less than 5 minutes, etc. etc.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[MWareman]

The latter would make much more sense

Possible then? (with the weather revamp hinted)

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Michael, yes possible.

 

Just got an email from WeatherBug (now Earth Networks). They are changing all their servers/APIs and making them more SLA/transaction based oriented. Hopefully we'll come out of this one unscathed!

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[IndyMike]

Hello Tim,

 

I believe I understand what you are trying to accomplish. I don't see anything "wrong" with the implementation - it's rather resourceful. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how useful your added programing will be.

 

Based on the KBAB data so far this year, you would have triggered your program a maximum of 2 times so far. The last time you had rainfall > than .38" was on April 4th (0.47 inches). You are now headed into your dry season. Based on 2012 data, you're unlikely to trigger this program until October.

 

Seems like a lot of work... Hopefully Michel's announcement regarding the Weatherbug servers will improve reliability to the point where your workaround won't be required.

 

 

It appears my weather bug station (KBAB) is not reporting current rain data again. The next closest station also is not reporting rainfall. Weather Underground is however. So I have modified my weather program on the pogoplug to parse the days rainfall and send it to an integer variable on the ISY. The weather program strips the decimal and leading zero before sending to the variable. So .42" = 42 in the variable.

 

I have been following the advice IndyMike has been giving other forum members (btw, Big thanks to you IM) and have set the following in the climate module:

Water Applied per ir. cycle: 0.386"

Allowable Dep. 0.27"

 

My thinking is to create an ISY program which will run an irr. cycle complete at the end of the day if the Weather Underground reports more than .386" of rain but the Weather Bug doesn't. For example:

 

If
       Time is 11:55:00PM
   And $iPogoWeather_RainAmountToday >= 38
   And Module 'Climate' Rain Today < 0.38 "

Then
       Irrigation - Cycle Complete

Else
  - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action')

 

Does this sound about right or am I incorrect in my thinking?

 

Thanks,

Tim

[TJF1960]

Hi IndyMike,

 

Thanks very much for your reply. I agree the program may not trigger very often (or at all if WB fixes the problem) but I already had the weather program on the pogoplug in place sending variable updates to the ISY so all I really had to do was a slight mod to the weather program, create a variable and then create the ISY program. Didn't take much time at all.

I did send WB an email about the rainfall not reporting and they sent an email back saying that the problem was at the station and they were working on it but its not the first time they have had problems. I noticed that by mid day the second day of rain that WB was reporting .11" but that was off based on weather underground reporting.

Anyway I was just looking for a quick backup in case it were to happen again. It did work, the sprinklers didn't fire the next day whereas they would have.

 

Thanks again for all of your contributions and hard work,

Tim

[Michel Kohanim]

Hello everyone,

 

Just an update: Weatherbug is moving all their APIs and servers to Earth Networks and thus we might have to go through another set of beta testing just for the new services.

 

Hopefully the new services are more reliable since, now, their services are based on SLAs based on Transactions per second.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[TJF1960]

Hi Michel,

 

Fingers crossed...Did they give any sort of ETA?

 

Thanks,

Tim

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Tim,

 

Yes, 08/31/2013.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[GPG]

Hi Michel,

 

My rain reporting has also often been missing. I am glad to hear some improvement may be forthcoming. Is there any estimate for when the transition will be completed?

 

 

Edit: Sorry I posted before I saw your reply.

 

Thanks,

George

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi George,

 

The transition seems to be by the end of the year.

 

With kind regards,

Michel