@Gene, you are the best!
Thanks so much! =)
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This is setup yet my pws hasnt shown up yet…
Please make sure you have “Show Personal Weather Stations” turned ON when choosing the weather station within rachio.
Edit: Upon further review, it seems that your PWSweather station was incorrectly setup to be located in China. Please make sure you update your station coordinates with a local address to see it nearby within rachio.
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I noticed the precipitation on WU doesn’t exactly match that recorded to PWSWeather. Like yesterday PWSWeather says I had .24" of rain while WU says .06" (which matches what my Acurite app says).
What could cause this - should I lower down the frequency pulling from WU (I have it set to every 10 minutes I believe).
It is almost as though it is pulling the cumulative from WU but then PWSWeather is adding together each of the cumulatives.
Hi cbl1, can you please email your wu id and pws id to support@wufyi.com? Please also mention the date(s) for which you noticed that it is happening.
There is currently a known issue with seemingly false data coming from WU, I’ll let you know if that is what is happening if you email me your IDs.
Thanks,
Gene
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I’ve set it all up. Thanks for all the work you’ve put into it.
I think rachio needs to update with psw weather. I changed the lat and long, and it’s showing up in the right location now. Will give it a chance to catch up!
Thanks again.
With my Vantage Vue, I use a simple Raspberry Pi solution which is not that hard to set up. Only cost is the Pi since I am using Weewx which is free open source software. See www.weewx.com There are instructions for using different weather stations on the weewx site. I took it a step further and installed a web sever on the Pi (instruction on weewx site) so I can get daily, weekly, monthly, etc. reports on my local network.
I get Wunderground rapid fire support and CWOP support and the Pi is very stable. It is an inexpensive and very functional solution.
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I was actually considering a weewx rPi solution as well to use with my AcuRite, but I didn’t have the required USB port (the kit I bought didn’t come with a display version supporting it). I’m glad you were able to make use of such a flexible little gadget.
Super easy to setup, Gene. Thank your service to the Rachio community by putting in your time to develop this!
One hint to some others who may also try…parsing of the information you put into the http POST doesn’t like spaces. I had inadvertently added a space between one of the parameters and it took me a few minutes to see it. Just be sure you don’t have spaces and it should work just fine, if you’ve provided the right information. My data showed up on PWS site within 10 minutes. Now I wait for Rachio to pick up my PWS for use, now that there’s data.
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Thank you Scott, especially for taking the time and sharing your troubleshooting experience. I have plans to improve error detection and reporting in the future and your feedback is very helpful. 
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First of all Gene, thank you so much for all you’ve done. I really appreciate the efforts.
I’m not sure what I’ve done wrong, but…
When I use your wufyi.com with the URL params it works.
If I use the PHP on my site I get:
“ERROR: Not a vailid Station ID”
I’ve copied the params from the wufyi url to make sure I was using the same info.
Any help is appreciated.
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Error seems to indicate that your $pwsID variable was wrong, one difference between wufyi and hard coded variables is that wufyi uses a “sanitized” string, meaning that special characters where encoded to comply with URL standards, you may need to change your $pwsID declaration into something like this:
$pwsID = filter_var(“FexampleER”, FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING); // change contents, keep quotes
I’ve updated source code (link) just now, to include the fixes I’ve done since initial release. If you are interested in running it on your own, I recommend you download the updated code version.
Cheers,
Gene
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That did the trick.
Thanks again, Gene!!
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@laminack let me know if your server supports SQL, the fix I’m working on now would require it.
I’m also considering adding support for local .log file instead of the database (good if your server does not support many users), but that will take sometime to implement.
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Hi,
I’ve just ordered a gen 2 and was mulling how to incorporate my Davis weatherstation’s data. It reports to Wunderground and also to Citizen Weather (cwop.aprs.net) but this latter sometimes causes trouble - randomly causing the Weatherlink software to hang so I’ve taken to switching that feed off. Does the Rachio access CWOP (also= HamWeather) as well as PWS? I have a PWS account which hasn’t been used since I junked my Oregon Scientific weather station 7 years ago but I guess I could use the script to feed it. Trouble is I’m already accessing the Wunderground API to feed my VERA Z-Wave controller with a PLEG add-on and fear I may get into trouble with WU’s access limit if I run both. Maybe there could be a way for the Rachio to access the VERA weather data employing some sort of ITTT? Is there a step by step idiot’s guide on how to set up the script (looking at that code makes me feel queasy, I’m no good at that!)?
Looks like CWOP is supported, but you need to link it to NOAA in order for Rachio to see it:
See steps 8 through 11 here (link)
You have several options with API
0) Do nothing, use CWOP as outlined above.
- Check your API usage here (link), Weather Underground seems to track usage differently when data is accessed from one station only, you could be well under your 500 / day limit.
- Just create a second free API key using a different email.
- Check if Vera Z-Wave supports getting data from PWSweather instead of weather underground (in which case you can simply switch where API key is used).
Check here (link) for a better instructions on how to setup wufyi which has the script running already. You can start using the website without needing to host or reconfigure the script yourself.
Cheers,
Gene
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Thanks very much Gene.
- 'll try fine tuning my upload settings to aprs and see if I can get it stable. Clearly using the CWOP/NOAA data would be the easiest option provided I don’t need to be clucking over my weather software all the time.
- I don’t see a pws add-in for VERA but a second API key would remove the “overactive anxiety” when doubling up the use of WU API - hadn’t occurred to me - simples!
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Thank you so much @Gene ! My family gave me a Ambient Weather WiFi this year and I’ve had my eye on the Rachio Gen 2 ever since. Never for a moment considered Wunderground wouldn’t be included in the choices for PWS. I was pretty frustrated about it until I came across this.
I’m guessing the downside to doing it this way is that there is no historical data for the station I created? I only ask because my PWS has recorded 1.65" of rain in the past 7 days and 5.8" of rain in the past month. Guessing it assumes zero when setting up the ‘Flexible Daily’ schedule?
I would love to see direct integration with Rachio and WU. There are dozens of WU stations in my surrounding area, yet only a handful of stations available around me that I could pick from. I realize it’d be an extra cost for them, but there seems to be a big demand for it when looking through the community posts. I’ll definitely be checking back from time to time to see if they’ve added it. I’m sure there are good reasons they haven’t, but I hope they’re serious when they say they are working on it.
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@ffittsiv Hiya Frank.
The way Flexible Daily schedule works now, amount of moisture each zone can hold is pretty limited (due to soil type, sun exposure and vegetation needs). It means that even the heaviest rain has a relatively short effect on irrigation so Rachio doesn’t need to be aware of events more than a few days in the past.
Worst case scenario: you may use a few extra dollars worth of water the first time Rachio irrigates your zones.
As an alternative you can initially max out moisture levels (via an app) to avoid and delay your initial irrigation and ensure that you are saving every penny, you plants will probably be ok in the long run.
I recommend you don’t wait for native weather underground support, wufyi is pretty easy and free solution and water savings that Rachio can provide are well worth it.
I’m actually disappointed with my Accurite (along with numerous other weather stations such as your Ambient Weather pws) which don’t support more alternative provides such as pwsweather. Seems it would be free of charge for them to do so…
Cheers,
Gene
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