Using WUnderground.com to integrate Personal Weather Stations

Question: how would be using the data that they provide with api be construed a “commercial use” (Rachio is not selling the data or using it to further their business)?

What if Rachio made a simple open source program to pull the data for users? The users could then execute the program on their own. This is similar to the mac solution that is being endorsed on the Rachio website.

So what’s the latest with this. I have a golf course next door to me and they are with Wunderground but I’m unable to see their data.
Does the weatherscoop work?
Does my mac have to always be on to use it?
Do you just pay once to get the license?

Cheers

I just noticed Weather Underground now has it’s own IFTTT channel. That should be a big help with creating IFTTT applets for things like rain delays or stopping the watering. I set up an applet to stop my watering if the wind reaches over 5mph.

3 Likes

I just completed my pws to show up in the Rachio app based on this info:

It took less than 30 mins for my pws to show up on the Rachio app after I completed the pws bridge setup to connect to pwsweather.com. It may have been much sooner since I didn’t bother to check immediately (the article mentioned to wait a few days)

The process does require some DIY work to reflash firmware (I used a different router) & setting up accounts, but it is definitely doable & working. I suppose I will need to pay for the Meteobridge software license in 2 weeks, so this will cost around $100 extra.

Now I should look into IFTTT options …

3 Likes

@Chriso, in short – yes. Please refer to this support article for details.

1 Like

Update: You can now use this script without needing to setup your own server, more info at
http://wufyi.com/.

(*)Update 2: I noticed that some free web hosts use javascript in order to filter out automated traffic, exactly the kind used by periodic cron jobs. I’ve moved my hosted script to a full fledged host / domain so now you do not have to. The way the site works now is this way for a reason. I do not want to provide a way for you to store your credentials on the site and setup cron job for you. By doing this I hope to avoid issues with WU api.

I loved an idea of bash script, developed by @johnny2678, but didn’t have a constant ON machine having JQ available. What I did have is a web host, some PHP knowledge and desire to make it work without additional expense. So here is my version of a PHP script (link) which can be uploaded to most PHP compatible servers (some are even free)*.

P.S. There are plenty of free cron job (link) sites which would be compatible with your server. Google them.

P.P.S. I’ve never been this close :slight_smile:

11 Likes

So still no “easy” way to use my own PWS? I’ve read through this thread over the last year or so and find it hard to understand why (why not) Rachio does not have this issue solved. I do not have (nor want) another machine running 24/7 just to see and use my PWS data on my Gen 2 Rachio. Disappointing.

1 Like

I agree that no solution is as easy as having rachio support wunderground out of the box, but if you are willing to setup your PWSweather station and get your own wunderground API key, you could start using wufyi.com within 5 minutes, without having another machine running 24/7. I’m fearful of making it easier than it is now since the site may get in trouble with wunderground API policies and I don’t want to pay for their full fledged API access.

5 Likes

Ok, got the script going and my PWS is now showing on the Rachio app. Thanks Gene for the help!

3 Likes

This…is…awesome.

:cheers:

2 Likes

Awe-some! Thank you Gene!

2 Likes

@Gene,

Thanks heaps! Just set this up and working a treat.

The PWS options I had made this a god-send. One PWS I was using went offline, and the other one does not record wind. Now I can use a reliable source (eg. Golf Club) from Wunderground and port it to my PWS.

Cheers

3 Likes

Gene - Thanks for the server and script. Working like a charm and easy to setup. My PWS is now populating just fine from WeatherUnderground.

4 Likes

Gene, this is fantastic! End to end setup in under 10 minutes. My Rachio can now use my own personal weather station data from Weather Underground through PWSweather.

Thanks
Trevor

4 Likes

Great job! I too am now pulling updates from my own weather station!

4 Likes

To anyone using wufyi.com. I am aware of an issue with the consistency of weather data coming from weather underground, you may have noticed it on your history chart as data spikes.

I will be releasing a fix within a few days (first I need to make sure it does not make the problem worse), if you are using wufyi.com update will be applied automatically without you needing to change anything.

6 Likes

wufyi.com (link) is now using an updated script with a fix in place. I’ll continue monitoring for issues over the next few days and update the source code (link) if no further issues are detected.

The problem was that WU would occasionally report old history data instead of the latest observation. This should theoretically not be a problem since update to PWSweather is time stamped, but PWSweather seems to ignore the hour part of the time stamp (I guess due to time-zones) and treats the old data as new (thus the spike as old data is reinterpreted as new).

All of the users of wufyi.com should not see any more spikes as of 1PM EST /6PM GMT. If you notice any other issues please report them to support@wufyi.com

7 Likes

Gene is a Genius! Thanks for all your hard work putting this all together. Everything is working great other than a couple of time out issues from cron-job.org last night. Presume that was you solving the history bug.

Cheers,
Trevor

4 Likes

@Gene I set up wufyi and a cron job. The URL returns “Data Logged and posted in METAR mirror.” but looking at my station’s page on PWS it looks like the data is sometimes 15+ minutes delayed, sometimes posts 2 minutes after the previous post, and sometimes just does not show up. I am not sure how to debug since the response says everything is fine. Is there anything I can do to try to get to the bottom of it? Thanks!

For example, it is now 12:50am local time April 3 but my PWS shows the last data point as 12:36am (and the cron job timing vs data points are not in sync)

my PWS shows only the following data points:

Latest Conditions Updated 12:36:40 AM PDT Monday, Apr 3, 2017

Hour	Temp	Dew Point	Humidity	Winds	Wind Gusts	Pressure	Precip	Precip Rate	Daily Precip Total
12:36 AM	51.3°F	48.0°F	88%	0.6 mph SSW	1.2 mph	29.93 in	0.00 in	0.00 in	0.00 in
12:35 AM	51.6°F	48.0°F	87%	0.6 mph SW	1.2 mph	29.93 in	0.00 in	0.00 in	0.00 in
12:17 AM	51.6°F	48.0°F	87%	0.6 mph SW	1.2 mph	29.93 in	0.00 in	0.00 in	0.00 in
12:15 AM	51.8°F	48.0°F	87%	0.6 mph SSW	1.2 mph	29.93 in	0.00 in	0.00 in	0.00 in

cron-job shows several successful posts (none at 12:17… I am in california and it looks like it is reporting in GMT)
Today, 09:39:59 Today, 09:40:00 -0,60 s 2,99 s Successful 200 OK
Today, 09:35:01 Today, 09:35:00 1,12 s 0,94 s Successful 200 OK
Today, 09:30:06 Today, 09:30:00 6,49 s 7,77 s Successful 200 OK
Today, 09:25:02 Today, 09:25:00 2,36 s 8,35 s Successful 200 OK
Today, 09:20:01 Today, 09:20:00 1,54 s 8,56 s Successful 200 OK
Today, 09:15:00 Today, 09:15:00 0,84 s 5,04 s Successful 200 OK
Today, 09:10:00 Today, 09:10:00 0,54 s 3,21 s Successful 200 OK
Today, 09:05:01 Today, 09:05:00 1,31 s 3,31 s Successful 200 OK
Today, 09:00:05 Today, 09:00:00 5,80 s 5,61 s Successful 200 OK

While it is natural to think that a datapoint will be added each time a cron-job is successful, the script was actually designed to avoid “cloned” updates.

For this explanation a cloned update is an update using the same data, but with a different timestamp.

A successful cron-job means that the latest data was successfully transferred from weather underground to pwsweather. Data coming from weather underground includes a timestamp representing when the data was actually received from the actual weather station, this timestamp is used within update to pwsweather, so it is possible to transfer the same data point several times and this is why all of the script executions made between actual updates from the weather station will show up as one datapoint.

In your example it seems that cron-jobs executed prior to 09:15 (GMT + 2, cron-job.org is a german service) where getting the last data from the previous day. 09:15 got your 12:15 update, 09:20 to 09:30 got 12:17 update, 09:35 got 12:35 update and 09:39 got your 12:36 update.

Triggering the cron-job too often is not a problem as long as you stay within 500 free api daily hit limit (enough for one update every 3 minutes or so). What you want to avoid is insufficient updates, whereas too many weather station updates occur between successive cron-jobs.

If you wish me to take a closer look at your situation, feel free to email me your weather underground and pwsweather station IDs to support@wufyi.com

Cheers,
Gene

4 Likes