Topic: Connecting Wunderground to Leaf/Soil moisture and Temp

[peejay]

G-day, I have a wireless Davis VP2 with soil moisture/temperature and leaf wetness sensors. I use Virtual Weather Station which uploads the other data to WeatherUnderground (Air Temp, Humidity, Wind speed/Direction etc.) and to my website. Is there a way I can upload the soil Temp/moisture and leaf wetness data up to WeatherUnderground via virtual weather station or do I need to install something else to do that? I noticed now it shows on the WU dashboard, soil moisture, soil Temperature and leaf wetness but they are grayed out.

[Bushman]

WU does not handle extra sensors AFAIK.  I was hoping for an extra temp sensor for lake temp.  Nope!

[Skywatch]

Actually WU does handle leaf/soil data now. I think the problem might be VWS not incorporating the data in the code. I use Weather Display software and my leaf/soil data reports to WU and is displayed. The older WU which incorporated current weather codes eg, CLR (clear) OVC (overcast) SCT (scattered clouds) etc worked with stations using Weather Display which bases this on either solar data or metars. In VWS it was based on metars and had to be set up.

I think it might be the limited functionality of VWS. Of course VWS should have tags that can be incorporated into the WU upload code.

I recommend either taking a look at Weather Display software or asking Ed with Ambient about the tags and codes.

[Bushman]

I stand corrected.  Thanks for the update.  Soil temps are interesting data to have.

[Skywatch]

Problem I do have with leaf wetness and soil moisture data being public is that I doubt the general public will know what centibars is. Consumer moisture meters read 0-100% similar manor as relative humidity. And is read opposite to centibars.

Most viewers might see a really low moisture reading and think the soil is as dry as a bone when it's really very wet.

Same with leaf wetness. I don't think many people will know what that is or know what the values mean.

I do wish WU would do what they did in the last site where you move the curser over a value and a little bubble gives a brief explanation to what's displayed. Help people understand what they're looking at.

[GaryStofer]

Actually WU does handle leaf/soil data now. I think the problem might be

Have you  been able to actually send soil moisture data to WU and see it show up in a table or graph.. ??

I have added SM data upload  to WU  on my station software only to find that the data doesn't show up on any table or graph they have on their new dashboard. The only place where SM shows up is on the "current condition" display.  That's about as interesting as looking at a rock outside to see if it rains or not.

What I'm not sure is if the missing data item was previously available with the "old and improved" interface or if it never has been there in the first place.

Who else, if not WU, takes in and records SM data along with other weather data. CWOP doesn't.. 

Gary

 

[Skywatch]

Actually WU does handle leaf/soil data now. I think the problem might be

Have you  been able to actually send soil moisture data to WU and see it show up in a table or graph.. ??

I have added SM data upload  to WU  on my station software only to find that the data doesn't show up on any table or graph they have on their new dashboard. The only place where SM shows up is on the "current condition" display.  That's about as interesting as looking at a rock outside to see if it rains or not.

What I'm not sure is if the missing data item was previously available with the "old and improved" interface or if it never has been there in the first place.

Who else, if not WU, takes in and records SM data along with other weather data. CWOP doesn't.. 

Gary

WU displays the data but not yet graphs or logs it. Although I have put in the request to WU that they add this to graphs.

If you added soil moisture you should be able to put soil temperature and leaf wetness in there as well. Theoretically speaking. As I mentioned before I use Weather Display which came with that info already included in the WU code.

If you still use VWS there should be a way to use custom tags to incorporate the data.

[GaryStofer]

If you still use VWS there should be a way to use custom tags to incorporate the data.

I'm working on a embedded WiFi Wx station hardware, so the formatting and sending of that data is taken care of by my firmware. 

I was lead to believe that the soil data had been recorded by WU in the past and that one was able to get it back through a csv or xml file. I am trying to figure out if that was false information from WU or if they simply have not gooten around to add that to the new interface.

gary

[Skywatch]

So is VWS getting the data via some IP connection? I'm not sure whether or not WU has always received soil or leaf data and just never displayed it before. If VWS is receiving leaf/soil data from the station via IP then if possible I'd try turning off the IP to WU updates and just have VWS receiving the data and sending to WU and see if that works.

[GaryStofer]

So is VWS getting the data via some IP connection? I'm not sure whether or not WU has always received soil or leaf data and just never displayed it before. If VWS is receiving leaf/soil data from the station via IP then if possible I'd try turning off the IP to WU updates and just have VWS receiving the data and sending to WU and see if that works.

Yes the station is directly on the internet -- 

Dumb question: What is VWS ?

See  http:\wws.us.to

[Skywatch]

VWS aka Virtual Weather Station. Do you use Virtual Weather Station to post to WU? From what I understand the console plugs into an IP module and sends to Wunderground and VWS operates as a side item. Try turning off the IP to Wunderground and just have Virtual Weather Station getting the data then have Virtual Weather Station send data to Wunderground.

[GaryStofer]

VWS aka Virtual Weather Station. Do you use Virtual Weather Station to post to WU? From what I understand the console plugs into an IP module and sends to Wunderground and VWS operates as a side item. Try turning off the IP to Wunderground and just have Virtual Weather Station getting the data then have Virtual Weather Station send data to Wunderground.

Ahh , Thanks ---  I see.. but no virtual here --  This is a SW/HW project I have been doing from the ground up  for a few years now. Check out the project site at http://wws.us.to. It's a self contained station with a direct web interface http://kcaconco18.us.to and direct upload capabilities all contained on a PCB the size of a credit card running on <1 Watt. 

Instead of waiting for an answer from Wunderground about the soil moisture stuff I found , thanks to an other member on this forum, an other weather data upload site that takes SM data and  records and displays it. It is Met Office WOW from Great Britain  http://wow.metoffice.gov.uk/ . They have almost  the same upload protocol as all the other contenders ( except CWOP).   It looks like a very professional data ingestion engine judging from all the questions they ask when filling out a station request. 

My station reportings show up under http://wow.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/view?siteID=832346508 if you like to check it out.

Thanks

Gary

[noctilucent]

I'm having a related problem, I'm using a Leaf/Soil Moisture station to read two soil moisture sensors and both have shown 0cbar soil moisture over a period of nearly a week.  The full details are in this thread (linked in order to avoid posting a long text extract).  It seems that the problem is the station reading the sensors as 0cbar rather than anything upstream, but given that both sensors are showing the same issue I'm not sure what to do next since it seems to rule out a sensor problem.  Water them with Brawndo perhaps?

[noctilucent]

On the off chance that WU somehow rejected soil moisture reports that have no accompanying temperature reading, I jury-rigged in a thermistor to give soil temperature readings to accompany the moisture ones, but WU is still showing nothing for soil moisture, soil temp, and leaf wetness.  It seems that about 50% of people are getting results on WU and 50% aren't, I'm wondering if those with working/non-working readings can pool their data to see if there's some common factor that explains things.  For me it's the following:

Stats via Vantage Pro2 ISS and 6345 -> Meteostick -> Meteohub, reporting soil moisture, temperature, and leaf wetness to WU (alongside the ISS data).

WU config: "Station hardware" = "Davis Vantage Pro2 Plus (Wireless)" (there are two entries for this in the dropdown list, mine is the second one).  No obvious way to say "Also a Davis 6345".

[dj1111s]

My 2 cents.  I use Weatherlink to upload to WU.  The instant I had my soil and leaf station installed it started displaying on WU.  The only issue I've had is when the moisture sensors start nearing 200 (not sure what the magic number is).  For some reason WU stops displaying it then.  Like now because the soil is frozen.  I've sent this issue/info to WU support.

[noctilucent]

So the problem is solved, Meteobridge sends the soil/leaf data but Meteohub didn't, until an overnight software update fixed it.  It now works fine (modulo a small glitch in one of the data values that I've reported to the developer).

In terms of the near-200 problem, this is a known issue, it's discussed in this thread.  Unfortunately the only solution seems to be to not let your soil get dry enough to reach the problem threshold...