@all script-writers / users of
http://www.weatherlink.com/xml.php?user=xxxx&pass=yyyyCOPIED FROM ANOTHER TOPIC: The discussion there seems to center around the beautiful appearance of the new wl.com v2 website.
In a few months (before June 2018) the xml feed you are using now will stop when the current wl.com v1 account is switched to wl.com v2. And changing the userid to the new v2 one will not help either.
New buyers of a WL-IP which are defaulted to wl.com v2, report that the xml there contains only "empty - n/a" data values, no real weather station data is returned.
When you use your WL.com xml feed to populate your website with your weather-data, make sure you have some back-up plan in place.
Wim
because the problem is, the xml data feed from the 2.0 data, does not seem to be working
I think this was discussed upthread (or maybe in a related thread). Requests for an XML response are still recognised by WLC2 but the response doesn't seem to be populated with actual data.
AFAIK the XML interface was only ever unofficial (or maybe provisional or unsupported is a better word), eg it was never included as an official method in the Serial Tech Ref document in the same way Web Download is. So I wouldn't be surprised to see it disappear, but who knows? Don't people use JSON these days anyway, rather than XML?
But somewhere in the WLC2 announcements there's mention of a future feature to allow users to build their own web page presentation, so this will possibly (depending on exactly how it's implemented) need a data feed of some kind, which I guess could be a JSON object. But who knows when that feature might appear - the developers are probably quite busy at present finishing off the initial features, organising the migration, squashing bugs etc and details like format, frequency, possible cost etc are 100% unclear. So it's probably a feature for WLC2.1 or some such designation and maybe not expected for 6-12 months.
Maybe for sellers of Davis equipment it is not a big deal, maybe neither for people using wl.com as their only web-presence.
But there are numerous users who bought a WLIP
1. to upload to wl.com
AND
2. who use that wl.com data (xml) to get the weather-data to their site.
WLIP is far more extensive compared to a Davis USB logger. But with wl.com 1.0 that higher price included the upload and data storage at WL.com.
Especially in rural areas where it is not easy to have a PC-like device 24/7 doing those upload tasks. In the past I often advised to use a WL-IP as that device gives you multiple upload-paths to the web. At least 2 different paths: Most owners of a WL-IP I am aware of use another weather-program and most of those programs (WD Cumulus a.s.o.) allow the WLIP to continue to upload to wl.com also. And 3 different upload-paths when using a MB with a WLIP, it allows the use of one other weather-program concurrently.
I myself use a WL-IP as a WU upload and backup device, although the normal website uploads are done with a MB. Only 1 setting switches immediately the website-data from WL.com to MB and vice-versa.
If Davis is really going to drop the xml feed, the current WLIP + XML users have to find another solution, such as a Meteobridge?
For new users: Buying a WLIP today will give you a nice website where you can have a "look only to" view of your data. Nice but useless if you want your own website, f.i. if you want to see yesterdays weather-values such min-max temps, amount of rain. Weatherlink -> Weatherlink.com does not store yesterdays values. Never did and 6.0.3 is the final release, never will.
Just some calculations for new buyers of a Davis logger who do not "need to have" wl.com 2.0:
WLIP 280€ versus USB 160€ = -/- 120€. Davis to "clone" logger another 60€ in the pocket?.
Meteobridge DIY costs less than 100€, Meteobridge ready made 130€
And do you really need that expensive console+logger? Or is a Meteostick+MB, or Mesteostick-Raspb or MB-Pro-red a better solution?
A lot of "better" (=debatable) choices, so in my opinion, Davis should continue to supply the wl.com aggregated weather-values. And it does not matter if it is json or xml, that difference is a 1 or 2 lines in a script change only.
Data in EXCEL type csv format is useless as that is only a list of past weather-measurements every so many minutes, no aggregated data.
Wim
