Topic: WS-2000 Important User Manual Updates and Firmware Changes Requests

[galfert]

After familiarizing myself with the WS-2000-C display tablet console and reading the user manual (version 1.4 of manual latest from 2018), I've submitted the following update recommendations to Ambient Weather support.


UPDATE; Rain Rate method changed in WS-2000 since firmware 1.4.0.
The following no longer applies
Most troubling to me is the difference from previous Ambient Weather hardware in how the WS-2000 handles current rain rate reporting. Or that that it doesn't actually report instant rain rate, and only instead reports the previous actual 60 minutes rainfall amount as Hourly rain. As such I've decided to continue to use my WS-2902A console as my preferred method to upload to both Weather Underground and AmbientWeather.net.

In case you have trouble understanding the difference a picture is worth a thousand words:

Here you can see the very same rain even captured by the same rain gauge but reported to WU with two different software consoles to different WU station IDs for comparison each using a different method of reporting rain rate.

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This is my preferred method that shows rain speed and shows passing showers and how fast it dumped. Using this method you can see that the rain this day came in 3 large waves and you can compare the rate of each wave. Using the other method below you really can't make this determination. Also while it is raining with this method you can know how fast it is raining at the exact given moment. Essentially with the WS-2000 you can't see the intensity of the rain cloud over you and haw fast it is raining at that exact moment. The instant rain rate also gives you an idea of how much rain to expect in the next hour if current conditions were to continue for a full hour. This is how the WS-2902A reports rain rate. Also this is how all previous Ambient stations reported rain rate. This is how Davis reports rain rate.

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This other method is just real historical accumulated rain for the past hour. Less informative I think and redundant because this information can be gotten by comparing previous accumulated amount (blue line) to whatever it climbs to (new blue line height). That is why on the first rain event of the day the blue line and the green line match up perfectly. ...It is the same information. This is how the WS-2000 reports rain rate. This is also how the newest Acurite Altas reports rain rate.

The good news is that I've heard back from Ambient Weather and they will be incorporating both methods in a future update to the WS-2000 display tablet. For now if you have both a WS-2000 display tablet and WS-2902A display console you may want to use one or the other for WU depending on your preferred method.

The bottom line is that I'm not proposing nor arguing with anyone regarding your personal preference no matter what other published standards say. The fact remains that there are two methods to report rain rate and the user should have a choice for their station. It is apparent in the data as to which method is used so it should not cause confusion. No different than how some people choose to use Altimeter reporting instead of Sea Level Pressure. Good luck trying to convince someone to use ALT versus SLP or the other way around.

The following is the long list of what I recently sent Ambient Weather for feedback on the manual and firmware updates:

Hello,

The following are some recommended corrections to the WS-2000 Manual version 1.4 and for the firmware of the device.

There is a firmware bug in the WS-2000-C display tablet when CH1 optional sensor transmits a temperature exceeding 140F. The WS-2000-C keeps showing 140F for that channel and CH8 (which is not connected) starts showing dashes --.-. Even after the WH31 drops back down in temperature the WS-2000-C erroneously keeps thinking that there is a CH8 sensor transmitting. The only way to fix this is to power cycle the WS-2000-C display tablet. A typical location where this might occur is if someone puts a WH31 inside a sauna which can exceed 140F. Even though this is outside of the reported operating range the WS-2000-C should not mess up and erroneously report dashes --.- on channel 8 instead of the channel it was programmed to send on. Maybe this is a firmware bug in the WH31. Regardless the WS-2000-C should temporarily check to see if CH8 is still transmitting and then drop it and it doesn't.

Consider adding RF signal strength indicator for outdoor sensor array.

General recommendations for the manual - Clean up and delete hidden text probably left over from previous revisions of the manual. It inhibits proper document searching and copying pertinent information from the manual for purposes of sharing and quoting from the manual onto online forums. One of the benefits of a digital manual versus a printed one is the ability to quickly search for a key word and have it jump you to the instances where that word shows up. Currently it is impossible to search for anything in the manual with all these hidden text items.

5. Getting Started (sentence below is missing a space after 2000 and the mention that there is also an included indoor thermo-hygrometer-barometer transmitter.)
The Ambient Weather WS-2000 OSPREY WiFi Person Weather Station consists of an indoor display table (receiver + WiFi transmitter), indoor thermo-hygrometer-barometer transmitter, and an all-in-one outdoor weather sensor array.

5.3 Sensor Array Set up
Consider pointing out and labeling antenna protrusion in diagram and the description chart. This will help draw attention to the fact that there is an antenna that needs to be unobstructed during snow fall as at greater distance with snow fall the signal can drop.

​5.3.4 Install the Rain gauge Funnel
Mention that it is normal for the rain gauge funnel to not really lock too tightly when rotating clockwise. This is by design to ease in maintenance that should be performed every 2 to 3 months for cleaning.

5.3.6 Install Mounting Pole
Mention that the outdoor mounting should not be performed until completion of testing with Tablet in section 5.10. To ensure that the sensor array is working properly. Mention that this testing should be done before connecting the tablet to WiFi and that a clearing of testing history be deleted right before the tablet goes online after final sensor array mounting.

5.6 Indoor-Outdoor Thermo-Hygrometer-Barometer Transmitter
2. Mention that the temperature, humidity and pressure is pre-calibrated from the factory and is not adjustable by the user. The user can however do final calibration on what shows on the display tablet. Shame they can't also calibrate the optional WH31 sensors.
​
5.8 Sensor Placement
The manual only mentions that it is recommended to mount the optional WH31 sensor outside on a North facing wall in the shade. It makes no mention that it can also be used for monitoring another indoor room.
​
5.9 Best Practices for Wireless communications
2. There is an error that mentions that the frequency is 433 MHz for the optional sensor. The frequency for the WH31 according to your website is 915 MHz.

6.6.1 Archive Memory Mode
To scroll to a specific page, press the Recall Page button.
Press the left https://ambientweather.net/help/does-not-update-ambient weather-net-osprey-series/  Delete this link replace with Left Arrow Icon.​
​
6.7.1 Set Date and Time
3. Change all mentions of Daylight Savings Time to read Daylight Saving Time. There is no "s" at the end of Saving. This is a common mistake people make. Fortunately the firmware has this correct but just the manual needs correcting.

6.7.2 Set Time Format
The firmware needs updating to reflect in several places that 12 hour mode should display AM and PM in capital letters. This needs correcting in several places, the main display, the settings pages, the history charts....etc.

6.7.5 Barometer Units of Measure
The firmware needs updating to reflect in several place that hectopascals unit of measure should be displayed as "hPa" not in all lower case as is now. Only the P gets capitalized.

6.7.8 Solar Radiation Units of Measure
Firmware update is needed to fix the W for Watts as this should be capitalized. Only the W gets capitalized. The /m^2 portion is not capitalized. The manual has some places where this should be fixed also.

6.7.9 Multi-Channel Sensor
It would be nice to be able to make calibration adjustments to the optional sensor channels. Currently you can't.

6.7.11 Longitude and Latitude
Currently you can only enter in Latitude and Longitude with up to 4 decimal places. Consider allowing up to 6 decimal places. Although added precision will not affect WS-2000-C performance it gets the user used to using the same location data for when they setup other online weather station services. If you mal-accustom them to only using 4 decimal places their station online might not be in as precise of a location as they desire on maps. Lots of people don't realize that the location precision on the map increases if they were to use more decimal places. It is typical in most weather software to use 6 decimal places.

2. The manual mentions to use Bing maps to determine location. The example given shows a Latitude and Longitude with 13 and 12 decimal places for each. This is incorrect. Bing maps and Google Maps only show 6 decimal places.

3. Why would you have the user round the Latitude and Longitude to 2 decimal places when the WS-2000-C accepts 4 decimal places? Use 6 decimal places for consistency everywhere.

Figure 30 needs updating. That is an old Bing Maps screenshot. Bing maps no longer uses that many decimal places for location.

6.7.14 Archive Interval
Firmware update recommended to change Settings option to read "Archive Interval" from the current just "Interval" as that is more descriptive and matches the manual. Default setting is 5 minutes and it just says Interval and when looking a the screen you may not know what the Interval is for.

6.7.15 Weather Server
Enable a way to turn reporting on or off for Weather Underground. It may be desirable to disable reporting to WU if a secondary weather software starts uploading instead to WU. Your own AmbientWeather.net supports uploading to WU and to save bandwidth if this options is chosen the user has no way to disable once set for the WS-2000-C to stop uploading to WU.  Currently it is possible to turn WU off using awnet app but this is not documented. Even though it is possible with the awnet app it would be nice to offer this functionality via the console.

Please consider allowing the change of the WU server address. There should be a choice pre-filled in for WU. But it would be nice to have an optional custom address for those advanced users that may want to redirect the data to their own weather software on the network like those that run WeeWx. It would be tremendously helpful. Also consider doing this for the ObserverIP. Don't just allow the user to erase the default www.wunderground.com address but instead have the choice for default or custom address for advanced use.

6.7.15.4 Compatible with Alexa
Works well for normal Alexa report or indoor Alexa report. Does not work at all for specific previous date reporting as stated in the manual. Please fix Alexa skill or API on your website for this to work as described in manual. Currently Alexa erroneously reports that the station was not online on that previous date.

6.7.15.2 Registering on AmbientWeather.net
Please consider updating AmbientWeather.net to have the following extra functionality.
- Enable ability to select a previous data via drop down calendar dates.
- Enable dark theme
- Enable Weather Map for those stations that select to share their data publicly (we know this feature is hidden or has not been updated to latest version that has this).

Missing Items from Manual and other Firmware Improvements:
The following are items and issues missing from the manual and added improvements to the firmware

- The manual does not mention Hourly rain rate. Besides missing this explanation even more troubling is you should support an option to change the type of rain rate reported. Currently the WS-2902A-C reports Rain rate differently than the WS-2000-C. I prefer the way the WS-2902A reports rain rate because it is an instantaneous rate rate like a prediction and indication of how fast and vigorous it is currently raining. The WS-2000-C on the other hand reports an actual historical rain rate of how much rain fell in the previous 60 minutes. This difference is also reflected in the graphing of the rain rate in several places including Weather Underground graphs, AmbientWeather.net graphs, and the WS-2000-C built in graphs.  Perhaps call these two rain rate options as one being Hourly and the other being Actual Rate. The way these two methods graph is totally different. I feel it is more informative to use the rain rate method in the WS-2902A which is on par for how historically other previous Ambient and Davis weather stations function. This was one of the reasons I didn't like how Acurite systems reported rain rate as they did it as actual Hourly and didn't provide the option to choose. The WeatherBridge (Meteobridge) offers the choice of method. This difference is much like how a speedometer in a car works. You may drive really fast for a brief moment and see that you are going 100 mph, but unless you drive for 1 hour you will not actually achieve 100 miles in the next hour. Imagine driving a car that only showed you how far you've driven in the past hour. You would never know your actually current speed at that given moment. Such is the case right now with the WS-2000-C as all you know is how much in the past hour and not the intensity at that given moment. Regardless of any other argument the user should have a choice of which method to use. Out of all the items reported in this bug report this is is the one issue that matters to me the most.

- Also missing is any mention of the new graphs that started showing up since firmware version 1.3.5. Granted this might still be in beta. One thing to do here is to rename the top of the screen for each graph to be the graphs name rather than have them all say just "Graph."

- Also missing in the manual is the importance of firmware updates. The WS-2000-C also requires two types of firmware updates. Both of these should be mentioned.

- There is no mention of using the awnet app to not just do firmware updates to but to configure other online services like WeatherCloud. And also for viewing station data from WU.

- The awnet app should be given the ability to manually select previous firmware versions. I'd like to upgrade from 4.0.2 but 4.1.1 is too new. Maybe I want to give 4.1.0 a try. If I upgrade to 4.1.1 will I be happy with it or will some unknown bug rear its head? If I do find a firmware bug I have no way to go backwards. Even if there is a limitation preventing from going backwards with the hardware. There should be two choices for firmware at least. Stable and Beta. Since 4.0.2 I've been waiting for a newer firmware to seem stable but it seems every couple days or weeks a new version has come out. Better the devil I know that the devil I don't know. I know 4.0.2 has an over hyper DNS query every few seconds but it doesn't seem to be affecting my network. So I'm staying on 4.0.2 until I see a stable future firmware or one that offers a new feature that I'm willing to risk being an early adopter for.

That is a lot of stuff. I don't expect an instant fix to all these items specially now with Spring Festival going on. But please put these on the punch list starting with the rain rate issue.

Thank you

[kbellis]

Great job George! Thank you!

[dunc1ca]

Add to your list a couple more requests:

1. In Canada, we use kPa (kilopascals) for pressure.  It would be nice to see kPa included as a selectable unit.  I realise that I can just divide by ten (the beauty of metric) but it should be added for the sake of completeness.
2. The circles around the temperatures change colour at odd values in Celsius presumably because they are round Fahrenheit numbers.  I would like the ability to customise and select the colour for my own temperature ranges.  For instance, I could define dark green as 0°C to 4.9°C, and light blue as -4.9°C to -0.1°C.
3.  Weather Underground reports historical conditions every 5 minutes in daily mode.  The wind gust should show the highest wind gust in the previous 5 minutes.  This way, historical data can be downloaded showing when the maximum wind gust took place and can be imported into an excel spreadsheet using VBA.

[kbellis]

George,

As long as we're adding to a request list, please note a couple of other items:

Both ABS and REL pressures should be stored on the WS-2000, and on the Ambient Weather website. The only way that I was able to conduct my first experiments with the WS-2000 was to overtly leave the REL at par with ABS. Once calibrated, I no longer am able to directly keep the recorded ABS values.

Also, in regards to the display date on the WS-2000, I wrote earlier to Ambient after updating to v1.3.8 on 20190124 18:50 UTC-5:

I appreciate that Ambient Weather is listening to its customers (THANK YOU VERY MUCH!) who apparently have differing ideas about how time should be expressed. Rather than give another 2˘ on how time should be expressed, consider allowing the user to determine their personal format string in Setup using whatever appropriate coding conventions that are already in place in Ambient's coding; e.g., http://strftime.org/, MS, etc.

[galfert]

These are all great ideas. I suggest everyone relay their ideas directly to Ambient for consideration and then share those ideas that you've requested to Ambient on this forum. Or use the forum to first seek collaboration in developing practical ideas before being submitted to Ambient Weather. This forum should not be used as the sole means to getting new ideas implemented. There is no evidence that Ambient Weather lurks in this forum.

The great thing is that Customer Service is highly responsive at Ambient Weather. That still does not guarantee that all ideas will be implemented, but if enough people request the same things then they are more likely to be implemented. So if you are an individual that is just reading these posts and has not yet contributed your own ideas but you see here ideas that matter to you then please do reach out to Ambient so that they can gauge the interest.

Dunc1a,
Your #1 and #2 great ideas. But your #3 about maximum wind gust on Weather Underground, I don't see how Ambient hardware firmware can impact any other results than what you are getting now from WU. This to me sounds purely like a WU issue. Unless you have something to show that some other weather manufacture has done that results in a different outcome. That said I can however think of a way to have WU report only the highest wind gust in a 5 minute period and that is to turn off rapidfire so that WU stops being the one to process the data. So then instead your weather hardware only reports in 5 minute increments and it is designed to send up that 5 minute max wind gust. That is a big trade off that I don't think many people would decide to do as it is a big benefit to have instant live rapidfire weather on WU. So I don't think there is anything the hardware manufacturers can do. This is something you should take up with WU. But good luck with that and how that ship is sailing.

Kelly,
Here are a few tips for tracking Absolute Pressure, also refered to as Station Pressure, which is how I will refer to this type of pressure when not directly discussing Ambient. If you report to CWOP then Mesowest will track your Station Pressure. They do this even though your hardware doesn't send Station Pressure. They can do this because they use your registered location elevation to then reverse calculate your Station Pressure. Another way to keep this data is to set up a weather software program that captures your data on your network. Then your software could also track your station pressure by doing the same reverse calculation. I don't have experience with all the 3rd party software to tell you which all can and can't do this, but I can tell you that the Meteobridge does. On a personal note is this really so critical? You can see on your WS-2000 undocumented graphs that Absolute Pressure and Relative pressure track lock step with each other. So with WU or ambientweather.net you know what your Relative Pressure offset is so just subtract that and you know the Absolute Pressure. Lastly if you ever export your data from any source you can easily in Excel recreate this missing Station Pressure yourself in two seconds for the entire data set by adding a column for Station Pressure and filling in the reverse calculation formula and extending that column to calculate all the way down. Oh and one more way is to set up an SQL database that automates this by having it reverse calculate your Station Pressure.

[nincehelser]

"This other method is just real historical accumulated rain for the past hour. Less informative I think and redundant because this information can be gotten by comparing previous accumulated amount (blue line) to whatever it climbs to (new blue line height)."

That's what wunderground uses to display their graphs.  It's the defined protocol.

I'm not going to argue this at all with you, other than this is made-up nonsense to fit your expectations, rather than math and scientific reality.

Good bye.

[galfert]

barba crescit caput nescit

[nincehelser]

barba crescit caput nescit

Oh, how clever, Mr. Latin.   

Such sophistry.  It's no wonder the world is in decline.

"Let just make sh*t up and call people names".

I'm getting real tired of your comments about my age and appearance, especially after my cancer treatments.

[kbellis]

... the reverse calculation formula ...

Do you know with reliable certainty the station pressure to sea level formula that's used on the WS-2902A? Ditto for the WS-2000?

Either way, I'm not entirely certain that I necessarily will prefer to use the Ambient formula over any other, but would prefer, in due time, the option of making that decision myself.

I wrote earlier to the nice folks in Utah, and Alexander Jacques kindly replied (hint - read from the bottom up):

Hello Kelly,

Certainly, and thanks much for sharing as well.

Alexander Jacques
Postdoctoral Research Associate - Atmospheric Sciences/MesoWest
University of Utah
alexander.jacques@utah.edu
http://home.chpc.utah.edu/~u0790486/



Thanks for the reply Alex!

The shodor formula and java script calculator allows for a gravity value to be entered, which is related/ and focus to the barometric experiments I've been conducting.

The Casio calculator Altitude from atmospheric pressure Calculator uses a hypsometric formula, but doesn't allow gravity to be entered:



The Casio calculator Atmospheric pressure from altitude Calculator uses another writing of the above hypsometric formula, but likewise doesn't allow gravity to be entered:



It references the derivation of the equation from the attached paper, and that my friend, was what led me in writing to you! It helps to underscore what seems like that barometric pressure formulas are as unsettled as the weather.


Oh, and before I forget it, here's another photo for KBHB, in case you're interested:

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Kind regards,

Kelly


Hello Kelly,

Thank you for reaching out.  Unfortunately I’m not familiar myself with the project described here, so I can’t state with any real certainly exactly what formulas are used for this project.  The references provided below the figure might be the best bet to uncover exactly what this model utilizes.

What I can provide is that calculating sea-level pressure from station pressure does come in a variety of forms.  A more accurate conversion involves use of the hypsometric equation, where an air temperature is required to estimate a theoretical “layer of air thickness” between the elevation the station is located at and sea level.   There are a lot of variations on how that “temperature” is determined (e.g. NWS stations such as KBHB I believe use a 12-hour averaged surface temperature in their formula) so the formulas can vary quite a bit (a little bit of info here might be helpful: https://www.shodor.org/os411/courses/_master/tools/calculators/sealvlpress/sealev1calc.html).

Another formula that gets heavily used is altimeter setting, which is a boiled-down version of the sea-level pressure formula.  It utilizes U.S. Standard Atmosphere to produce a fixed “temperature layer”, so temperature is removed from the formula in that case.  The only inputs then are station pressure and elevation of the station (e.g. https://www.weather.gov/media/epz/wxcalc/altimeterSetting.pdf).  This is used heavily in the aviation community and is typically reported at all NWS weather stations (such as KBHB).

Regards

Alexander Jacques
Postdoctoral Research Associate - Atmospheric Sciences/MesoWest
University of Utah
alexander.jacques@utah.edu
http://home.chpc.utah.edu/~u0790486/


Hi Alex,

Might you be able to point me in the right direction for obtaining the official formula for reducing/ converting station pressure to sea level pressure? If there is more than one "official" formula, then the one most commonly held, accepted and used in the area covered by xGeoid17

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I'm also interested in chasing down the basis for any constants that may be present in the formula.

Lastly, can you tell me with certainty, if a particular gravity value is used in the calculation; e.g., 980.542544 mGal; in lieu of some accepted constant, if that value must with respect for a given equipotential surface datum; e.g., gravity value at 0 m NAVD88 Geoid 12B, vs. a value for gravity at the elevation of the station?

Thank you very much for any reply.

Kind regards,

Kelly
--
V. Kelly Bellis, PLS
17 Union Street
Ellsworth, ME 04605

Precisely Determining True North without a surveyor!

[dunc1ca]

Dunc1a,
Your #1 and #2 great ideas. But your #3 about maximum wind gust on Weather Underground, I don't see how Ambient hardware firmware can impact any other results than what you are getting now from WU. This to me sounds purely like a WU issue.

The way that the WS-2000 is calculating wind gusts must be wrong.  In general, according to both the Canadian and American definitions:

Sustained wind speed is the average wind speed in the past 2 minutes (with the exception of hurricanes which is a 1-minute average). 
Wind gusts are the peak wind speed in the past 10 minutes. 

They use 5-second intervals to determine these speeds.  Also, gusts are only reported if the 10-minute peak speed is more than 10 knots higher than lowest 10-minute lull and more than 9 knots higher than the 2-minute average and only if the gust speed is 14 knots or greater.
Some ASOS units read the speed every second to calculate a 3-second average.  Each minute, the maximum 3-second average will be the maximum speed for that minute and will be stored for 10 minutes as the official gust speed unless another 3-second average is higher before the 10 minutes expire.  Sustained speeds are still calculated as the average of the 24 5-second average speeds for the previous 2 minutes.

Refer to https://www.weather.gov/media/asos/aum-toc.pdf (ASOS User Guide) Section 3.2.2.2

[galfert]

Do you know with reliable certainty the station pressure to sea level formula that's used on the WS-2902A? Ditto for the WS-2000?

Either way, I'm not entirely certain that I necessarily will prefer to use the Ambient formula over any other, but would prefer, in due time, the option of making that decision myself.

I do know the formula that Ambient uses. But you are giving Ambient too much credit. The fact is that they are not really using a formula at all. There is a pressure sensor with a default factory calibration. You the user can offset that to anything you want. You then also set the offset you want between Absolute and Relative Pressure. These are static offsets (they don't change) that you configure. So there is no formula. It is just purely an offset from the sensor reading. The hardware just reports whatever the sensor says plus/minus the static offset you configured. You never give Ambient hardware your elevation, you never give Ambient your location (on the WS-2902A). The WS-2000 does ask you for your location but the only purpose for that is for the Surnrise/Sunset calculation. So Ambient hardware hasn't got a clue how to properly calculate pressure based on your location, which is why it never asks for your elevation. This is a crude form of displaying Relative Pressure and it isn't the most accurate method. Maybe that is why they don't call it sea level pressure. Other hardware brands often ask for elevation and then they have something to plug into a formula.

So your formula to get back to Absolute is just a subtraction (the offset amount) given Relative Pressure reported. That is all there is to it with Ambient. Yes Ambient knows the temperature but it isn't used in the calculation difference between Absolute and Relative. In a way you could say that Ambient behaves more like Altimeter Pressure where temperature variation isn't a factor.

See the two lines never diverge. It is a static offset between them. Also there is a 2nd offset for Absolute in reference to factory default calibration.
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[galfert]

dunc1ca,
Good information regarding wind speed and gusts. That is valuable information to provide to Ambient so that they may consider making changes to how they report wind speeds. It certainly seems doable to me.

[kbellis]

I do know the formula that Ambient uses. The fact is that they are not really using a formula at all.

Other than the first bits of what you said (quoted herein), I guess I'm trying to make a silk purse out the the wrong equipment. In any event, thank you for the reply, and sorry for the momentary diversion within this thread.