Topic: Welcome to the WeatherElement.com hardware/web service support board

[SLOweather]

Hi,

Chris from SLOweather.com here. You probably recognize me from Wxforum, the old Ambient forum, Weather-Watch, and even the Midlands UK forum. I was the founder of the regional weather networks movement over 3 years ago.

The admins here at WxForum have graciously given me this space to support a new venture my wife and I have developed, WeatherElement.com.

We'll be using this board to explain what WeatherElement is, (and, what it isn't ). We'll answer any questions, and probably ask a few.

Most of us here on Wxforum.net know what a pain it can be to put our weather station data on the Internet. You need a weather station, computer, software like VWS/WD/et al, a domain name, web hosting, and the knowledge to pull it all together (serial/USB, HTML, FTP, and more).

WeatherElement is a plug n play way to put that personal weather station info on the Internet. With your Davis weather station (Vantage Pro, Pro 2, or even the new Vue), our hardware interface, your internet connection, and our web service, you can have your own weather website without any of the hassles, in just a few minutes.

There's more info to come, and more stories, and more answers and, more questions. We've been working on this for a couple of years now, developing and testing the hardware interface, building the server back end, testing and more testing...

You can look at www.weatherelement.com, but right now it's just a splash page. Behind the scenes though, we've had several weather station sites uploading data to the servers every 30 seconds for over a year. This gives us lots of data (over 5 million records to date) with which to test.

There's more to come, lots more. Here's a little teaser... Most WeatherElement units to date have been hardwired-network based (DSL, cable, or other terrestrial Internet connections). Yesterday though, we deployed a fully solar powered/cellular based WeatherElement at a retasked former US Forest Service lookout here near the Central California Coast. Their web site is www.condorlookout.org, and their purpose is to support the tracking and reintroduction of California condors across the Southwest US. We installed our unit on a wireless Vantage Pro (not a 2) and it's been reporting the weather for over a day now.

We're still building WeatherElement client data display pages, but for the work day yesterday, I built a quick, cell phone sized page I could check from the site. You can see current data from the Lookout on http://www.wxelement.com/condorpda.php.

And, if you go to www.SLOweather.com, and click on the Islay Hiil, SLO City, or PG&E links toward the top of the page, those are all WeatherElement beta sites. They're the the common AJAX page that a lot of you are running, (Thanks, Ken!) but will be replaced as soon as the official WeatherElement pages are ready for use.

Thanks for reading, and we look forward to launching WeatherElement soon.

Feel free to ask questions, and to check back here periodically for updates and answers.

Chris

[Weather Display]

Hi
sounds like a direct competition to the Davis IP data logger (which gives plug and play web data) ?
i.e is this instead of using the Davis IP data logger?
also can users of VWS/WD be able to upload data to your system? (i.e by having those software have that ability added)?

[SLOweather]

Great questions!

Hi
sounds like a direct competition to the Davis IP data logger (which gives plug and play web data) ?
i.e is this instead of using the Davis IP data logger?

Yup. we looked a lot at the WeatherLinkIP and their web service. (They released it after we started development.)

At this time, here are the differences between the 2 that we've determined:

1) Davis says they delete data over 2 years old. We store it indefinitely.

2) We think our pages are going to be more attractive and show more data than Davis. 

3) We'll have graphs.

4) They're free. We need to charge a subscription fee to support the extra features.

5) We access more data from the station, including gust info, console battery voltage, and all the extra sensors that the wireless VP2 can handle.

also can users of VWS/WD be able to upload data to your system? (i.e by having those software have that ability added)?

This is an interesting question, as it's the inverse of the question we normally get asked, which is, "Can I use my WeatherElement data with VWS/WD/etc?

The answer to that question is, we've considered it. It a matter of extracting the data in a manner accessible to the other software. However, it's not a feature we'll launch with, and I hope that WeatherElement provides enough features that most people won't want it. But, if the demand is there, we'll fill it.

To answer your question, I don't know why someone with the resources to run VWS/WD would want to upload data to us. That's half way to having a weather site already. Again, if there's a demonstrated demand, we'll consider it.

WeatherElement was developed to fill the niche of people and businesses that want or need to have their local PWS data on the Internet, but don't have the time, desire, or ability to "roll their own". I used my parents as a model for WeatherElement clients. They can use a computer to run Office and Quicken, and web browse, and that's about it. The first WeatherElement went in at their house and was truly plug and play. Upon power-up, it accessed the network and the weather station, and was uploading data in less than a minute. Each unit comes preprogrammed with a unique ID, so we know which unit is sending us data.

All the user has to do is hook it up, go to our web site, register, enter the unit's ID so we know which one is theirs, and the data is already there to be seen. Then, they'll pick from a selection of data and display plans, and tell us some info about their station site, and it'll be on-line.

Chris

[Weather Display]

interesting about Davis deleting data after 2 years
if people use the Davis IP data logger and not a PC at all, then they are going to be loosing valuable climate data

just to clarify, your device plugs into the Bus bay where a Davis data logger plugs in (and so you dont need to have a Davis IP data logger)?

[d_l]

Frankly I don't think the two year storage limit of Davis is really a factor.  It is not like you can review or plot out a previous day's data without downloading it from their site first.  Really what Davis offers is sort of a datalogger storage expansion.  Just as you have to pull that data out of the flash memory in the logger to use it, you also have to pull the data from Davis' servers to make any use of it.

I can't imagine someone setting up a weather station and waiting to collect their data for more than two years.

[pwdiver]

Im using a RainWise MK-III-LR station currently updating to WU thru WD was using VWS but it wont work on a Mac Mini still trying to get my web site up and running 

[BfdWx]

Glad to see this come to life Chris  . I know you have worked very hard to make this a simple yet valuable service. It looks great.

Congratulations!

Jack

[Mark / Ohio]

Looks neat!   



(Somehow I totally missed seeing this thread (and forum) until now.   )