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Weather Station Hardware => Ambient Weather and Ecowitt and other Fine Offset clones => Topic started by: bthoven on December 27, 2017, 01:13:54 AM

Title: Cheap Tablet as an all-in-one weather station console
Post by: bthoven on December 27, 2017, 01:13:54 AM

I own an OEM of Ambient Weather WS-1400-IP which came without a console. I've always wanted to have my own customized console on my desk which can display following realtime on one screen without scrolling:

- sensor data update - live or almost live from my outdoor and indoor sensors
- 5-7 days forecast
- hourly forecast, preferable one icon for every 2-3 hours
- current Moon Phase
- current Sunspot
- my webcam

Brian's PWS is a great and beautiful template which almost fullfils my needs ( weather34.com, mine: http://bthoven.dyndns.biz:802/pws ). Jachym's Meteotemplate is also great and full of information ( meteotemplate.com, mine: http://bthoven.dyndns.biz:802/template).

However, they don't really fit those info on one tablet page. I therefore go for the "Frankenstein" route by combining many Android widgets:

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1.  Weather Station app ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.arf.weatherstation )
     The upper left section. The app comes with an almost complete info widget which displays updated info from my wunderground uploaded data (or from many sources, e.g. clientraw.txt, ...).

2.  Weather & Clock app ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.devexpert.weather )
     The lower left widget: display hourly forecast. I'm actually looking for a 2 or 3 hourly forecast. Those who know, please recommend...thanks

3.  Moon Phase Pro (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.daylightmap.moon.pro.android )
     The upper top right corner: display current Moon Phase, just that.

4.  Sun Spot (middle right) and my webcam image (lower right). These two auto-refresh images from url are accomplished by a great Showr widget ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shadowburst.showr ). I just specify the url of image file which I want to have it refreshed, refresh interval; that's it. For Sun spot, I set it to refresh twice a day from https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/synoptic/sunspots_earth/mdi_sunspots_1024.jpg . For my webcam image, every minute from my own server.

The tablet itself is a cheap Chinese tablet (7.85", Android 6.0, 1GB ram, 16GB rom, $60), set it to always on display when having AC power plugged. To hide both notification bar and navigation keys by using GMD full screen app ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gmd.immersive ) which do not require root.

Hope this is useful for those who are interested.

Title: Re: Cheap Tablet as an all-in-one weather station console
Post by: rlwilson730 on December 29, 2017, 12:44:37 AM

Nice!!  :grin:

Title: Re: Cheap Tablet as an all-in-one weather station console
Post by: drew on December 29, 2017, 11:36:29 AM

Looks great! I also use a cheap tablet as a screen. I use Wxsolution with my Davis station. I have a radar page with conditions that update every 60 seconds that works well for me: http://shoalsweather.net/fhs/radarwx.html


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Title: Re: Cheap Tablet as an all-in-one weather station console
Post by: Bashy on January 01, 2018, 03:47:28 AM

mmm, this seems better use of a tablet than what i am doing with my old tab 2  :oops:

Mine is a glorified light switch in the kitchen, it turns on the smart light  :lol: :lol:
It also doubles sometimes a security cam monitor for the front camera, may have to have a rethink :)

Title: Re: Cheap Tablet as an all-in-one weather station console
Post by: Bushman on January 01, 2018, 06:36:24 PM

I've been doing this for about 4 years.  :)  Great utility.