Topic: Does anyone own both the 6510USB and 6100WLL?

[chatt_IT_sys]

I ended up buying both and only connecting the WLL. The window is closing on the return for the 6510 and I'm trying to figure out if worth keeping. I am an aspiring developer and working to use the data and interact with the APIs and do some fun projects with it. Is there any compelling reason to connect the 6510 in addition so I can play around with other connection items like a PI4, etc? Thanks.

[johnd]

WLL and the console loggers use very different APIs. And unless you have a Pro plan at weatherlink.com the data available from WLL is more limited, eg no archive data as such. In contrast, a local connection to a console logger is completely open and obviously allows use of all the features that its API provides. It's also the case that there is much larger established base of logger users than WLL users though that will start to change over time.

[chatt_IT_sys]

Thank you for the reply. The fact they use diff APIs is actually intriguing. That's exactly the stuff I want to work with. I also wanted to work on Saratoga templates, but AFAIK it appears in will only work with data imputed from the older style. Based on what I see, it wants a device ID and that is basically not the central point moving forward. I could be wrong. If i don't return it, it's not the end of the world, it's not like the USB was hundreds of dollars. I just don't want to open and find out that I cannot even concurrently use both because of some direct conflict.

I do pay for the pro plan on my station and I do like the data it provides. Although, as you imagine, it locks me in to the month indefinitely. I wonder what it is worth on ebay as a used item if I open it and figure out I have no real use for it?

[johnd]

Well I guess one starting point is to compare the APIs.

The logger one is described in the Serial Tech Ref document - https://support.davisinstruments.com/category/rgngiytos8-sdk-downloads

The WLL API is on github at https://weatherlink.github.io/weatherlink-live-local-api/ and then there's the weatherlink.com v2 API for any data that has been uploaded there: https://weatherlink.github.io/v2-api/ (but applicable only to WLL and Enviromonitor data).

[Fifth Horseman]

There is no issue using a logger and the the 6100 concurrently. Both the console (with or without logger) and the 6100 just listen to the data packets broadcast by the weather station (Vue or VP2 ISS) with no data transmitted back to the station, so there is no limit to the number of consoles you can have receiving data.

Using the console and a logger you get live and locally (within the logger) archived data. With the 6100 you get access to current conditions data via http requests and can also get continuously updated wind and rain data via UDP data stream, but no data is archived in the 6100. 

In the JSON formatted data output from the 6100 there is a device ID, its the MAC address of its network interface.

[davidg_nz]

At a glance the WLL API seems a bit limited. I don't see any way of accessing archival data - just current conditions. Unless this changes I personally wouldn't bother with one.

To me the console data logger is more reliable. I've got a Vantage Pro2+ (cabled) installed in a remote location that has been through hundreds of power cuts in the last five years, some up to a couple of days long. So far I've only got two very small gaps in my data - one is about half an hour where I replaced the outdoor temperature+humidity sensor and another is about a day where someone turned off the wrong circuit breaker and I didn't get there time to turn it back on before the data logger ran out of memory.

The only way I achieve this is because the console data logger can keep running without mains power or a PC for up to about a week with a 5 minute archive interval before it starts overwriting old data. In a power cut the UPS keeps my software running for the first hour or so but after that the batteries are nearly flat and it all shuts down. When mains power comes back my software starts up, downloads all the data from the console data logger that it missed and its as though the power cut never happened.

For the weather station at home which isn't so prone to power cuts the console data logger is still handy as I don't have to worry about rebooting the home server or restarting my software.

I'm still kind of tempted by the WLL but only for the excuse of extending my software to support something new. But realistically its not cheap and I've already got a huge to-do list of new features to build and bugs to fix.

[johnd]

At a glance the WLL API seems a bit limited. I don't see any way of accessing archival data - just current conditions.

That's because WLL does not generate its own archive data so it's unsurprising that you don't have direct access to it locally. Archive data is effectively generated at weatherlink.com and so you would need to look at the wl.com API to download your archive data (but this does of course need a Pro plan too).

I'm still kind of tempted by the WLL but only for the excuse of extending my software to support something new. But realistically its not cheap and I've already got a huge to-do list of new features to build and bugs to fix.

WLL has several good features such as the ability to receive any mix of sensors/transmitters on all 8 wireless channels (and this is likely a prime reason why the traditional archive record is no longer fit for purpose with WLL) and many new purchasers are choosing WLL over other logger options, especially the USB logger for which demand has shrunk considerably - WLL cost is not too much more than USB and certainly less than WLIP often was. But WLL obviously won't suit everyone so it's good that there is a choice.