Author Topic: Putting weather information on my own website  (Read 1351 times)

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Offline canlab

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Putting weather information on my own website
« on: November 18, 2020, 03:41:38 PM »
I am looking at purchasing a weather station. I want to be able to put up weather conditions on a website of my own design. What is the best weather station and method for doing this?

Offline PaulMy

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Re: Putting weather information on my own website
« Reply #1 on: November 18, 2020, 03:58:38 PM »
Davis VP2 weather station.
And using one of the weather programs, i.e. CumulusMX, connected with a logger or Weatherlink Live to FTP data.


I am sure you'll have lots more suggestions, and then even more questions.


Oh, and welcome to the forum.


Enjoy,
Paul




Offline galfert

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Re: Putting weather information on my own website
« Reply #2 on: November 18, 2020, 04:20:24 PM »
You'll want a weather station that will easily allow you access to the raw sensor data. There are two predominately popular choices. These are not the only choices but these two choices will allow you the most available options to expand with beyond just the standard use. The recommendations I will list are purely a personal opinion. Other people may have other opinions and other things that they use. There is certainly not a lack of options for you to consider but I can't exactly give you a comprehensive list of all the possibilities. I'm sure others will chime in with their opinions.

The two options I will recommend stem from two different ways of considering your weather station and what it looks like, what it does, pricing (your budget), and durability. Either of these choices have extensive support from this user community and from the manufactures.

You can go with a Fine Offset clone (from various resellers that brand seemingly the same stuff  with some minor differences) or you can go with a Davis Instruments weather station. The Fine Offset clone brand to consider will depend on where you live as some of them are regional. These are Ecowitt, Ambient Weather, Froggit, Misol, Nevada Radio, and others. Ecowitt is the only world wide available one of these as it is the one that is a subsidiary rather than a reseller of Fine Offset. This choice represents a more cost conscious approach. It may not be as resilient as a Davis but you'll get good value and many sensor type options. The display console if that matters to you will be more modern. Another cons is that the distance between the sensors and the console will not be able to go as far as with Davis. With Davis you can go 1000 feet. With Fine Offset clones you'd be lucky to go too far past 100 feet....but some of the newer models go close to 300 feet. The Davis brand has two lines to choose from. There is the Davis Vantage Vue and the Davis Vantage Pro 2. The Vantage Vue in my opinion is a considerable expense that could be something to worry about if your humidity sensor craps out as they often do....the problem with this model is that you have to replace the entire outdoor unit and that is a costly expense. The Davis Vantage Pro 2 on the other hand has every part available at reasonable prices to be replaced by the owner. The Davis Vantage Pro 2 represents a more costly device that will last you a very long time. If you live in a coastal region the conformal coating should fair better than other models. Nothing is perfect in a harsh environment but it is among the best you can get. The Davis though does have the unfortunate downside that it looks like a system that has not changed in well over a couple of decades in design....with a black and white LCD display...again if that matters as to many people it doesn't and it is all about the sensors. Peak wind speed will be better displayed more rapidly on a Davis as it refreshes more often. Peak wind speed is not lost on Fine Offset...it is that depending on the sensor chosen will report less frequently and has a lower max speed capability. The other thing you'll have to contend with on a Davis is how to connect it to your network as there are many logger connectivity options; WeatherLink Live, WiFiLogger, Meteobridge NANO, or Weatherlink USB. These are all different with different pricing and capabilities.

Lastly to answer your question of how to send the data to your own website ....well either of the choices I mentioned will allow that with the proper configuration. You'll be able to expand and use some software like Cumulus MX, Meteobridge, Weather-Display, or WeeWX to basically send data via FTP to your website. You can design you own website to receive this data or you can pick from several website templates that are very well designed and simple to deploy.

So to recap the fist decision is Davis or Fine Offset clone (start by looking at Ecowitt). The second decision is what sensors and what logging option to use. The third decision is what software you want to use.
Ecowitt GW1000 | Meteobridge on Raspberry Pi
WU: KFLWINTE111  |  PWSweather: KFLWINTE111
CWOP: FW3708  |  AWEKAS: 14814
Windy: pws-f075acbe
Weather Underground Issue Tracking
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Offline canlab

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Re: Putting weather information on my own website
« Reply #3 on: November 19, 2020, 09:53:57 AM »
Thank you for the input. What do you think of Acurite Atlas and would it allow me to extract data to my own website?

Offline galfert

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Re: Putting weather information on my own website
« Reply #4 on: November 19, 2020, 12:34:09 PM »
[Acurite] ...eh, not for me to recommend. Too many issues. But I'm sure that there are folks around here that are happy with it, just not as many as there once were. I can gauge brand loyalty and enthusiasm just by monitoring and reviewing the traffic on this and other forums. At one point Acurite drew in a lot more activity, greater than Ambient / Ecowitt / Fine Offset. But I would say that in the last couple years enthusiasm for Acurite has lessened considerably. You can look for yourself in the posting dates of the message threads in the forum. At the same time the opposite happened with Fine Offset and its clones. There has been much innovation and the various companies (Ambient and Ecowitt) have shown willingness to support the enthusiast weather community. With Davis they have always enjoyed a healthy loyal following, and they have continued to release new products to do more with their stations; new Weatherlink.com site, WeatherLink Live, and now even a new air quality sensor. Acurite went the other way; they closed a user forum, they got rid of phone support, and they discontinued and disabled the smartHUB, and they never made any provisions to allow their customers to have at their data locally. Sure workarounds exist like Acuparse and WeeWX can be shoehorned in but with compromise in data timeliness or in acquisition of all sensors (one or the other...you have to choose). Then on top of all that mess you throw in quality control issues since the Atlas launched....and yes some initial issues were resolved like erratic lightning sensors, UV reporting too low, and lately displays that just crash and never work again. There are other issues but those are the major ones. So no I can't recommend Acurite at this time. But that is just one person's opinion. I'm sure you'll hear from others. I do want to say that in my opinion there is no perfect station brand nor model. There is always a compromise. Fine Offset clones and Davis all have their issues too and I have already mentioned some of those shortfalls. But I do think that most people would happily find themselves either in the Davis or Fine Offset camp happily. You just need to decided which is appropriate for your needs/wants.

« Last Edit: November 19, 2020, 12:41:51 PM by galfert »
Ecowitt GW1000 | Meteobridge on Raspberry Pi
WU: KFLWINTE111  |  PWSweather: KFLWINTE111
CWOP: FW3708  |  AWEKAS: 14814
Windy: pws-f075acbe
Weather Underground Issue Tracking
Tele-Pole

Offline Boston4

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Re: Putting weather information on my own website
« Reply #5 on: November 20, 2020, 04:58:11 PM »
For what it's worth, I have a Lacrosse V40A-PROV2. I am able to "sniff" the data packets out of the air using Weewx software, an RPI,  and a special add-on called the "Interceptor Driver" ( these are freely downloadable linux based programs.)  I'm not computer savvy, but I worked on it as a little project and with some patience somehow got it to work.  It's been running flawless for a couple of years. Weewx will push your data to whatever site you want, including your own personal website.
The Davis equipment is higher quality, but I chose this particular station because the temperature sensor is separate from the wind and rain collector which allows you to site it in an appropriate location and out of direct sunlight.
Have fun!

Offline canlab

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Re: Putting weather information on my own website
« Reply #6 on: November 21, 2020, 11:28:14 AM »
Thanks everyone. I'm leaning towards Ecowitt HP2551 WiFi Weather Station and using Cumulusmx. I want to be able to upload lightning detection info to my website as well as wind, rain and possibly webcam images.

Anybody see any issues that I would encounter?

I live on a lake and would like to be able to have localized weather conditions for cottage goers. Right now all our weather is based out of cities located almost an hour away.

Offline PaulMy

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Re: Putting weather information on my own website
« Reply #7 on: November 21, 2020, 11:53:05 AM »
Quote
Anybody see any issues that I would encounter?
The GW1000 does not have a datalogger so CumulusMX will not be able to catch up data for the period of time the PC/RPi was not running.


Enjoy,
Paul




Offline galfert

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Re: Putting weather information on my own website
« Reply #8 on: November 21, 2020, 02:05:53 PM »
Even though the Davis stations have a data logger by design that only helps you later populate your software, your personal website, and Weatherlink.com. The logging capability does not help you catch up any other weather service. I'm not aware of any that allows catching up. Weather Underground used to, but that was long ago as they have since taken this feature away.

Therefore even with a Davis system I still recommend a decent battery backup solution. By ensuring that your modem/router and weather console are powered with a battery backup (UPS) you can continue logging weather data when there is a power outage. Then you'll be able to continue to upload to all the weather services.
Ecowitt GW1000 | Meteobridge on Raspberry Pi
WU: KFLWINTE111  |  PWSweather: KFLWINTE111
CWOP: FW3708  |  AWEKAS: 14814
Windy: pws-f075acbe
Weather Underground Issue Tracking
Tele-Pole

Offline canlab

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Re: Putting weather information on my own website
« Reply #9 on: November 24, 2020, 10:20:50 AM »
So I'm assuming GW1000 is the operating system of the Ecowitt HP2551?

Does the lightning sensor interact directly to this system? Can I upload lightning info to Cumulus MX?

Are there different templates for Cumulus MX beside the stock version for website upload? If so where can they be found?

Offline PaulMy

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Re: Putting weather information on my own website
« Reply #10 on: November 24, 2020, 11:15:36 AM »

Quote
Are there different templates for Cumulus MX beside the stock version for website upload? If so where can they be found?
YES! They are at the Cumulus Support forum -
https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewforum.php?f=25
https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=18074
https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewforum.php?f=44
https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=17845


And some can be seen under the links tab here http://komokaweather.com/cumulusmx/index.php


Enjoy,
Paul


Offline PaulMy

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Re: Putting weather information on my own website
« Reply #11 on: November 24, 2020, 11:58:52 AM »

Quote
So I'm assuming GW1000 is the operating system of the Ecowitt HP2551?
The GW1000 is only a wireless device that receives from the various Ecowitt sensors and stations, and that is what CumulusMX accesses through its WiFi IPaddress.


Quote
Can I upload lightning info to Cumulus MX?
Yes, CumulusMX does receive the lightning data from the GW1000 and displays the information in its dashboard - Distance to last strike, Time of last strike, Number of strikes today..  I do not have a full Ecowitt station (just Air Quality and soil temp) so have no direct experience but there are some webtags that I presume can be used to add to a website template.


Enjoy,
Paul

Offline fkapp

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Re: Putting weather information on my own website
« Reply #12 on: November 24, 2020, 01:19:47 PM »
If you go with the Davis Weatherlink live it has 4 AA battery backup built into the device.
Specs say last 5 days for backup, but luckily I havent had to validate how long can run without power.