Topic: End Of Service For Acurite Hub

[Jack Bowman]

So, will this affect the ethernet capture aspect of Kevin's software? How many hours does it take the hub to quite transmitting data if it does not receive a response from Acurite's server?  Anyone spoofing the DNS know what this timing is?

[WonderWX]

my smarthub hasn't talked to myacurite in two years. i use the 'Local Responder Script' in this sub.
smarthub needs to receive the time or your rain day and rain 24 hours will not work properly.
it does stop the 18 second reporting and goes into a standby mode of trying every few minutes.

[Jack Bowman]

Good information. Thank you. So it looks like spoofing a simple response from the server will do the trick.

[dguy]

So a month ago I bought 2 smart hubs and now Acurite is telling me that they will not work beyond Aug 2018. BUT if I want to pay them another 80 bucks they will provide a similar service for a new hardware package.

Sounds like bait and switch to me. Since my units are covered by a one year warranty, I asked about warranty replacement and the customer service rep told me "sorry", that I could purchase the new units for and additional $80.

So it appears Acurite is stopping service for a class of users to force them to purchase new more expensive hardware and not honoring the warranty on the hardware that they are currently selling.

Anybody interested in joining a class action lawsuit against these turkeys?

[Jack Bowman]

So Kevin, How hard is it to have your software send a spoofed server response? Is it even possible with the current configuration of software?

[dguy]

Can you provide more info about how to capture data from the Smart Hub. I have lots of servers and develop software for a living. If there are some specs or existing scripts I would like the info. I'll set something up locally at the two sites where I use these to do the job. I have DNS servers as well so I can capture the DNS request and direct the HUB anywhere needed.

[nincehelser]

Can you provide more info about how to capture data from the Smart Hub. I have lots of servers and develop software for a living. If there are some specs or existing scripts I would like the info. I'll set something up locally at the two sites where I use these to do the job. I have DNS servers as well so I can capture the DNS request and direct the HUB anywhere needed.

There aren't really any formal specs written up that I know of.  However, the protocol for the SmartHUB is pretty straightforward and human-readable.  If you set up a network sniffer and follow the http traffic, much becomes pretty clear.

There are several open-source projects on github you could examine.  "Acuparse" is one.  User "Billfor" here just posted some code at this link: https://github.com/billfor/acurite-bridge.  User "mwall" here writes a lot of code for weewx, and he documents his code well, so I'd suggest looking at his acurite driver code for network data interception.

The other thing to consider is how to keep the SmartHUB happy when the myAcurite server stops servicing them.  Basically you need to pretend to be a myAcurite server and acknowledge the data transmissions.  You should also send back response codes with timestamp data.  The SmartHUB has no clock of its own and doesn't have the typical NTP client (no room, I imagine), so it relies on these timestamps.  This is important if you want your rain data to make sense.

[nincehelser]

Another option you should probably consider before getting in too deep is building your own SmartHUB-like device.

Using a $20 USB TV dongle and the RTL_433 software, you can intercept Acurite sensor data directly from the airwaves.  This eliminates the need for the SmartHUB completely.  The one shortcoming is that you can't intercept baro data from the airwaves, so if you need that you need to wire one in yourself.  User "vreihen " discusses how to do that here: http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=33864.msg344184#msg344184

I have some rough instructions for installing the RTL_433 software here: http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=30139.msg301649#msg301649

Personally, I'd recommend this solution.  It's nice and clean instead of having to "hack" something into doing something it wasn't originally intended to do.

[Jack Bowman]

Thanks for the input George. Much appreciated!

[dguy]

Great information, thanks so much. I think I'll just put together my own smart hub equivalent. I'm only using temp sensors to keep track temps at a a couple of my equipment cabinets.

[mwall]

here are the weewx-related links:

for weewx itself, see the weewx web site.  the drivers folder contains acurite.py, which has everything we know about the acurite protocols over USB (some of that translates to the protocols uses by the acurite bridge / smarthub):

http://weewx.com

the weewx-interceptor is an extension to weewx that will capture traffic from many types of weather stations that are only 'cloud' based, and the acurite bridge / smarthub / access are included.  this driver operates in one of two modes.  as a sniffer, it will simply pick off the data as the smarthub talks to the acurite servers.  as a listener, it will pretend to be an acurite server.  the readme has details about how to do all kinds of different network configurations.  see the Acurite Bridge comments at the beginning, then the AcuriteBridge class in the code for the actual implementation:

https://github.com/matthewwall/weewx-interceptor

the weewx-sdr is an extension to weewx that will get data from SDR USB dongles using rtl_433 and rtl-sdr.  the readme has complete details about how to capture data from acurite hardware and from many other types of hardware.

https://github.com/matthewwall/weewx-sdr

it is all GPL3.  many thanks to all of those who have contributed.  isn't is nice to have options?

m