Author Topic: Android App  (Read 3827 times)

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Offline ocala

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Android App
« on: November 16, 2019, 03:01:37 PM »
Does anyone know of an app that can keep the temperature of my station in the notification bar and then change the station  based on the GPS?
The only 2 I know of, do not work. Weatherunderground and the Weatherstation app.
Can't find any others.
 

Offline galfert

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Re: Android App
« Reply #1 on: November 16, 2019, 03:38:05 PM »
« Last Edit: November 16, 2019, 04:16:17 PM by galfert »
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Offline galfert

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Re: Android App
« Reply #2 on: November 16, 2019, 03:48:30 PM »
I shouldn't have posted that. I hadn't looked at that app in some months. I had it installed but I had the notification bar setting turned off. I've now revisited the app and I now see that it inconsistently loads data for some CWOP stations. Meaning it is hit or miss in all the data. I remember now having emailed the developer and bringing this issue up. They then did a database update and it worked for a while (a day or so) and then it became hit or miss again. I shelved this app back then but kept it installed. I guess it is still beta. Shame...it looks like a nice app. It has potential which is why I kept it installed.

I don't have any other recommendations.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2019, 03:51:19 PM by galfert »
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Offline ocala

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Re: Android App
« Reply #3 on: November 16, 2019, 03:54:29 PM »
Already tried it. Only uses official NOAA sites for temp notification.
Thanks anyways.
I really wish Weatherlink would add this functionality to their app.

Offline galfert

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Re: Android App
« Reply #4 on: November 16, 2019, 03:57:44 PM »
It isn't just for official NOAA sites. All CWOP stations show up. If you see your station and the temperature shows dashes that is the missing data I'm talking about. Sometimes it is there and sometimes it isn't. Look at a different CWOP station and it may have all the data.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2019, 04:04:11 PM by galfert »
Ecowitt GW1000 | Meteobridge on Raspberry Pi
WU: KFLWINTE111  |  PWSweather: KFLWINTE111
CWOP: FW3708  |  AWEKAS: 14814
Windy: pws-f075acbe
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Offline galfert

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Re: Android App
« Reply #5 on: November 16, 2019, 04:20:07 PM »
I just invited the developer to join the conversation. Hopefully they'll jump in. I see that there has been recent updates, so it isn't abandonware. This app has lots of potential. I just wish it was more reliable for current data instead of showing dashes sometimes.
Ecowitt GW1000 | Meteobridge on Raspberry Pi
WU: KFLWINTE111  |  PWSweather: KFLWINTE111
CWOP: FW3708  |  AWEKAS: 14814
Windy: pws-f075acbe
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Offline ocala

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Re: Android App
« Reply #6 on: November 16, 2019, 04:48:26 PM »
This is a map of the stations contained in the app. As you can see no cwop. It may have had them at one time but not this version.

Offline galfert

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Re: Android App
« Reply #7 on: November 16, 2019, 04:53:58 PM »
Follow these instructions to add CWOP stations:
http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=35089.msg359375#msg359375
« Last Edit: November 16, 2019, 04:58:50 PM by galfert »
Ecowitt GW1000 | Meteobridge on Raspberry Pi
WU: KFLWINTE111  |  PWSweather: KFLWINTE111
CWOP: FW3708  |  AWEKAS: 14814
Windy: pws-f075acbe
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Offline graniteapps

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Re: Android App
« Reply #8 on: November 16, 2019, 09:08:06 PM »
I'm the developer of the NOAA Weather app. I guess the answer about it using the CWOP network is a bit of mix.

Since this is a NOAA based app, my goal is always to match pretty closely what you would see on weather.gov, and that means a more restricted station list. I did add an option to use an alternate station list as mentioned, but this isn't exactly the CWOP network. The station list comes from MesoWest/SynopticLabs. They have data for a wide range of stations which you can view at https://synopticlabs.org/demos/lookup/?&lookup=networks.

If this option is used a list of the closest active stations with air temp data are requested for the following networks:
1,2,11,14,21,26,33,36,62,65,69,96,106,121,122,188,204,1005

I believe some of those are part of CWOP. The reason I choose those networks is because the app still requests the actual data directly from a NOAA API and those were networks I determined NOAA's API would return data for. For whatever reason the NOAA API will return data for networks that weather.gov doesn't use. This may be a little confusing and it is kind of a mess which I'm simplifying somewhat. NOAA is in the slow process of updating their APIs so there is a possibility this could improve in the future.

Paul

Offline galfert

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Re: Android App
« Reply #9 on: November 16, 2019, 09:25:16 PM »
Thank you Paul for joining.

MesoWest/Synoptic Network ID 65 is CWOP. Most CWOP station owners know that their station is picked up by MesoWest via NOAA MADIS ingestion. We often visit MesoWest directly to see data and analysis. So this is great that you added that capability.

Can you provide more information as to why sometimes CWOP stations data shows up as - - (two dashes)?
Ecowitt GW1000 | Meteobridge on Raspberry Pi
WU: KFLWINTE111  |  PWSweather: KFLWINTE111
CWOP: FW3708  |  AWEKAS: 14814
Windy: pws-f075acbe
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Offline ocala

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Re: Android App
« Reply #10 on: November 17, 2019, 08:46:01 AM »
I'll add the stations and test it out.

Offline graniteapps

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Re: Android App
« Reply #11 on: November 17, 2019, 12:04:49 PM »
For quick reference to use the MesoWest station list you press the menu button at the top right, then tab options, then select the alternate station list.

If you see -- for temperature it means that the app didn't find temp in the data it downloaded, but there are 4 places the app downloads data from so this is part of the simplification i was referring to before.

By default the app will use the NOAA provided information contained in the file it downloads for the forecast data at for example https://f1.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=40&lon=-120&FcstType=dwml which should match what you see at https://www.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=40&lon=-120 from the web. I assume this will not show CWOP data. You will often see -- here when NOAA does not provide any station information for that location, but in those cases the app will say "No Data" as well which I would expect to be more common than only the temp missing and other data present.

In the case where NOAA provides no station information for a particular location, the app does NOT automatically select a nearby station. You have to select one from the list yourself. This again, is done so the default behavior will match the NOAA website but it will also impact the original question of the thread. If you use the status bar notification or widget set to auto-locate it will stop after loading this initial file so if I'm correct that NOAA doesn't put CWOP data in that initial file, than you probably can't do exactly what you want with the app.

After NOAA moves to their new API which is at api.weather.gov, I think this will work much better. I could get it working now, but I have been burned too many times building new functionality on top of messy or disappearing APIs as well as new beta APIs. Until I am sure the direction NOAA is going I will probably keep things mostly as they are.

If you select a different weather station the app will then associate that station with the selected location, and that will affect the widgets and notifications as well. Note that you can then select a different station as much as you want but you cannot revert to the original NOAA default. A trick if you really want to do that is the following. Go to where you enter in a location in the app and instead enter "clearSavedStations" and press search. You will see "Preference Set" if it works.

If you select a station yourself, the other 3 resources are used currently in the following order. I'll use F3708 as the example.

1) The app tries one of NOAA's production APIs which gives no data in this case.
https://w1.weather.gov/xml/current_obs/F3708.xml

2) The app then tires NOAAs beta API.
https://api.weather.gov/stations/F3708/observations/latest
Success. This is good news for the future, suggesting NOAA's new API will work with at least some CWOP stations.

3) The app would then query MesoWest.
https://api.synopticlabs.org/v2/stations/latest?stid=F3708&within=300&vars=air_temp,wind_speed,wind_direction,wind_gust,relative_humidity,altimeter,dew_point_temperature,visibility&token=[my_token]
I won't post my token here. You may be able to use a demo one from synoptic labs website. These requests can get expensive for me to provide when used at scale. its not a free API. This is partly why I use it only if the other requests fail. Its possible in the future MesoWest/Synoptic could be used more but perhaps placed behind an in-app purchase to cover cost.

This is a long post already so I'll stop there. Happy to answer more questions.

Paul

Offline ocala

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Re: Android App
« Reply #12 on: November 17, 2019, 03:42:17 PM »
Thank you for the long explanation. Nice to know the thinking that goes on behind the scenes.
You're right in that the GPS option I was looking for won't work. Don't want to have to look for it manually. I took a drive today to some mesowest stations by me. Waited the 15 minutes for the update but it just updated my home location. It does that just fine.
I understand about putting a band-aid on it to get it to work temporarily. No point in doing that.
Hopefully when the api is updated it will do what I want.
Appreciate the explanation and I'll keep it installed so I'll be notified of any updates.

Offline galfert

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Re: Android App
« Reply #13 on: November 17, 2019, 04:38:48 PM »
Yes I too really appreciate the explanation of how the app works. Nice to see that it has several attempts in different ways to get data. Hopefully the new API will be finalized soon by NOAA and prove to be the way to go.
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 ChanelClark

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Re: Android App
« Reply #14 on: March 13, 2023, 03:50:11 AM »
Hey there! I stumbled upon this old forum post and wanted to check if there've been any updates since then. Maybe there's something that fits the bill now. Also, I recently found out about OCR, a way to scan documents with your phone and convert the text into an editable format. It's super helpful for work or school stuff. There's a website called https://smartengines.com/ that has an automatic and eco-friendly document scanning and OCR service that's pretty awesome. I know it's been a while since this post was made, but I hope my suggestions are still useful. Cheers!
« Last Edit: March 17, 2023, 02:33:16 AM by ChanelClark »

 

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