Can somebody help clear up the clouds on HE weather integration?

There are several things on my HE wishlist.... I’m looking for simple and reliable TTS and reliable weather integration. These are two items I want to really explore. I have tried to read and follow the community topics on both.

I think that I’ll pursue native Sonos for TTS even though I have Alexa and hate segmenting. That looks like the most stabile and cleanest way. Shame I have such an investment in Bose and have to use Sonos.

Weather on the other hand leaves me still in a quandary. I haven’t seen any real good solutions. Simple and reliable integrations are my quest.

I apologize up front for opening another thread but weather solutions are foggy for me and I’m hoping somebody can clear it for me.

I've used Echo Speaks, AlexaTTS and Sonos. They all work. AlexaTTS works better if you have an RPi (or equivalent) to run alexacookie.js. Sonos also works better if you can run node-sonos-http-api locally.

For weather, I use the APIXU integration.

I know there are several Weather options. One obvious one is the built-in OpenWeather driver.

Create a Virtual device, choose the built in OpenWeather driver and then fill in the blanks... you'll need a free OpenWeather 'key' from signing up on their website.

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On Dashboard, you can then select your OpenWeather device and use the weather template.
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OpenWeather offers only a few attributes:
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The alternative I picked is wx-ApiXU-Driver

it has a lot more attributes... around 60, so many that you should select only the ones you really need.

Same installation... virtual device, pick wx-ApiXU-Driver (after having imported it from Github) and you'll also need their free Key (apixu)

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I setup APIXU and am playing around with it now... Very nice driver. Gives me more than enough info. Now If I can just figure out how to use it all. Thanks again

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URL repaired. Thanks.

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Does anyone know if there is a way to switch the wind direction arrow by 180 deg so it points in the direction that the wind is blowing rather that to where it is from?

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So have you had experience with native Sonos integration? Does it work well? I have no experience with Sonos but I am considering purchasing an entry level unit for TTS, if it works. I have looked at some of the other solutions that I have seen on this community but they all seem to have a lot of moving parts and potential failure points.

Thanks @csteele for your suggestion on the ApiXu weather app information. It looks to work great and is giving me what I need for now. I hope to get a PWS in the future as soon as I can figure out how I can get one that integrates well with Hubitat..... You guidance is very much appreciated.

@automation
I'm also looking to get a PWS and add it to my HE too. I'll keep a watch on this post to get any info I can. Good luck with your setup!

Thanks

I think learning about Weewx would be a great place to start on PWS...

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I have a weatherflow PWS... You can integrate that via WeeWX, or if you prefer, setup a node.js running on an external computer and push the updates into Hubitat via MakerAPI.

I do the latter for the few values I want from my PWS. If I wanted a LOT of values from the PWS into HE, I would probably do the WeeWx integration.

Both solutions are fully local, but both require an external computer - either running WeeWx or node.js.

The nice part of weatherflow is it broadcasts all weather data updates on the network via udp, so it is local and relatively trivial to sniff them out and shove into Hubitat. If in the future Hubitat adds the ability to listen for unsolicited UDP packets natively, you wouldn't need an external node at all. I don't know that Hubitat will ever add that ability though.

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An issue I had was with Sonos grouping. If I sent TTS announcements to a Sonos that wasn't the master for that group, it would break the group up. Also, music playing on the group wouldn't resume sometimes.

So I ended using Alexa TTS for my announcements (using only Echos, not Sonos speakers). I do use the Sonos to play music or radio stations based on modes or virtual switches.

I strongly suggest you look at this thread - Sonos Grouping

I found that installing node-sonos-http-api-master on my odroid xu4 (an RPi alternative) has made using my Sonos speakers in Hubitat so much better. And the suggestion came from the thread I linked to.

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Not to reply to myself... But...

You can also use Node-Red and catch the weatherflow UDP messages, then push into Hubitat via Maker API if you don't want to stand up a node.js server. I just did it this afternoon, as I'm trying to learn Node-Red.

I use Node-Red to read and parse daily.json from Weewx which is intercepting data from my Ambient Weather station. I then turn on/off virtual switches in HE via Maker API. eg: if Wind speed >= threshold then turn off the fountain. I am not much of a programmer and I fond Node Red easy to understand.