General Questions

[JohnRob]

@xxgbhxx

OpenWeatherMap

Welcome!

I think your default location is embedded in your API Key. In addition, my Device screen has an optional entry for the country.

In this device driver you don't have a configuration button but you need to "save preferences" to "remember" the data you've inputted.

[xxgbhxx]

Thanks for the response

It's nothing to do with the API key. First it takes the entry in the "Optional" zip code part of Preferences. If you don't set that it then uses the the "Location Name" entry from Setting>Location and Modes. The reason I know this is because the logs errored out once and showed me the query URL. In the query it's hardcoded the "zip" flag in the URL and also took the entry I used to have in "Location Name" (which was "My Home") and it then of course failed. Changing this to a random zip code works.

On another note I can see someone else complaining that zip "(postcode)(country)" no longer worked in 2017. It was apparently going to get fixed but it never has been. If I hand craft the API call with any of the other identifiers it works, you can't use zip (or rather postcode) for a UK address. So https://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?q=Manchester&APPID=******* works fine.

G

[xxgbhxx]

@Shane_pcs

The dashboards you see with weather and such are usually images. My dashboards have calendars and weather and radar maps as image tiles with hyperlinks to dynamic images online. They refresh from time to time and update on the dashboard.

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. So what weather services do you use for that? I can't find any that serve up a static image anywhere.

Thanks

G

[Shane_pcs]

Well some of mine are from action tiles, since I already was using that. But others are from links like:

basically you can pull in anything that uses a picture.

[Cobra]

@xxgbhxx

Third party driver for Weather Underground

Is this one of my drivers?

If so then if you have a weather underground api key then you can use log. & lat or a station id or,a location
I live in South Hetton and it is written as South%20Hetton

Unfortunately,if you don’t have an existing api key then nobody can help because no driver will be able to collect data from the wu servers

If this is one of my drivers and you have an api key please let me know via pm and I’ll try and help.

Andy

[xxgbhxx]

@Cobra

If this is one of my drivers and you have an api key please let me know via pm and I’ll try and help.

Thanks very much, you have mail.

G

[ogiewon]

@xxgbhxx

2. Configure Options

In a number of the devices I've installed such as the "Generic Zigbee Bulb" that I'm using for my Ozram light theres a "Configure" command. I've seen on some of the screenshots here there are configuration parameters that can be set but when I click on it, it never gives me anything to set, it's just a button that doesn't go anywhere. Am I wrong in assuming at least some of these "Conifgure" buttons should allow you to configure something?

Welcome!

Most of the drivers have settings that need to be sent to a device in order to configure the device to report data back to the hub correctly. Usually, most of these parameters are not exposed as options to end-users. Instead, when the device is paired, if a driver is automatically assigned to the device, the configure() method is automatically run to ensure the device has the correct settings for communicating with the hub. If you manually assign a driver to a device, you must click the CONFIGURE button in the web UI to send that new driver's configuration to the device.

Hope this helps to clear up the mystery of the CONFIGURE button.

[marktheknife]

To get images of weather maps or forecasts in your dashboard, you have to copy/paste the link from a website that serves such an image. Like this, for example.

As the linked image is updated, you can see the changes on your dashboard.

If you want tiles with other specific weather attributes, many people have found @bangali’s APIXU weather driver to be a good alternative to weather underground, including myself and some users in the UK, IIRC.

[xxgbhxx]

@marktheknife

To get images of weather maps or forecasts in your dashboard, you have to copy/paste the link from a website that serves such an image. Like this, for example.

Hi,

Thanks for that. I had worked that out (as I stated in my original post) but what I was looking for was links to websites that actually provide their data as an image. I found two that worked for the UK but I'm sure there's many more

https://www.theweather.com/widget/
http://images.intellicast.com/WxImages/SatelliteLoop/hieusat_None_anim.gif

The others I found (of which there are many which are easy to find) were all US centric. Rather what I should say is all the examples I found were US centric but I didn't delve into them to see if the same service provided UK based ones.

I do appreciate that most of the users here are probably US based and while it was faily obvious from my post I didn't explicitly say I was in the UK so sometimes it's not always clear that the advice you're giving doesn't always apply so readily. Not unhappy with people proffering advice though I hasten to add just that sometimes it's not as easy as people first think.

Thanks again

G

[marktheknife]

Yes I noticed you are in the UK, I mentioned that the apixu driver can be configured to work with locations in the UK. There is an attribute for the apixu driver that can show you current conditions and next day forecast, including with some nice icons. Take a look at @bangali’s thread for that driver to see all the attributes it supports.

But as far as images of weather maps or extended forecasts, if you can find a source that is local to the UK, then it should work in your dashboard with the image template, and will auto-update as the source image file is updated. At least with a jpeg, I haven’t tried a gif (though I don’t see why that would make a big difference).

[xxgbhxx]

@ogiewon

Hope this helps to clear up the mystery of the CONFIGURE button.

It absolutely does. Be helpful if it was changed to something more obvious such as "Send Default Config" or "Update Default Config" or something like that. A dirty great big pressable button that just says "Configure" immediately implied to me it was a place to go to configure something. The fact you get zero feedback from pressing the button (at least the times I tried though I'm guessing there might be something in the logs) adds to that confusion

Thanks again

G

[marktheknife]

@xxgbhxx

The fact you get zero feedback from pressing the button (at least the times I tried though I'm guessing there might be something in the logs) adds to that confusion

That’s correct, if you check the logs when pushing the configure button, you should see some activity.

[xxgbhxx]

@marktheknife

Take a look at @bangali’s thread for that driver to see all the attributes it supports.

Will do and huge thanks again.

With Cobra's help I also managed to get the WU app working and he also pointed me at weeWX which I think I'll set up for my personal weather station.

It's all great help though I'm very grateful to everyone.

Thanks

G

[csteele]

You may want to update your Profile to have a Location.

Click your self in the upper right corner, Click the gear. On the left, click Profile and (finally) you’ll see Location.

That Location info is then shown to anyone that clicks your name in a message posting.

[john.hart3706]

@xxgbhxx

1. The OpenWeatherMap Device

I can install it and I can get it to work provided I want to know what the weather is like in the US. Can someone modify the default parameters to allow an optional CityID, City Name or Lat/Long as well? The default "ZipCode" doesn't work for the UK. (or I've tried and just don't know what to set)

Maybe this will help?

Outside Temperature

Trial and error was the answer. I discovered that by putting just the first part of the postcode (in my case EX11) and then GB in the country code, it works.

[xxgbhxx]

Thanks for the pointer, Updated.

G

[xxgbhxx]

@john.hart3706

Maybe this will help?

Good find.

I'd tried first half no country code, full postcode with country code, city name with country code and a few other combinations none of which seemed to work. First half of postcode does indeed work with the country code but the only problem is the center of this post code is almost 20 miles away.

I can rely on WU for now but would be good to get this supported properly (assuming it's of any use)

Thanks

G

[Cobra]

For the UK I didn't find OWM to be as accurate as WU
Which is why I continue to use it where I can

Andy

[joe-hennessy]

What hyperlink do you use for a calendar?