What's the best way to get simple weather data so I can do Rules off, "if the forecast says rain, check if my windows are open"? I know lots of ways to write rules but I'm not sure how to get local weather data.
Here is one of multiple options available that would enable yo to do what you are looking to do:
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Soooo “here’s an idea but it’s a sucky one” ?? Lol
You can use the native "openweathermap" driver and use custom attribute weather for rain, sun, few clouds etc.
As others have pointed out online weather sources I won't. If you want some microlocal readings..... Can be integrated with hubitat and Rachio
I assume it depends on where you are located. We could at least start with a continent... Generally are you in the Americas or Europe... or somewhere else?
Yes, in my dealings with NOAA, many of us who were testing the data found lots of discrepancies based on location. Many of us had accurate data regularly while others could not depend on the data, as many times it was days old. NOAA database managers/programmers generally blamed the errors on local weather station problems supplying incorrect data.
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Ive been attempting to solve this exact issue (rain - not so much windows, but thats a great idea) since the winter in preparation for determining a sprinkler schedule.
I found Weather.gov to be crap. I started testing
- World Weather Online
- Visual Crossing
- Tomorrow.io
- Rapid API
- Open Weatheer
Id say VC/WWO are the best from my results, but WWO has a fee, and didnt outpace VC enough to justify. Tomorrow.io seemed good, but either did something weird with the time/date calcs or my brain didnt understand it
@rlithgow1 is spot in about the Tempest Weather Station and their local forecast. I jsut didnt have a great place to put it. The $300 price tag seemed great for what you got. Its still an option for me
Last summer I had an accurite collection cup, I made an Hubitatable RF receiver so I can incorporate real time rain levels .
Some ideas for you to spin with
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I don't want to blow my own trumpet, because it's not mine to blow, but there is an EcoWitt driver I "look after" that can offer local weather data using local weather station readings. I can provide links for those interested.
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please -- always looking to add more to my weather monster
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HOW THE F did I not find this with my device searching GitHub - padus/ecowitt: Hubitat Ecowitt Gateway Integration ..
I need to read more about this... this looks much better than my cobbling of RF sniffing
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Nowadays you need to look a little differently....
I took over the drivers from Mirco late last year after he left the HE platform. Since then I have benefited from the contribution of others wanting to expand the capability of the drivers, but that does not mean that is the only driver for change in the capabilities of the code.
Feel free to submit suggestions for enhancements....
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Does the Ecowitt solution here only help if you own a personal station? That's super cool for many folks but, at least for now, I'm looking for "no hardware required, get it from servers" solutions. I'm in Southern California and am happy to subscribe to data at a US-Zipcode or City level.
My use-case is the original, "it will probably, or is already, raining, you should close your windows and doors." I'm ok with false-positives for now. I'd rather get the alert a few extra times where it never actually precipitates for me then the reverse where I accidentally leave a door open for rain on a wood floor.
FWIW I've found default iPhone/Apple weather, Android/Google, Weather.com, and Accuweather are all essentially 99% perfect for my location. I don't need to use one of those, I only offer that as evidence that I'm happy with the relatively public data.
you probably want to start with the weather.gov integration, which I think (there might be a post/ask by me) does get Forecast Rain info ..
EcoWitt is a hardware solution.
There's a built-in OpenWeather driver (previously mentioned). Have you tried that?
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Essentially yes, so it may not be what you want. For anyone else considering EcoWitt... There are different gateway / hub-like devices that can receive readings from paired sensors like a multi-sensor weather station or individual sensors like rain, wind, UV, temperature and moisture sensors. Some of the gateway devices are LCD screens, so can display current conditions, some are just a small box that coordinates the sensors and manages the data they collect. Almost all of the gateway devices can send the data to EcoWitt's and other cloud platforms for storage and reporting. In most cases the data can also be sent locally from the gateway to a HE hub, interpreted by the EcoWitt drivers which then makes the readings available for automations and display on HE dashboards.
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They make a nice mount that comes out then up. Makes it easy to bolt to the eaves of the house or a post next to the fence out of the way.,.,.,
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Yup, I purchased this mount. Well worth $30.
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Also ended up buying the bird spikes too
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