[DEPRECIATED] Network Connected Ambient Weather Station V6

[natedog3018 (Scott)]

Kurt, you do great work.
I have just set up an ambient weather station. Ran the Smart App and it created some of the tiles. I have a tmep/hydro sensor as #1 for outdoor temperature and a pool sensor as #3-way
I can see that Ambient is reporting TF for the outdoor temp sensor and T3F for the pool sensor in the smartthings logs and on Ambient I can see both sensors. However, It let me name Remote Sensor #1 in your smartApp and it created a tile for it. The tile shows no activity and 0 temp for the pool sensor. Any clues where to start?

[kurtsanders]

@natedog3018, I will PM you to troubleshoot your setup!

[adrian97c (Adrian)]

weather station tile 2.0 is officially no longer working/updating. So I searched to find alternative & brought me here…

So, will this allow me to install app, type my zip code & all is well? Or does this require a actual weather station in my back yard to be installed?

[kurtsanders]

This SmartApp requires that one have a network attached Ambient Weather station with API string. Sorry!

I thought that there was a recent update to the Weather Station Tile that worked with the TWC API using longitude/latitude instead of zip code?

[logar]

I’m a newbie as far as installing an app like this into my Smartthings. Could anyone please give me simple step by step instructions for how to do this??? Thanks for your patience and help!

[adrian97c (Adrian)]

I just ended up using the built in ST smartweather tile instead.

[rahlvers]

Kurt,

Trying to install, but running into a blocker in the configuration of the PWS on the app and can’t get past - every time I try to configure the “Weather Alerts/Notification” setting, I get a “Something’s Wrong - We can’t load your screen right now” and retry button (endless loop of retries). Going back kicks me back to the marketplace.

What are next steps to troubleshoot?
Thanks,
Richelle

[kurtsanders]

Dear @rahlvers,

I was able to load a fresh install with the most current release. I wonder if you could try to install first without alert/notification. The after a successful install, return to the Ambient Weather Station in your smartApps screen and configure the alerts/notification.

If you still get an error, post the Live Logging error message that is generated when the smartApp fails.

We might have to trouble shoot this error in a private message thread!

[rahlvers]

I think we’ll have to take offline to troubleshoot. I removed everything and reinstalled, still getting stuck at the same spot. Even trying to load in the web simulator I see java exceptions at that spot (failing at date/time calls).

Thx.
Richelle

[kurtsanders]

Dear @rahlvers,

Glad you determined that your hub location document had been corrupted perhaps during a firmware update, and a hub reboot corrected the numerous errors that you observed trying to install Ambient Weather Station SmartApp.

[makne (Martin)]

Dear Kurt,
thanks for the nice work! It’s great to be able to use my weather station data in ST…
From your documentation I understand temperature Units should be displayed based on the Location setting in ST. I have it set to degC but nonetheless all temperatures are displayed in degF. Any idea what may be going on?

[kurtsanders]

Dear Martin @makne

I’m not sure what/where degF is being displayed. Can you provide a screenshot?

The Ambient Weather Station SmartThings device tile only displays the degree symbol °. It does not display a F/C for temperature. The temperature value is the numeric value returned from one’s Ambient Weather API and that is set in the Ambient Weather Dashboard Units Preferences panel.

.

You can also set a Temperature Scale in your SmartThings mobile client as below which updates one’s SmartThings hub location metadata.

In my SmartThings IDE live logging session, the Ambient Weather Station app gets one’s temperature units from the SmartThings Hub location metadata and uses that temp units value to send weather values various units of measure along with the numeric value (eg. F/C, mph/Kph, in/cm, inHG/mmHG) to the device tile app, but the temperature measure of units are not displayed in the tile along the numeric value.

5:46:20 AM: info Start: getAmbientStationData()
5:46:20 AM: debug tempUnits = F

[makne (Martin)]

Hi Kurt,

thanks for the reply!

I get a mix of imperial and metric units on the Ambient Weather Station SmartThings device tile:

In my ST location temperature units are set to degC:

In Ambient Weather temperature units are also set to degC and the Ambient Weather dashboard displays all units as configured:

In LiveLogging I noticed the temperature data being returned from Ambient Weather in degF:

I appreciate I have a non standard configuration / mix of units of measure but particularly in temperature units my mind is calibrated in degC

Thank you!

[kurtsanders]

Dear @makne,

Thanks for all the screen captures and WOW, what a mixed bag of nuts when metric is selected.

1. It appears, now that I read this Ambient data definition wiki link, that the Ambient Weather API returns all data in imperial values This is the case for wind speed, rain, pressure AND temperature? How weird and unexpected, but then again, Ambient Weather Stations are designed for the US, primarily manufactured overseas, but their Ambient Weather Dashboard Web site and weather consoles have the ability to display both imperial values or metric counterparts? Ugh, I thought that these values would be stored in the units of measure that the Ambient Weather UNITS are configured!
2. I am guessing that if one selects the “C” scale on Ambient’s Web dashboard for UNITS, the HTML for the dashboard display converts all imperial values to metric?
3. SmartThings does not display a metric or imperial unit in their tiles when I pass a UNITS field like ‘C’ or ‘F’ to the tile for display . This is a shortcoming in SmartThings’ DTH code base logic in my humble opinion. The SmartThings engineers allow a SmartApp program to hardcode a suffix to a value which changes the field type from a numeric value to a string. I cannot change an existing Ambient Weather Station DTH field from numeric to a string, in which many Ambient Weather Station SmartApp users may have WebCore pistons that take action when a numeric value is expected, would have a significant impact on others. I can, though, remove some of the hardcoded imperial suffix labels that I inadvertently coded in the next bug fix release to be imperial and leave them off the numeric value.
4. I can look into a bug fix release that would convert all imperial values to metric values based on the users’ SmartThings Temperature Scale setting, eg “F” or “C”. This would impact, rain, pressure, wind and temperature values which have alternate scales.

I’m sending you a PM to discuss how to proceed now that we know what is going on!

[dbowles1975]

I already have a WS-0900-IP added to SmartThings. Could I also add a WS-8482 w/ TX-3102 sensor and have that information pulled into SmartThings as well? I’d like to use the soil moisture and temperature information in a couple of webCoRE pistons.

[kurtsanders]

Dear @dbowles1975

The current version of Ambient Weather Station SmartApp allows for multiple Ambient Weather Stations.

If your weather stations are under the same Ambient API, then when you go to install in the SmartApp, just select the other Ambient weather stations, and they will show up in your mobile client after you enter all the required input fields and SAVE.

If the Ambient weather stations have separate API’s, then you can enter the new API string in the IDE SmartApp settings page, and run the SmartApp install.

[kurtsanders]

Ambient Weather Station **BugFix V4.10 **

I have created a “bugfix” release that I am ready for testing before I move it to production status. This “testing” release is located in the “bugfix” branch of the STAmbientWeather repository shown below. If you wish to test, please change your SMartThings IDE repository setting from ‘Master’ to ‘bugfix’ so you can access the test code and update the SmartApp and DTH.

You will need to run through the Ambient Weather Station SmartApp install to select the new required fields. Let me know if you run into any issues and have some suggestions. If this release causes you hardships, the master branch is available for you to recover to a stable release.

---

Fixed Units of Measure Bug:

1. Added support for various imperial and metric “Units of Measure Selection” in the Ambient Weather Station SmartApp Preferences
2. Provided support for the various “mix & match” imperial and metric units of measure for:

• Wind readings (mph | kph | fps | knotts)
• Temperature readings ( °C | °F)
• Barometric Pressure readings (inHG | mmHG | hPa)
• Rain readings (in | cm)

3. FIxed missing some Soil sensor devices.

ST GitHub Settings for 4.10

Name	Value
Owner	kurtsanders
Name:	STAmbientWeather
Branch	bugfix

Required Files MUST be installed and published to your SmartThings IDE Repositories (Use ‘Update from Repo’)

IDE Repository	Filename	Status
My SmartApps	kurtsanders : Ambient Weather Station	Updated
My Device Handler	kurtsanders : Ambient Weather Station	Updated
My Device Handler	kurtsanders : SmartWeather Tile Station	UnChanged
My Device Handler	kurtsanders : Ambient Weather Station Remote Sensor	UnChanged

Required: Please run Ambient Weather Station SmartThings SmartApp setup after installing these updated files and select Units of Measure for Rain, Wind, Barometric Pressure and Temperature!

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[cordump]

Is there any way to access the indoor ‘feels like’ temperature in this SM app? I see the outdoor ‘feels like’, temperature but not indoor.

[kurtsanders]

Dear @cordump,

I am unaware that there is an indoor “feels like” value. The Ambient API Device Data Specs do not document or return an indoor ‘feelsLike’ value for my Ambient weather station 2902A.

The outside "feelsLike’ field that is displayed in the Ambient Weather Station SmartApp and DTH is as follows:

• feelsLike - if < 50ºF => Wind Chill, if > 68ºF => Heat Index (calculated on server)

What Ambient weather system model do you have?

[cordump]

Thanks @kurtsanders for the quick response. I’m using a 2902A. I see an indoor ‘feels like’ in the Ambient Weather app so it seems like it must be doing the calculation there. I was hoping to feed this to the SmartThings app but looks like it may not be doable snice it’s not a vaule coming over in the API.