[OBSOLETE] The Weather Company SmartApp: the “poor guy” weather station with event based switches automation

Hi everyone,

Last year, I published Weather Underground Web Smartapp: the “poor guy” weather station with event based switches automation based on WeatherUndergound API.

Since this API is no longer provided through SmartThings, I adapted my development using the new The Weather Company API provided by SmartThings.

SmartApp and Device handler remain unchanged compared to the WU version.

Settings are expressed in the unit (F or C) you set-up for your location.

The rain, snow and storm are triggered upon real events but also “chance of” event (see Weather Underground definitions).

Setup : install the smartapp and devicehandler in your IDE and publish it for yourself

( Owner : philippeportesppo Name : TheWeatherCompany_SmartThings Branch : master)

Alert settings: set-up the parameters for your alerts like temperature min/max, humidity min/max and rain, storm and snow alerts.

Action settings: set-up “Switch on/off” per event to indicate which switch(es) you want to turn on or off upon an event occurrence.

After the SmartApp parameter saving, the device handler is created under a composed name with the “Weather in city,state”.

This device details allows to see the values provided by Weather Underground:
-Temperature
-Real feel
-Dew point
-Relative Humidity
-Weather condition (icon and description)

Release at:

Hope you like it

[Update 2/21/2019: fixed the branch name to ‘master’. Thanks @mpenda for finding the typo! ]

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Hi. I can’t seem to get the app either way. I added the repo exactly as listed, but when I go to “Update From Repo”, its empty in both the App and Device Handler sections. I also pulled the zip file, unpacked it and attempted imports with the groovy files and those won’t work either. I’m obviously missing something…

1st things is to make sure in your IDE that you click on your location first. Then follow guidance on how to add the smartapp following FAQ: Github Integration How to Add and Update from Repositories

If you still have issue, PM me and I’ll help you directly

Actiontiles doesn’t seem to be able to pull the info from it, anybody make that work?

I won’t be able to help much here. @tgauchat might be the right contact for ActionTiles but I doubt ActionTiles need my app/device to trigger actions.

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Just wanna see the right temp again

If the device is compliant with Capability “Temperature”, then you’ll get a proper Temperature.

Please login to the IDE and show us what all the values are under “Current States” for the device instance under My Devices.

https://account.SmartThings.com

Ok I went back into AT and deleted the old tiles and now it only shows temp and humidity, will have to do thanks. At least I got temp for the screen thanks

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The classic standard “Smart Weather Station Device” still works with ActionTiles. (i.e., add device using the IDE and select the Device Type from the dropdown list, rather than using any custom DH code).

SmartThings changed its API key (?) and some of the output types, but we updated AT code accordingly.

Thanks Terry

Philippe, thanks for your work and share it.

It works great (Even for me that I live outside of the U.S.)

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I was hoping you could help me out I get the following message “error saving page” when trying to save the alert settings. Thanks!

Hi there, sorry… I missed the post 23d ago. Do you still have the problem?
What is the location your hub it located?
if the location is not supported, the device won’t create.

It there a way to get this to work with Webcore so a piston would fire to make an announcement through echo speaks?

Hi there,

unfortunately I am not a WebCore guy. Maybe someone can guide you on that aspect.

philippe

Hi, I don’t know if this will work, but you can try making a virtual switch in smartthings (storm alert) and let this Weather Company Smartapp turn this switch on. When this switch changes to ON, Echo Speaks (Webcore) can then speaks a frase like "warning Storm in your area… or something like that.

Best regards

Thanks, that is a good suggestion. I will try a switch.

Hi @Philippe_Portes - I got all the way to the end of the installation and when trying to save settings I get an error which in the IDE shows up as:

6:21:07 PM: error physicalgraph.app.exception.UnknownDeviceTypeException: Device type 'The Weather Company Web' in namespace 'philippeportesppo' not found. @line 166

I’m a newbie with a brand new account; I do not yet have a Hub- didn’t think that matters for a virtual device. I do have some wi-fi connected smart lights. I successfully installed those, and now also the Accuweather smart app.

Any ideas?

Hi Eric

[Revising…]

You are saying you don’t have a hub but do you have anything in your IDE location?
The ST weather API will query based on the hub location so if you don’t have a hub, I am not sure how this is going to behave.
Another reason it would not work would be that you are in a location that is not supported by the weather channel.

From the documentation:
Signature:
def getTwcLocation(String locationString = null)

String locationString - Optional. Must be a 5 digit US zip code or a latitude, longitude string (e.g., “38.25,-76.45”). If not specified, the method will use the latitude and longitude of the Location as set in the SmartThings mobile app.

So you can have try to specify explicitly your location in the Smart app code (line 160)