Rain radar in SmartThings: is it raining at home, how hard, when does it start and how long does it last, two hours ahead. In the Netherlands and Belgium from Buienradar (radar, 5 minute steps), everywhere else from Open-Meteo (15 minute steps, no account needed). Through the small Stoeckie Bridge (Windows or Docker) and its Edge driver.
What you get
A Buienradar device with the setting Show:
- Detail (default): rain detected or not, intensity (none, possible, light, moderate, heavy, violent), rain now in mm/h, rain starts in (minutes), rain lasts (minutes) and a short summary
- Rain or dry only: just the rain sensor
- Location by Dutch postcode and house number (PDOK), by any address worldwide (OpenStreetMap), or by latitude, longitude. Looked up once
- Source: Auto (Buienradar in NL/BE, Open-Meteo elsewhere), Buienradar or Open-Meteo
- Summary in Dutch in NL/BE, English elsewhere
- Radius in meters (0 to 25000): rain anywhere within it counts. With a radius the bridge also reads up to 16 points around the address and takes the heaviest rain per 5 minutes
- Rain from (mm/h): adjustable, default 0.1
- All settings are on the Buienradar device in the SmartThings app
- Everything works in routines, e.g. rain starts in less than 15 minutes > close the windows, rain detected > notification, rain lasts more than 30 minutes > blinds down
Install
- Install the bridge and the driver from GitHub - Stoeckie/smartthings-stoeckie-bridge: Stoeckie Bridge: cloud appliances (AEG/Electrolux, Fujitsu FGLair, Škoda, iRobot favorites) in SmartThings. Bridge for Windows or Docker plus Edge driver · GitHub (Windows: install.bat, Docker: docker compose up)
- Enroll your hub: SmartThings. Add a little smartness to your things. (Stoeckie Edge Drivers) and install Stoeckie Bridge (local). Add device > Scan nearby
- Settings of the Stoeckie Bridge device: switch on Rain radar. A Buienradar / Rain radar device appears
- Settings of that device: postcode and house number (NL), an address or latitude, longitude, radius in meters, rain from (mm/h), source and what to show. The bridge setup page has the same fields
Developer notes
- Rain counts from 0.1 mm/h. “Rain starts in” is 999 when no rain is expected in the next two hours
- Uses the standard capabilities rainSensor and precipitationSensor plus a custom capability for mm/h and the minutes
- Refreshed every 5 minutes. Buienradar data is free for personal use; Open-Meteo is CC BY 4.0; addresses © OpenStreetMap contributors
- The same bridge also does AEG / Electrolux dryers ([ST Edge] AEG / Electrolux dryer: status and "finished" via a small bridge (Windows or Docker)), Fujitsu FGLair air conditioners ([ST Edge] Fujitsu FGLair air conditioners: on/off, mode, setpoint, fan and swing via a small bridge (Windows or Docker)), Škoda cars ([ST Edge] Škoda cars via the official MyŠkoda API: battery, charging, cable, climate and doors (small bridge, Windows or Docker)) and the VELUX ACTIVE departure mode and rain sensor ([ST Edge] VELUX ACTIVE (HomeKit local): KIX 300 windows, blinds and sensor directly from the hub)
- Offline notification: SmartThings has no routine trigger for “device offline”, so the Stoeckie Bridge device has a Connection status (Connected or Offline). Make a routine: if Stoeckie Bridge > Connection is Offline, send a notification to members. Short drops are ignored, it only turns Offline after 2 minutes down. Each drop is shown afterwards as Last drop (time, duration, reason).
- Security (bridge and driver 2026-11-02b): pair the hub with Koppelen on the setup page; after that the LAN API only accepts signed requests from the paired hub and refuses web pages and other devices. Details: [ST Edge] AEG / Electrolux dryer: status and "finished" via a small bridge (Windows or Docker) - #3 by Stoeckie
Running here in the Netherlands. Feedback welcome.