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Post by dcweather on May 18, 2018 12:48:07 GMT -8
Weather Wunderground no longer offering API keys. Is switchdoc labs looning into other options? "To improve our services and enhance our relationship with our users, we will no longer provide free weather API keys as part of our program. If you have been directed to download our Weather Underground free API key by a third party provider, please contact your vendor for resolution. www.wunderground.com/weather/api "Alternatives are: openweathermap.org - Free developer.accuweather.com. - Free www.initialstate.com - Offers inexpesive price plans darksky.net/dev. - Offers inexpesive price plans
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Post by Powderjockey on May 18, 2018 17:04:44 GMT -8
What does this mean to people that already have a few account and are using Wunderground?
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Post by dcweather on May 18, 2018 19:58:25 GMT -8
What does this mean to people that already have a few account and are using Wunderground? At some point our systems will no longer work with weather underground. Switch Doc Labs will need to look into alternatives.
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Post by SDL on May 20, 2018 14:26:46 GMT -8
Thank you guys for the heads up. We willl look at a couple of different alternatives and convert our software over to the new system.
John knew the guy who started WeatherUnderground back in the late 90's. He says that that guy would be appalled that IBM is cutting off the amateur weather reporter.
Please suggest some other alternatives and we will too.
Best regards,
BP
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frightanic
New Member
Posts: 35
Raspberry Pi: Yes
Other Device: OurWeather (ESP8266), lots of ESP8266/ESP32 modules
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Post by frightanic on May 20, 2018 22:46:37 GMT -8
Like thousands of other people around the globe we are affected as well. So badly so that we had to issue a statement to our customers and inform them proactively. WU's announcement came out of nowhere but I guess we could have anticipated something like this when IBM became involved. The WU community thread at apicommunity.wunderground.com/weatherapi/topics/weather-underground-api-changes has users listing alternatives. However, many of them simply need a service to display weather data (i.e. they read from an API) - the opposite of what OurWeather needs. Many data providers like Aeris are not community-backed; people running PWSs can't upload their data. I suggest you give the OpenWeatherMap a good look. To me it seems like the best replacement i.e. the closest to what we had with WU. -> openweathermap.org/stations
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Post by doxidad on May 22, 2018 8:44:39 GMT -8
A little story. In the mid 90's I was an owner/partner in an ISP. Our website used wunderground, which at that time was part of the University of Michigan. We used their servers for local weather and had a whole bunch of perl scripts that displayed the local weather in icons (long before the big guys did). Our subscribers loved it because you could customize it by entering a weather station ID to get its weather data dipslayed. Well, one day I got a email from them saying "you can't do this anymore unless you want to pay for it" - and it was big bucks for a little ISP. I suppose this is when they spun themselves out of the university into a business. I've never dealt with them again directly but nothing surprises me anymore especially as small fry get eaten up by the bigger guys.
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Post by dcweather on May 24, 2018 4:13:23 GMT -8
Thank you guys for the heads up. We willl look at a couple of different alternatives and convert our software over to the new system. John knew the guy who started WeatherUnderground back in the late 90's. He says that that guy would be appalled that IBM is cutting off the amateur weather reporter. Please suggest some other alternatives and we will too. Best regards, BP This is a good option. Smart Citizen is free, has a great API, and the platform is open to 3rd party hardware. In otherwords, you do not have to use their Arudion based Smart Citezen baord.
beta.smartcitizen.me/kits/?signup=true
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Post by mikethechap on May 29, 2018 10:48:48 GMT -8
I'll leave aside the disregard of Weather Underground (WU) for Personal Weather Stations. I took comfort in the knowledge that my weather station information might improve weather prediction through machine learning given larger datasets of local and real-time data. Here in Texas, as elsewhere, tornadoes can spin up in a heartbeat. Our home had over 21k damage in 2016. Having more and better data might help improve the ability to reliably predict loss of life. This is the focus of my interest in my weather station. To that end, I've been interested in the Citizen Weather Observer Program (CWOP). Data ultimately ends up on the NOAA MADIS servers. Of course, unlike with the Weather Underground benefit of being able to see your data live, the CWOP approach doesn't have the ability to easily show your station data. Another provider, without cost, is PersonalWeatherStation.com, tied into the Aeris network. As you consider what interface to design for, here are some things that are important to me in order of priority: - Ability to upload to NOAA (or other weather science and prediction resources)
- Ability to view my PWS data online
- Reliability
- Cost (over $10/month and I'm on the fence unless there are some personalization perks)
- History available?
- Ease of use and interface
As an example, here's how I would have scored WeatherUnderground (1-5, 5 = best, with comments following): - Use of aggregate data to improve weather prediction? 4 - though I really have no idea where the data went after it got to WU, they used to say that they would aggregate data from PWSs to improve weather prediction. At least it got fed into WU predictions, if they are to be believed.
- Ability to view my PWS data online? 3 - an okay interface that included solar radiation, soil temperature, and other details.
- Reliability? 4, maybe 5. Pretty reliably able to upload AND view my PWS data.
- Cost? 5. But, staying with WeatherUnderground would reportedly cost about $800/month.
- History available? 5 Easily able to view past PWS data for long term trends. I don't see this in OpenWeatherMap, for instance, except at considerable cost.
- Ease of use and interface? 3 No ability to personalize the interface except for a little PWS update box and the webcam interface.
Other services could be similarly ranked. I liked WeatherUnderground, for the most part. Looking at the services mentioned earlier in the thread as well as elsewhere, I'm inclined to PersonalWeatherStation or OpenWeatherMap.
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Post by SDL on May 29, 2018 16:29:10 GMT -8
Mike,
Excellent summary and reports. We are going to meet on this in the next week or so and will report back.
BP
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Post by triggerfish on Jul 7, 2018 9:56:00 GMT -8
Not sure if this is the same, but I was just able to register my soon to be weatherstation with weather underground... Got station id and password...
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Post by dcweather on Aug 1, 2018 21:11:19 GMT -8
Any news on a replacment for weather underground?
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Post by SDL on Aug 2, 2018 4:36:58 GMT -8
It's on our list for August.
BP
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Post by dcweather on Nov 9, 2018 13:55:04 GMT -8
It's on our list for August. BP August as come and gone. Is there a solution to replace weather underground?
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frightanic
New Member
Posts: 35
Raspberry Pi: Yes
Other Device: OurWeather (ESP8266), lots of ESP8266/ESP32 modules
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Post by frightanic on Nov 9, 2018 14:04:50 GMT -8
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Post by SDL on Nov 10, 2018 16:34:33 GMT -8
Yes, this is irritating. We are replacing the WU link with a yet-to-be-decided system (smartcitizen.com looks really good) Aries also looks good.
What we are doing right now (as we speak) is adding support to GWP and OurWeather with the Blynk app. Not a backend database, but it solves part of the "I want to see my data and share it" issue.
BP
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