Changes with Belchertown skin & DarkSky

[Pat]

Hi everyone, I'm a bit tied up and offline with the birth of my new daughter, but I got news today that DarkSky has been acquired by Apple. For existing API users, API will remain online until 2021, but they are not accepting any new sign ups. 

That's the sad reality of using free hosted services - they can be shut down without a moments notice. 

I'll research a new method for local conditions and forecasts. If anyone knows of any that are free and has a public API, please let me know! 

( Maybe it's a good thing I haven't released 1.1 yet! ) 

[steeple ian]

Congratulations Pat

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[Colin Larsen]

Congratulations Pat, trying times, hope you and are your family stay well

Colin

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[Adnan Mumtaz]

Congratulations Pat

[rich T]

Congats Pat

[Xant]

DarkSky announcement on it's blog: https://blog.darksky.net/

Excerpt regarding DarkSky free Weather API: "Our API service for existing customers is not changing today, but we will no longer accept new signups. The API will continue to function through the end of 2021."

Its sad, troublesome and concerning, as myself use DarkSky API for other forecasts. 

Immediate reaction from the tech World: https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/1/21202259/android-weather-app-dark-sky-apple-purchase-api

Quick list of 'almost free' Weather APIs: https://rapidapi.com/blog/access-global-weather-data-with-these-weather-apis/

Two really free, and consistent, Weather APIs:

• NOAA: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/webservices/v2

Note: I may assume that using NOAA it is going direct to main weather data source; also been ".gov" might be free for long

 

• YR.no: https://hjelp.yr.no/hc/en-us/articles/360001940793-Free-weather-data-service-from-Yr
  

Excerpt note from YR.no API webpage: "You can get a lot of the content on Yr for free, to use for various applications and services. This is a unique offer in Europe. In other countries weather data is highly valuable and expensive."

Congrats Pat!

Xant

[Pat]

I'm looking at OpenWeatherMap and yr.no. Both look like they could handle worldwide current conditions and forecasts for free. More research to do though

[G Hammer]

I like OpenWeatherMap.

[Wes Witt]

problem with openweathermap is the free subscription is very limited.  for the us accuweather works well.

[Pat]

A lot of folks are suggesting US only services which just won't work for a lot of the Belchertown user base. Need to be thinking broader than the US

[Wes Witt]

how about implementing a design that allows for weather forecast extensions/plugins. then regional plugins can be built and allow the user to choose the weather forecast service that is best for them. this way you don't need a single service that works for everyone. it can be very difficult to find a service that works everywhere and if you can find one it may result in a low bar terms of quality and features from the service.

[Pat]

Not a bad idea but with a 5 day old kid I'm not sure how much time I can devote to a re-write like that. PR's are accepted!

[William Burton]

Regarding OpenWeatherMap, yes, the free plan more limited than the paid plans, but the limitations of the free plan seem reasonable for a weewx site.

-Bill

[Pat]

I agree. Based on what I was able to look at, what I need to replace are weather alerts, 8 day forecast and current conditions. I think the only limitation with the free tier respective to what I need, the 8 day forecast would become a 5 day forecast. 

More research to do however once I find some spare time. 

[William Burton]

Hello,

On Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 4:34:46 PM UTC-4, Wes Witt wrote:

how about implementing a design that allows for weather forecast extensions/plugins. then regional plugins can be built and allow the user to choose the weather forecast service that is best for them. this way you don't need a single service that works for everyone. it can be very difficult to find a service that works everywhere and if you can find one it may result in a low bar terms of quality and features from the service.

I was thinking the exact same thing as it doesn't make sense for every skin author to have to implement forecasting from scratch. There are many API's and there won't be one that works for everyone everywhere.

The weewx-forecast extension (https://github.com/matthewwall/weewx-forecast), already handles the following weather forecasting services:

  US National Weather Service (NWS)
  the weather underground (WU)
  open weathermap (OWM)
  UK Met Office (UKMO)
  Aeris Weather
  World Weather Online (WWO)
  Dark Sky (DS)
  Zambretti

The extension also handles tide predictions using xtide.

My thought was to enhance the weewx-forecast extension to:

Output a generic JSON file that can be loaded via Ajax into a theme. As much as possible, the JSON would be generated in a manner that's consistent across different API implementations to make it easier to incorporate into a skin.
Output one or more include files that can be included into other skins.
Skins like Belchertown can incorporate this output using either method as appropriate. The end result is it would be far easier for skin maintainers to expand forecasting options.

The benefit to this approach is the ability to support many more options for forecasting more widely. However, a small drawback is users of WeeWX will have to install another extension and configure it in addition to the selected skin.

-Bill

[mwall]

On Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 6:38:28 PM UTC-4, William Burton wrote:

My thought was to enhance the weewx-forecast extension to:

Output a generic JSON file that can be loaded via Ajax into a theme. As much as possible, the JSON would be generated in a manner that's consistent across different API implementations to make it easier to incorporate into a skin.
Output one or more include files that can be included into other skins.

the weewx-forecasting extension does the following:

- capture data from many different forecasting services

- generate tide forecasts using xtide

- saves the results into a single database schema

- defines a bunch of tags that you can use directly in your weewx templates

- provides a set of canned templates that you can embed in other template or as standalone pages in reports

the gitlab page shows a few examples of the canned templates:

https://github.com/weewx/weewx/wiki/forecasting

it should be pretty easy to generate json from the data in the weewx-forecast database.  that would be a welcome merge request - probably just a single .tmpl file with a little bit of cheetah templating.  the trickiest part is to define a json structure that can withstand the test of time.

unfortunately weewx-forecast has languished a bit, but thanks to merge requests from weewx users, there should be an update to weewx-forecast soon after weewx4 is released.  i'm looking forward to using the new xtypes in weewx4 to make the comparisons easier, whether comparing between forecasts or comparing old forecasts to historical data.

m

[Pat]

I'm sure the Belchertown skin could benefit from the forecasts plugin, but Belchertown does more than that. It shows weather alerts for your location as well as current conditions. The forecasting plugin doesn't provide those 2 bits. For that you need a service, and if you're getting info from the service (in my opinion), one stop shop for it (get the forecast too). 

As for maintaining a plugin base for each region/location, that's not something I can develop or support right now. The JSON would have to be formatted exactly for each service in order to support the current way of updates. Again, this is a simple task for 1 provider who has all this data for worldwide regions

I understand that OWM could become the next DarkSky but I think it's the best option for what we have right now. The free tier should be able to provide enough data to replace DarkSky. 

It's just a matter of time on my end.

On Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 6:38:28 PM UTC-4, William Burton wrote:

[Xant]

I always honor Tom, Pat and Matthew Wall time and work towards WeeWX endeavour.

DarkSky has been a good resource and nice graphics. Now sold ("Good for them, Bad for everybody else....").

There are alternatives. And as Pat correctly pointed out, the "replacement" needs to be of Global perspective (I guess this eliminates some of the obvious "gov" choices).

• OpenWeather: a good possible alternative, but besides the catchy name, is not much that "open" (and charge for some); it might suffice for usual WeeWX applications, but it makes me uncomfortable to have constraints regarding data access, and future developments (https://openweathermap.org/price)
• YR.no: considering Global perspective, still my pick... completely free, excellent service and reliable

But an extra note... let's NOT get too crazy about this right now... the DarkSky API still goes aaalll the way towards end-of-2021. We ALL have MUCH to think nowadays other than this (quarantine and all).

Pat said: "Maybe it's a good thing I haven't released 1.1 yet!".

If changing API is easily done (and you really really bored at home), then do it.

Otherwise... Pat, you have a newborn, and the whole World (literally) at stand still. Nobody (I mean nobody) now have a current "plan", and all is on hold..... End-of-2021 seems really really far considering WeeWX, Belchertown and API perspective.

Let's move-on for now.... get some peace-of-mind and release 1.1 (as is with current API), and let's talk back again on this sometime in 2021!

ClearSkies!

Xant

[Mike Revitt]

Spotted the same news and I have found a few, but they are all based on Dark Sky. I think we are going to have to wait for the industry to settle down a bit first :-(

The best I have found so far is https://weatherwidget.io 

[William Burton]

Hello,

On Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 9:52:14 PM UTC-4, Xant wrote:

I always honor Tom, Pat and Matthew Wall time and work towards WeeWX endeavour.

Agreed!

DarkSky has been a good resource and nice graphics. Now sold ("Good for them, Bad for everybody else....").

There are alternatives. And as Pat correctly pointed out, the "replacement" needs to be of Global perspective (I guess this eliminates some of the obvious "gov" choices).

• OpenWeather: a good possible alternative, but besides the catchy name, is not much that "open" (and charge for some); it might suffice for usual WeeWX applications, but it makes me uncomfortable to have constraints regarding data access, and future developments (https://openweathermap.org/price)
• YR.no: considering Global perspective, still my pick... completely free, excellent service and reliable

As far as supporting yr.no, if you look on the contributors page at https://hjelp.yr.no/hc/en-us/articles/206550249, they are almost entirely Norwegian weather sources. So for anyone running WeeWX in Norway, I'm sure this would be welcomed. So how does yr.no have a global perspective?
 

But an extra note... let's NOT get too crazy about this right now... the DarkSky API still goes aaalll the way towards end-of-2021. We ALL have MUCH to think nowadays other than this (quarantine and all).

That's true if one already has an API key, but for anyone who plans to bring a site online and doesn't already have an API key, forecasting would have to be disabled in the skin. 

Pat said: "Maybe it's a good thing I haven't released 1.1 yet!".

If changing API is easily done (and you really really bored at home), then do it.

Otherwise... Pat, you have a newborn, and the whole World (literally) at stand still. Nobody (I mean nobody) now have a current "plan", and all is on hold..... End-of-2021 seems really really far considering WeeWX, Belchertown and API perspective.

Let's move-on for now.... get some peace-of-mind and release 1.1 (as is with current API), and let's talk back again on this sometime in 2021!

Agreed. The only thing before releasing 1.1 is to do some more testing with forecasting disabled in both light and dark modes.

-Bill

ClearSkies!

Xant

[G Hammer]

I'd say OWM, simply because I see no way to get anything except metric/C from yr.no

[Pat]

yr.no isn't commercially owned, so the theory is they won't get bought out or go away. They're owned by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation and the Norwegian Meteorological Institute. That said, it's only in metric, does not have weather alerts and is in XML format only. 

The pro is that they don't seem at risk of being purchased and going away. The con is it may not be a good fit for how the skin is being used. 

[Pat]

Actually looks like OWM doesn't provide weather alerts in the same fashion as DarkSky. Instead you have to create a trigger, then poll that trigger for changes. It's not end-user friendly as it is at DarkSky. 

So I may have to deprecate weather alerts and only offer current conditions and forecasts. 

[steeple ian]

Quote from yr.no website: -

"A new Yr API is on the way!

We are working on a new and modern API, that we plan to release some time in the winter 2019. Make sure you visit this site to keep posted!"

I am not sure why metric only is so much of a problem anyway, but maybe that will be fixed in the new API anyway.

From a personal point of view, I use forecasting services from YR DarkSky, WU, and UK Metoffice. I know it can be subjective but for my location YR is by far the most accurate.

Ian

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[Greg Troxel]

Pat <p...@obrienphoto.net> writes:

> The pro is that they don't seem at risk of being purchased and going away.
> The con is it may not be a good fit for how the skin is being used.

Two thoughts:

The situation seems ripe for someone, outside the weewx project, to
make an API that fronts for all national APIs, so that this aggregated
API can be consumed by projects. Basically a library, to do this work
once. Easier suggested than accomplished, and may have terms of
service problems, so could end up being a library.

Home Assistant has weather integrations. Besides getting one's own
weewx data in via mqtt, there are a number of integrations for various
providers. I'm using the NWS one, which suits me because I'm in the
US and their policies seem good. But there seem to also be services
with global data. HA seems like a good source for inspiration and
knowledge of how to use APIs.
Some URLS:
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/#weather
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/metoffice/
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/services/data
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/met/
https://www.met.no/en/free-meteorological-data

[G Hammer]

Metric is not used in the US would be the problem.

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[Pat]

It's more work upfront but the skin can convert units.

If weather alerts are gone (which so far looks like they will be when DarkSky goes away), then I am leaning back to yr.no. Another appeal for yr.no in my reading is that for yr.no is no API key is needed, no developer account - "it just works". Just need to put some credits on the about page. 

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[steeple ian]

Gary,

Ok have a look here: -

https://claydonsweather.org.uk

The base units are set in weewx.conf to METRICWX. The json data from WU is coming as US, DarkSky as METRIC. The skin is displaying U.K. units which is Metric with mph. Click on the F button too right and watch what happens to the units including those of the forecasts. Go to the menu accessed by clicking top left. You will see toggles for various unit systems. The data does not change, it is just converted on the fly. So I don’t see units being an issue.

Ian

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[Alex Rodriguez]

If we already have an API key with DarkSky, are you thinking we would be able to keep DarkSky and switch whenever we want?

Congrats on the baby!

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[Xant]

Dark Sky API

William: "That's true if one already has a DarkSky API key"

Uffff... apologies as I missed this important "detail", as to say let's go till end-of-2021. Just trying to give all some peace of mind and let the industry to settle.

But it is true. DarkSky cutting the cord... let's continue research.

YR.no API

Still have my vote for Belchertown API

• Not commercially owned (NRK, Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation and Norwegian Meteorological Institute)
• long time providing Global data (not just Norwegian); many reports US weather data to be accurate
• metric system data only, but don't see this much of an issue; as posted by Pat, "more work upfront, but the skin can convert units"
• G Hammer: "A new Yr API is on the way!"; don't expect new Yr API to provide anything other than metric, as its own website doesn't have conversion option either
• Free... no restrictions, plenty of accurate Global data
• Pat: "Another appeal for yr.no in my reading is that for yr.no is no API key is needed, no developer account - "it just works".
• Yr.no let embed in many ways (Java, PHP, XML); even provides nice 3days Meteogram (metrics only, though); https://www.yr.no/place/United_States/Massachusetts/Belchertown/data.html

YR no Alerts

Alerts indeed a great feature of DarkSky API, and thanks to Pat for providing in Belchertown. Although YR.no provides plenty of wx info, it seems indeed that it doesn't provides alerts.

Considering that YR still my pick (besides no alerts), and current lack of consolidated API source, proposing a (temporary) hybrid solution as NOAA does provides weather alerts for US through API or CAP (CAP is an XML-based information standard used to facilitate emergency information sharing and data exchange); https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-alerts

Xant

[Xant]

Correction: YR.no 48hrs meteogram.

[gary....@gmail.com]

If units aren’t an issue, then in the infamous words of Alfred E. Neuman, what, me worry?

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[Pat]

Everytime I get a minute to sit down and open the laptop and read up on what's available, I change my mind. I'm back on the OpenWeatherMap thought now because of the localization and languages it offers. 

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[Tadej Javornik]

There seems to be something written to migrate from darksky to owm. Here is the link

https://openweathermap.org/darksky-openweather#match

[Pat]

This is probably the way to go. Looks like their free plan will match a lot of what the skin uses. 

Sadly, weather alerts will be no-more with the skin. 

[Xant]

Sure OWM still a respectful service. I will not "kick the dead body" further, but it puzzles me why not YR. Not for the many reasons posted above, but as YR offers much more real data at no restrictions, API, or plans - and consistent, no charge now or ever. It could be an opportunity to built and explore further - instead of just trying to reproduce DarkSky (although, no alerts).

Pat, as you said: "Another appeal for yr.no in my reading is that for yr.no is no API key is needed, no developer account - "it just works"

Not to debate, just a point. Both services are great.

Best, X

[Pat]

I understand your point and that's why I keep flip flipping. I like the idea of no API key to maintain.

OWM is more of a drop in replacement which makes migrating the skin a bit easier.

YR would require unit conversions, xml parsing (small rewrite since I'm parsing json today) and yr doesn't appear to show text for the conditions. (e.g. Snow, Mostly Cloudy) If they do it looks English only so there would need to be language translations. Something I'm not fond of maintaining in the skin.

YR also require you to know your geoname to work. Whereas OWM can use lat/long.

So if YR is more appealing then we have to document how to find your geoname (not difficult)... Have no conditions text not forecast text... and do unit conversions.

[G Hammer]

For me, I have API keys that I keep track of, acquire when needed. It's a one off thing.

OWM can use your coordinates which may produce better results for some. For example, I've lived where you picked a distant city for a forecast, unless you knew the local airport code.

They seem to have a 7 day product in the free tier now along with the 5.

They have translation and it seems to support metric or imperial per measurement. Doesn't the UK mix MPH with C?

It would seem easier to move to OWM than to create and maintain all that will be needed with yr.no 

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[Pat]

Right. OWM is more of a drop in replacement so I'm leaning that way.

Still, this all requires me to get some spare time and a full night's sleep. Newborns aren't very cooperative with their parents hobbies :-)

[G Hammer]

3AM is a great time to introduce them to coding 😉

On Tue, Apr 7, 2020, 9:30 PM Pat <p...@obrienphoto.net> wrote:

Right. OWM is more of a drop in replacement so I'm leaning that way.

Still, this all requires me to get some spare time and a full night's sleep. Newborns aren't very cooperative with their parents hobbies :-)

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[Colin Larsen]

If there is a vote going I like OWM :) Good luck with that sleep thing pat!

Cheers

Colin

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[Xant]

Colin

I honor that! And, indeed, brought a smile in my face! (we need that good humor spirit nowadays...)

Either one is fine...

BTW, Pat can not have a good night sleep.... he has a newborn...  :))))

X

On Tuesday, April 7, 2020 at 9:41:40 PM UTC-4, Colin Larsen wrote:

If there is a vote going I like OWM :) Good luck with that sleep thing pat!

Cheers

Colin

On Wed, 8 Apr 2020 at 13:32, G Hammer <gary....@gmail.com> wrote:

3AM is a great time to introduce them to coding 😉

On Tue, Apr 7, 2020, 9:30 PM Pat <p...@obrienphoto.net> wrote:

Right. OWM is more of a drop in replacement so I'm leaning that way.

Still, this all requires me to get some spare time and a full night's sleep. Newborns aren't very cooperative with their parents hobbies :-)

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[Pat]

Think I'll release 1.1 as it stands right now as soon as I can, then work on OWM as part of the update for 1.2 and retire DarkSky in the skin for 1.2.

[G Hammer]

Sounds like a plan.

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[Colin Larsen]

Plan approved :) :)

But make sure you get some sleep too (and your good wife of course!)

Colin

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[Xant]

Pat

Just curious how Alerts works, and how it may depend on DarkSky.

Got alert today regarding Wind Advisory in effect until 10 April 2020 00:00. Which has a link to "https://alerts.weather.gov".

So, it seems that alerts coming from Weather.gov, not DarkSky itself. Is DarkSky the "trigger" or else? Moving to OWM would still be able to get alerts for weather.gov?

Xant

[Pat]

Alerts come from DarkSky's internal AI aggregation with direct links to the source. This works for multiple countries and not just weather.gov. 

OWM does not have this type of setup or service. So alerts will be removed in Belchertown skin v1.2

[Xant]

Ok... so, what about OWM "triggers" (which OWM calls "alerts"), and its also available to all services - free, included.

We invite you to try our new product - the weather alerts which are based on our meteorological data.

Now you can use simple syntax and a few API methods to create triggers which will fire on an occurrence of the selected weather conditions (temperature, humidity, pressure, etc.) in a specified period of time....

If the trigger's conditions are met, our service will generate an alert. In order to receive this alert you need to poll the service with the specified time interval. We plan to add push notifications and new data sources to this product's functionality in the nearest future.

Available for both Free and paid subscriptions

https://openweathermap.org/triggers

[Xant]

Thinking forward, it can be more than an "replacement" to DarkSky alerts... it can be "an evolution"!

The owner of PWS anywhere in the World already knows the weather pattern more than anybody else... so, with OWM triggers, one would make their weather conditions to send alerts, not depending of ANY global weather agency or their pattern... one would create their own... independent, anywhere/globally.

Also as posted, in the near future OWM will even implement send push notifications (and WeeWX/Belchertown will be ready....).

It hurts to see alerts to go... the above can be the next step, evolution.

[William Burton]

Hello,

On Sunday, April 12, 2020 at 9:44:26 PM UTC-4, Xant wrote:

Ok... so, what about OWM "triggers" (which OWM calls "alerts"), and its also available to all services - free, included.

Be careful! Pat was correct when he said OWM does not support alerts. The alerts in OWM are not at all the same as alerts in DarkSky which are textual time-sensitive messages that are relayed from the local weather service that warn of severe weather of some kind.

Even if OWM had the same kind of alerts as DarkSky, the free plan only allows for 50 API calls a day compared to over 1000 for DarkSky. So if you poll the forecast API once an hour to get forecast data, that only leaves 26 API calls for alerts which means polling for them only once an hour which is not often enough for time-sensitive information.

However, the OWM alert API is to implement custom triggers so one can be alerted when certain weather conditions change beyond a certain user-defined threshold such as for temperature or wind, etc. The API does not return textual alert messages from the local weather service the way DarkSky does.

In any case, when and if alerts are supported, they should be checked in a more timely manner than forecasting data. However, some alerts are so time-sensitive that several minutes can mean life or death. So alerts should show some disclaimer that they may be delayed and not to rely on the site for critical weather information and decision making.

-Bill

[Xant]

Acknowledged, and think we are in same page.

As posted 'OWM "triggers" (which OWM calls "alerts")'. Thus, it's "triggers", and not alerts as DarkSky.

Still, better than complete removal of weather flag as PWS owner can adjust to be notified at heart's contempt.

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