Meteobridge

[David Gooding]

If you don't want to connect to WOW using a computer, it may be worth looking at Meteobridge (http://www.meteobridge.com/wiki/index.php/Home). This uses a reconfigured ~$40 router to upload weather station data through a wired or wireless LAN. This removes the need for a laptop of PC - and the energy consumption is trivial at ~2W (compared to 10 or 100 times that for a laptop/desktop).

Other alternatives are Raspberry Pi http://trastle.github.io/rpi-weather/ 

It would be great if Weatherbridge could support WOW in future too: http://www.ambientweather.com/weatherbridge.html

[Simon Bell]

According to this list it does support WOW:

http://www.meteobridge.com/wiki/index.php/Features

[PWS]

Ah, now that the group registration is working again I can just repeat the gist of a short email to Simon (I guess):

We’ve got an experimental Meteostick/MeteoBridge (data from a VP2 ISS) upload running currently at:

 http://wow.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/view?siteID=5691150

So yes MB does support WOW. There's just one detail bug that I can see, though this is possibly/probably a WOW bug rather than MB, which is that 1dp degF temperature values submitted as per the requested WOW format seem to be converted to 2dp degC values, which then looks rather unscientific. (No AWS temperature values ever being likely to be accurate to 2dp and so should not be presented as such.)

John G Dann (Prodata Weather Systems)

www.weatherstations.co.uk

[Simon Bell]

Given that I just purchased one from here to try with my own VP2 it's very reassuring to hear you've got one up and running with WOW already.

I'll try to remember to report back with how I get on with mine. I'll see if I have the same 2 decimal point issue.

Cheers,

Si

[Simon Bell]

As an update to how I got on:

So here was my aim: To setup my Davis VP2 so that it would regularly submit its observations to WOW without needing to use a dedicated PC/Macbook/Raspberry Pi.

I purchased my meteobridge from ze Germans over at Varia-Store and it arrived about 5 days later. Now what took me a worrying amount of time to realise was that the TP-Link MR3020 router had already been 'flashed' with the meteobridge software. So I should have ignored the TP-Link instructions that came in the box altogether, and begun following the meteobridge instructions from the offset.

My next stumbling block was realising that the meteobridge, I believe, comes setup as default to connect to LAN (Local Area Network). So the easy thing to have done would be to just plug it into an ethernet port in my house. What I actually wanted was for it to connect to the wireless network (WLAN) in my house. This way the only cables plugged into the meteobridge router would be a power cable and a usb cable from the the Davis VP2 console (more on this later). Following the meteobridge documentation here I used their cloud simulator to enter the details of my wireless network under the 'Setup Network' tab. I entered my network name as the SSID, along with it's password, and also selected GB from the list of regions. I then saved these details and downloaded the config.tgz file, which I popped onto a memory stick before plugging it into the meteobridge router, which I then restarted.

I was then able to use their 'Lazy Way' to find the IP I needed to go to in my browser so that I could use the meteobridge application. From here I could select my station from the 'Select Station' tab; then under the 'Weather Network' tab I selected WOW from the list and entered my details. It's worth pointing out here that whilst doing all of this the meteobridge router didn't actually need to be physically connected via usb to my Macbook that I had the application open on, ah the magic of the tinternet! Having saved and applied these settings, and with my VP2 console plugged in via USB everything began to work! I could see the weather observations under meteobridge's 'Live Data' tab and the observations began appearing on WOW and on Weather Underground, which I also set up. Here is my station on WOW.

So it was all going great before waking up to an email from Weather Underground explaining that they hadn't received any observations for over 2 hours. When I checked the meteobridge app's 'System' tab I saw messages detailing that it could not connect to my station any more. A quick unplugging, then replugging, of the usb cable from the VP2 console got things going again, but only for so long... before I got the same errors again. Now when you select that you own a VP2 meteobridge rightly informs you that you need an intermediary USB 2.0 hub, something I rather stupidly ignored. So eventually I got round to buying a USB 2.0 Hub, I went with this Hama USB 2.0, bus-powered one. So I plugged the USB cable from the little data logger that plugs into VP2 console into the USB hub then plugged the hub into my meteobridge router. Since doing this everything has been running smoothly for a whole day now, hopefully it will last.

To follow on from John's point - I also end up with 2 decimal places on WOW. I suspect if we emailed meteobridge they could easily change it. Alternatively you could create your own HTTP request under the meteobridge 'Push Services' tab using WOW's URL format and inject in the obs using the templates meteobridge provide; which allow you to set the precision. I believe this would work, although it's not something I can be bothered doing.

Anyway hope that helps someone. All in all, after finally getting it up and running, it's a great little bit of kit. Certainly nice to avoid running a dedicated PC/Mac the whole time. I suspect it won't be long before nearly all new weather stations come with a built in router of some sort. Take this Oregon Scientific LW301 for example. 

Cheers,

Si

[PWS]

I did ask Boris a few weeks back about the 2dp temps on WOW and the reply was as follows (don't think he'll mind me quoting a private email):

'I had a look into the code and what MB does is to take the temperature stored in Celsius,
converting to Fahrenheit and then sending with one decimal precision to WOW.
May be the additional dps are then invented by WOW when the convert back to Celsius?'

So his view is that as far as he can see it's a WOW issue. But the issue probably wouldn't arise if WOW could accept temps in degC (which IIRC it cannot, at least at present?).

IF anyone is interested we should have some Meteosticks and MeteoBridge units for sale in the UK in 2-3 weeks' time

[John Thain]

Hi to all,

I have just commissioned my VP2 with a usb weather link data logger plugged into my iMac desktop. I have read with interest the issue of loading automatically through the router using MeteoBridge T-Link. I nearly went down the WeatherlinkIP logger but wasn't too keen on spending £300 plus pounds! 

I am tempted to purchase from Germany the same unit; however I would be interested in a UK sourced unit if possible? 

Thanks again for this enlightening discussion.

Regards,

JT

[Jacqui Bridges]

I am successfully submitting observations to WOW from New Zealand using a MeteoBridge purchased from Davis in Australia. You're right - the no-PC way is definitely the way of the future!

Cheers

Jacqui