World Tides

[Wadenut]

With HS3Pi recently being offered at no cost, I had the opportunity to test some of my scripts on a Raspberry Pi. I found a couple of issues with World Tides which prevented the script running properly on the Pi. These have been addressed with v1.5.6.1.

[Richel]

Discussion thread for World Tides
Package is located here: http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=158143

Enjoy.

Thank you!

[Wadenut]

Something changed this morning on the source site resulting in data being retrieved from the legacy site (before the previous site change).
1.5.5.1 will fix this if you've been affected.
Simply replace the VBEN file in your scripts folder and wait for the data to refresh from the expected location (could take 24 hours).

[Richel]

The current tide height is stored in the Device Value. I've used that for graphing in HS2 using Jon00's DeviceGraphing utility. I don't know if he'd created a version for HS3, but I'd suspect he has.
I'm in the middle of migrating to HS3 myself at the moment so I'll put your request on my list of things to look into.

Per parsing the data, you could do that with a simple script to separate the data at the NewLine HTML tag, "<BR>". I'll add that to my To Do list for WorldTides as well. It will be an option; but it might be a while before I can get to it. I'm thinking three devices (LastTide, Curent Level, and NextTide). If I have an hour to spare, I'll scratch out a script for you to use in the mean time.

Thank you!

[Wadenut]

I've implemented WorldTides. Thank you for this. I have a couple of questions. 1) Tide data is one device with a lot of information. Is there a way to parse the data to display, for example, next high tide, to show on an HSTouch screen? 2) What do I need to do to show a graph of the data? Thank you. Elliott

The current tide height is stored in the Device Value. I've used that for graphing in HS2 using Jon00's DeviceGraphing utility. I don't know if he'd created a version for HS3, but I'd suspect he has.
I'm in the middle of migrating to HS3 myself at the moment so I'll put your request on my list of things to look into.

Per parsing the data, you could do that with a simple script to separate the data at the NewLine HTML tag, "<BR>". I'll add that to my To Do list for WorldTides as well. It will be an option; but it might be a while before I can get to it. I'm thinking three devices (LastTide, Curent Level, and NextTide). If I have an hour to spare, I'll scratch out a script for you to use in the mean time.

[Richel]

v1.5.5 clears up several outstanding issues. Available in the library.

Couple of notes on this version.
Recently for some reason all of the site reference numbers wer shuffled at the source. Apparently, it wasn't only the site from which this data is derived which was affected, but was a global change.
While such an occurrence isn't expected to repeat, in case it does, you'll notice the name of your chosen site is displayed at the top of the device string. Should the site change, either at the source, or by your choice, a log entry will be written and the new site name will appear in Red on the first subsequent download.

I've implemented WorldTides. Thank you for this. I have a couple of questions. 1) Tide data is one device with a lot of information. Is there a way to parse the data to display, for example, next high tide, to show on an HSTouch screen? 2) What do I need to do to show a graph of the data? Thank you. Elliott

[Wadenut]

v1.5.5 clears up several outstanding issues. Available in the library.

Couple of notes on this version.
Recently for some reason all of the site reference numbers wer shuffled at the source. Apparently, it wasn't only the site from which this data is derived which was affected, but was a global change.
While such an occurrence isn't expected to repeat, in case it does, you'll notice the name of your chosen site is displayed at the top of the device string. Should the site change, either at the source, or by your choice, a log entry will be written and the new site name will appear in Red on the first subsequent download.

[Wadenut]

Yeah, Looking at the site later in the day, they say all sites were affected. Why? I have no idea.
It caused me a great deal of consternation at first as my tide levels suddenly went from 12 meter spans to less than 3 Feet (unit changed as well). I spent an hour on the script first thinking it was at fault somehow,.
The upside though is I found a couple of improvements to be made.
- Added the site name to device string and a logged alert if the target location changes.
- Greatly improved calculation of current tide levels.

1.55 should be ready in a few days & I hope will be final.

[jono]

I was affected. Thanks for the heads up!

[Wadenut]

CHECK YOUR LOCATION
For some reason, some if not all location numbers changed at the site this morning and threw everything here into a tailspin.
Check your location at https://tides.mobilegeographics.com to ensure you are still pointed at the correct location. If you find you've been affected, you can either wait it out after changing the location number in your Config file, or in the DATA section, edit the LDL value to something outside your download interval (I suggest changing the year to 2018). This will trigger a new download and completely correct the data after the next High or Low Tide.
This was unexpected and completely out of my control.

To ensure this is easily noticeable in future, I'll add the target site name to the device string for the next version.

[S-F]

Yep. That all seems to have made things alright. Thanks!

Might I be so bold as to make some suggestions for the documentation? It would be helpful to make a statement before describing the parameters about the naming convention.For example right now it just has "Device= Almanac Tide Times" where "(Floor) (Device Name) Ex: (Floor)Almanac (Device Name)Tide Times" would have been a little more clear to me. Also I'm not sure if there is a blurb in there about not modifying below [Data]. If so I missed it. I have been pretty ill the past few days and not on my A game.

Also, I live in MA. But it would be fun if I did live in Gaylordsville.


Now I need to figure out how to integrate this with HSTouch.

[Wadenut]

Try 1.5.3 It should catch this error and force a new download.

Do NOT change anything in the INI below [Data}

Incidentally, if you're in Gaylordsville, CT., your nearest tidal data would likely be Bridgeport (731)

[S-F]

Hmmmm. I see. I changed it to 680 and I still get this error:

Running script C:\Program Files (x86)\HomeSeer HS3\scripts\WorldTides.vben :Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.String was not recognized as a valid DateTime.

[Wadenut]

The units come from the site itself and is used by the script in calculations. Changing that isn't going to help you and in fact might be causing your problem Location 678 is reported in knots, meaning it's not tidal but a current measurement. Try 680 if you want Boston.
In fact anything in the [Data] section is not configurable, and will normally only update when a new download occurs, usually once per day.

[S-F]

Here you go:

[Config]
Site = 678
DLInt =24
ShowMax = 30
Device= Unknown Almanac Tide Times
SunRiseDev =
SunSetDev =
MoonRiseDev = Unknown Almanac Moon Rise Time
MoonSetDev = Unknown Almanac Moon Set Time
ShowTimeTo = True
Graphic = True
[Data]
LDL=1/4/2019 6:54:26 PM
Units=Knots

Notice how it's knots? It changed itself to knots the last time I ran the event. Before it changed itself to meters. Maybe it doesn't like being set to feet? Dunno but that was one of the initial changes I made, from meters to feel.