Event triggers for tracking weather forecasts

[Dan the LAN man]

Ultra -

I am home-brewing my irrigation controls and want to trigger a sprinkler system enabling / disabling event, based upon forecasted terms received from weather stations, such as "mostly clear", "partly cloudy", "mostly sunny", etc.

Not being a programmer, I have been trying to use HomeSeer's built in triggers based on UltraWeatherBug device conditions, but cannot figure out a reliable way of testing or comparing for the varied textual weather forecasts.

Do I need to learn vb scripting to accomplish the type of conditional testing needed to disable sprinklers if rain is in the forecast?

Thank you for producing so many great plugins and for your assistance with this one -

Dan the LAN Man

[Ultrajones]

I found the list of WeatherBug short predictions... I'll modify the prediction HomeSeer devices and assign a value to each prediction so you can use it in a HomeSeer event.

I'll post an update here when done.

[travisdh]

Just replying to I can subscribe to the thread, i too would be interested in short prediction values

[Ultrajones]

I added the values to the current conditions and prediction HomeSeer devices, but found it would not solve the issue you were dealing with. I ended up spending a lot of time on this and decided to add the following HomeSeer event conditions:

1) Current conditions
2) Todays prediction
3) Tomorrows prediction

This allows you to create an event to run your sprinklers with the following conditions:

Currently set conditions:

Group 1
Station1, Current Condition: Not Raining AND
Station1, Today's Prediction: No Chance of Rain AND
Station1, Tomorrow's Prediction: No Chance of Rain

The HomeSeer conditions also support the following condition categories:

Condition is:

"Sunny/Clear"
"Cloudy/Fair/Hazy"
"Rain/Rain Showers/Drizzle"
"Sleet/Freezing Rain/Freezing Drizzle"
"Snow/Snow Showers/Flurries"
"Storms/Thunderstorms"
"Foggy"
"Windy"
"Warm and Humid"
"Cold and Dry"

I'll post an update when testing is complete.

Regards,
Ultrajones

[Dan the LAN man]

anxiously waiting

UJ - It was nice to realize it was not just my own ignorance on programming concepts! I look forward to testing these improvements. How soon are you planning a release?

Thank you! Dan the LAN Man

[Ultrajones]

I just posted the update. Let me know if you experience any issues with the HomeSeer conditions.

Regards,
Ultrajones

[Dan the LAN man]

UJ -

Yes, I can imagine how much time you sunk into this. It occurs to me there's not much straight forward about the variables which complicate logical analysis of real-world weather conditions.

That said, your approach to add additional conditions would seem to fit the bill. I installed the updated PI and modified my events to utilize these more determinate conditions and so far.... no false alarms like I was getting with my own logic! Now, we just need some rain, please.

My water bill & I thank you.
Dan the LAN Man

[Dan the LAN man]

UJ - Can't say if the weather condition aspects are all just perfect now, since every day here in Paradise (San Diego_ is much like the previous day. But there is an anomaly in my log file... It is filling with frequent blasts of the following entries:

7/19/2012 10:41:06 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Todays Prediction7/19/2012 10:41:06 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Tomorrows Prediction7/19/2012 10:41:06 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Current Conditions7/19/2012 10:41:06 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Todays Prediction7/19/2012 10:41:06 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Current Conditions7/19/2012 10:41:06 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Todays Prediction7/19/2012 10:41:06 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Current Conditions7/19/2012 10:41:06 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Todays Prediction7/19/2012 10:41:06 PM Device Control Device: Motion Detection MACROS & FLAGS [F14] - Activity in Office = ON (F14) ON7/19/2012 10:41:07 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Tomorrows Prediction7/19/2012 10:41:07 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Tomorrows Prediction7/19/2012 10:41:07 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Current Conditions7/19/2012 10:41:07 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Todays Prediction7/19/2012 10:41:07 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Current Conditions7/19/2012 10:41:07 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Todays Prediction7/19/2012 10:41:11 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Tomorrows Prediction7/19/2012 10:41:11 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Tomorrows Prediction7/19/2012 10:41:11 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Current Conditions7/19/2012 10:41:11 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Todays Prediction7/19/2012 10:41:11 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Current Conditions7/19/2012 10:41:11 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Todays Prediction7/19/2012 10:42:00 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Tomorrows Prediction7/19/2012 10:42:00 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Tomorrows Prediction7/19/2012 10:42:00 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Current Conditions7/19/2012 10:42:00 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Todays Prediction7/19/2012 10:42:00 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Current Conditions7/19/2012 10:42:00 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Todays Prediction7/19/2012 10:42:06 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Tomorrows Prediction7/19/2012 10:42:06 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Tomorrows Prediction7/19/2012 10:42:06 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Tomorrows Prediction7/19/2012 10:42:06 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Current Conditions7/19/2012 10:42:06 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Tomorrows Prediction7/19/2012 10:42:06 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Todays Prediction7/19/2012 10:42:06 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Current Conditions7/19/2012 10:42:06 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Todays Prediction7/19/2012 10:42:06 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Current Conditions7/19/2012 10:42:06 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Todays Prediction7/19/2012 10:42:06 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Current Conditions7/19/2012 10:42:06 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Todays Prediction7/19/2012 10:42:06 PM Device Control Device: Motion Detection MACROS & FLAGS [F14] - Activity in Office = ON (F14) ON7/19/2012 10:42:09 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Tomorrows Prediction7/19/2012 10:42:09 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Tomorrows Prediction7/19/2012 10:42:09 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Current Conditions7/19/2012 10:42:09 PM UltraWeatherBug Warning Todays Prediction

[Ultrajones]

Sorry about that. I left a debug statement in the released code. I just uploaded a new version to the HomeSeer updater that fixes this issue.

Regards,
Ultrajones

[pbibm]

Dan, another way to approach this is to look at how much rain has actually fallen today before the sprinklers are scheduled to go.

If the the daily actual rainfall is >= then what you need apply,
Then skip this round of watering.

In other words, change the behavior based on what you really got, as opposed to what you may or may not get. This method leaves it open to the sprinklers being on when its raining (if it starts raining near your sprinkling start time), but it ensures that enough water makes on to the lawn each day.

You can have an event set a virtual device to on or off for "enough rain today". I combine this with an event to kick off an additional mid day cycle if the temperature is predicted to be above 90 and the humidity is low.

An open switch on this one is if it rains a lot and stops before midnight. Since the rainfall measure resets at midnight, the events won't know how much has fallen recently before midnight.