WeatherXML EOL - HS4 Native weather plugin

[russr999]

Hi All,

I've been a long time user of Jeff's plugin (WeatherXML) and what a fantastic plugin he has given us with many many years of excellent support. With Jeff correctly looking after his health at the moment and not able to spend time currently moving WeatherXML to HS4, I have started work on a new weather plugin that will be HS4 native. I am not promisinig it will be anywhere near as good as WeatherXML starting off but I will want to build on it and improve it. I am half way through it and hope to have the first version ready by this coming weekend.
It will use openweathermap.org starting off as its weather source as this is one of the last few free weather API's available. Once this is released and stable, I will look to add in other weather API services with DarkSky the most likely second API (for users who already have a key). Once released I will also be looking for as much feedback from the community as to what you want in the plugin and the direction it should take.

In recognition of Jeff and all he has put into and given us with WeatherXML, I will be releasing this plugin as a free plugin for HS4..

( CFGuy - hope this is okay with you and I wish you a very speedy recovery)

Rory

[mulu]

That's really great news because openweathermap would give me the hourly forecasts back. Are you also including NOAA because that is a source that VERY likely will stay free?

Btw, I was kind of hoping HS would jump in for Jeff until he is back because at some point HS said WeatherXML is included. It seems they don't claim that anymore just like with the conditional event actions.

[CFGuy]

Glad to hear that someone will be keeping the weather plugins going. I would not bother with adding DarkSky. My understanding is that those with existing API's will lose access at the end of this year. NOAA and Norway.YR are a couple that are still providing data for free.

[russr999]

That's really great news because openweathermap would give me the hourly forecasts back. Are you also including NOAA because that is a source that VERY likely will stay free?

Btw, I was kind of hoping HS would jump in for Jeff until he is back because at some point HS said WeatherXML is included. It seems they don't claim that anymore just like with the conditional event actions.

Based on Jeff's feedback I will change to include NOAA and Norway.YR as well instead of Dark sky (I knew it was ending jusut not so soon) but want to get the first version out for feedback so both these will come a little later (hopefully days or weeks).

While I would like HS to do a lot of this stuff, they see to be under constant pressure on the core/base system (9and I lie to see that conntinuining to grow) so I've seen that sometimes it is better if a pllugin we want is not HST developed/maintained

[mulu]

That's good news. I really missed the hourly forecasts. I can do some testing if you want me to. Are you planning to make it open source so in case you get busy with other stuff others can continue?

[russr999]

That's good news. I really missed the hourly forecasts. I can do some testing if you want me to. Are you planning to make it open source so in case you get busy with other stuff others can continue?

Hi mulu , I have no plans to open source it at the moment. I am reusing a lot of my HS4 code from my paid plugins and may tie this directly into my hydrawise plugin. Also, I want to ensure it remains stable and the look and feel of everything inside the plugin is consistent. I think once I have the 3 main services (openweather, NOAA and .no) included it will have most things for most people. From there I am open to any ideas of how to make it better or potentially some other plugins that can use/compliment this one.

My current thoughts (open to feedback) on how to represent the weather is as follows:
- 1 Device representing weather service - this will show if you are connecting okay or if there is an issue
- 1 Device per location showing the current weather for that location. Each item of the weather will be a feature of that device (eg: Temperature, UV etc) with the current summary (eg: few clouds: 11-25%) being the main display device. This appoach makes all the items available for use in events if required
now for the piece I'm not sure how to show yet:
- 7 day forecast - Do I show each day as a device with each piece of the info (eg: temp, uv, feels like etc) as a feature?
- Hourly forecast (48 hours) - Do I show each hour as a device with each piece of the info (eg: temp, uv, feels like etc) as a feature?
Interested in how you would use or like to be able to use the 7 day forecast and the 48hour summary

Initial thoughts are each day and hour is a device with the info as features. This will result in a large nuber of devices like below
Current:
1 device with 12 features
7 day forecast
1 device with 20 features (7 days = 7 devices with 140 features)
Hourly Forecast
1 device with 12 features (48 hours = 48 devices with 576 features)

Thoughts?

I will make it it allow the user to select which devices to create but that will come after the initial release (I think)

[Michael McSharry]

OpenWeatherMap is one of the source available with mcsSprinklers. One of the parameters important for irrigation control is rainfall. I have found that this is not one of the items available on a dependable basis with the free versions of OpenWeatherMap. On the positive side they have increased the number of daily download available for the free version so it is not too much of a concern.

[mulu]

russr999 That is how I would do it, i.e. 1 device for each day for the 7 day forecast and 1 device for each hour for the hourly forecast. Then the user can decide which devices they want. For instance, in my case I only would want a 5 day forecast. For the hourly forecast I only would want the values for hours 0, 3, 6, 9, 12, i.e. a forecast for the next 12 hours. Other people might want to have 24h with all hourly values so the can plot a graph. Also note that not all sources provide all information. So you probably have to have some 'not available' value. One issue I currently have with WeatherXML and NOAA is that usually later in the day the XML file doesn't provide the 'high temperature' value anymore for the current day (day 0). The workaround I am trying to do is having a virtual device for the high value and then an event that only updates the virtual device when the actual high-value device is -999(undefined). For some reason it doesn't work, though. Anyways, the point is that the devil is in the details and different sources behave differently.

[hiken]

Please consider writing it for HS3 as well.

[russr999]

Please consider writing it for HS3 as well.

Hi hiken, I did consider it but Homeseer will not accept any new plugins for HS3 after today (30th September) 😞 which means I would have no way to distribute it and I'm working on the HS4 version at the moment (as I want to start making my final move to HS4) so won't make the deadline of today for a HS3 version.I have already created a placeholder plugin for HS3 in my account so maybe that will allow me to publish it after 30th September as we are still allowed to publish updates to HS3 plugins.

Other option I could still look at is creating it and having it as a manual install but thats messy everytime there is an update but something I will think about. I didnt want to promise a HS3 version not knowing if I can publish it throuhg Homeseer. If I do go with a manual version for HS3 then the updates will have to be through a child device telling you there is an update available. You would have to download it manually and extract it to your Homeseer HS3 directory. (As you can see, I have thought about it 😊)

The timeframe for a HS3 version would be at least few weeks away though I'm afraid as getting the HS4 version stable is the first priorty. This is important as I would then back port a lot of my code to HS3 standards/coding. I do this as it allows my to maintain somwhat consistent code in the data layer with the HS interaction being the only main differences as well as delivering a near identical experience between HS versions.

Hope that makes sense.

[mulu]

I have no idea how much work is involved with supporting both HS3 and HS4 but I think it has to be taken into consideration supporting legacy software vs spending time adding more features. If you look at Jeff's plugin you can see how much effort did go into this based on user requests. But maybe you have the infrastructure in place that makes this fairly easy, i.e. supporting both HS3 and HS4. Just my 2 cents.

[russr999]

Hi mulu, yes there is a real effort involved but HS4 is (and always will be) 1st priorty as I back port the code from there. Trying to maintain two unique plugins just wouldn't be feasible. This also means that the HS3 version will always lag the HS4 and this is also a main reason why I tend to keep the code that does the actual work common and only how it looks to the user different. I did this lately with my rnbHydra plugin. I found by bringing bootstrap into HS3 I could get similar experiece and reuse a lot of my code and html.
There my be a time in the future where this might not be possible as HS4 uses a newer version of .NET than HS3 plugins and we may want to use a new feature of .NET to give us a better outcome or experience. If we reach this point then the HS3 version would go to LTS with only bugs fixed but no further enhancements.
I am supporting my HS3 plugins already andn will do until HS3 is EOL so I need to maintain my HS3 knowledge anyway hence why I will consider a HS3 version for this.
I'm not committing to the HS3 version yet as getting the HS4 version stable, and looking for what else people want will be the priority.

[mulu]

russr999 It looks like you have this sorted out and know what you are doing. Btw, I realize we are on Jeff's forum here so we probably shouldn't hijack it while he is recovering. Maybe we can move the discussion to another forum. Does HS allow subforums for free plugins? If so maybe you should open one.

[russr999]

Hi mulu, Once I publish the first version HS will automatically create a new forum for me and then we will be moving the conversation over there. So the sooner I get into gear and get the first version published the better 😄

[russr999]

Hi All, Jjust a quick update. I've spent a little longer than I expected so far on setting up the device selection/creation pages. I wanted to make sure It was following the HS4 design scheme and it was responsive (and useable) on mobiles. No point in having HS4 as a responsive web page if we don't design the plugins the same way 😂
I've moved back on to the device creation/updating step so hopefully done with that and tested in a couple of days. After that, I'll get the beta posted to HS4 updater.
Although we're starting with Openweather, the design is done for YR, NOAA as well and some early design included for the Australian BOM.