Blue Iris Tools - Weather Overlay, Watchdog & more!

Blue Iris Tools - Weather Overlay, Watchdog & more! 1.6.0

CapeData

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erkme73

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Might I suggest a large tip jar for Mike? And all donations be categorized by the brand of PWS. Whichever group donates the most by the time you're ready to roll up your sleeves and tackle this bear, gets first dibs? Acurite 5-in-1 running "Acurite PC Connect" as the gateway between the 5-in-1 receiver and the BI PC (USB connected).
 

vandyman

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BTW, If WU wants my data, but refuses to give me access via API, what's good for the goose.... I've disabled sharing with them. They can pound sand.
I did the same..
I also was paying $1.99 a year for their Android app.
 

OICU2

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You can get a free API key from WU for personal use of your own PWS data.
 

OICU2

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I've been paying attention. As I understand it, WU has discontinued free commercial access to the API keys. You can still obtain a free personal API key from within your WU account to use with your own PWS. Additionally, if you are a commercial customer, you can also pay for a commercial access package.
 
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I am thinking of using wunderground or weather.com and scraping the page for the data. Been researching it and it seems like it should work, be stable and not require any API key or anything like that. I plan on diving into testing this weekend.

Anyone care to share a link to their town / city's current weather (particularly outside of the US)? Similar to this


Code:
https://weather.com/weather/today/l/10001

Mike:

Wunderground: Edmonton, Canada Weather Conditions | Weather Underground
Weather.com: Edmonton, Alberta Weather Forecast and Conditions - The Weather Channel | Weather.com
My PWS: Personal Weather Station Dashboard | Weather Underground

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Thanks
 

tng5737

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BIT quit working about a week ago - giving error msg saying it can't connet to wundeground Is this related to the WU API keys?
 

erkme73

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BIT quit working about a week ago - giving error msg saying it can't connet to wundeground Is this related to the WU API keys?
Wow. I almost did what you just did. Jumping in without first looking around. The last three pages are literally discussing this issue. Not coming down on you, as it's a miracle I didn't do the same thing. Just a heads up if you want more detail on what's going on.
 

eeeeesh

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Just so there isn't any doubt - this was set to my personal Weather Underground station that worked fine for several years, until about a week ago
 

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Ch0ppa

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I am thinking of using wunderground or weather.com and scraping the page for the data. Been researching it and it seems like it should work, be stable and not require any API key or anything like that. I plan on diving into testing this weekend.

Anyone care to share a link to their town / city's current weather (particularly outside of the US)? Similar to this


Code:
https://weather.com/weather/today/l/10001
This is my local link...



Code:
https://weather.com/en-GB/weather/today/l/f6e02e626386ebdacfd48e9d6847b7e35966ca4da88558885b2065589379bdb3
 

eeeeesh

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I don't know if this is of any help, but my cron job that copies my Weather Underground data over to PWS appears to be still working fine. It looks like you can't currently access the webpage at wufyi.com, but here is the format that is used to copy the data over (this is from my notes when I set it up)

1579018847636.png
 

dirk6665

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I had a thought ... I know BI allows you to add image overlays ... WU offers 'widgets' that contain basic weather data (although not all). I used to see "image scraping" software back in the day - but don't see too many of these now -- mostly software that allows you to grab an entire page. If someone could find a way to grab the image (from the IMG SRC specified in the widget) - this could be saved to a drive accessible to BI and simply added as an image overlay. Not the best fix, but would temporarily offer a solution.
For example, my weather widget URL is:
This is what it looks like:
wxBanner.gif


If I can find a way to save just this image as a .jpg file, I could use it as an overlay image in BI
Most of the software I have looked at / tried has not been satisfactory - producing images that were unacceptable as they included borders and anomalous imagery.
I am also looking for a weather program that allows saving the data pulled as a "text" file - this could also be included into BI's overlay function and product similar results.
I'll circle back here if I make any progress - if anyone finds a viable image ripper / scraper to use in my first scenario - please share!
 

johndball

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I was able to get a working solution with the Weather Underground API (listed under my member settings). Thanks to a long-time developer friend of mine, Blaize (https://www.blaize.net), I used this batch file placed in the Blue Iris Tools "txt" folder, combined with JQ and CURL for Windows (placed in the Windows Directory), and a task scheduler to call the batch file, I now have weather updates every 15 minutes. I used Blue Iris Tools to do the overlay for me.

curl "YOURSTATION&format=json&units=e&apiKey=YOURAPIKEY" > "C:\Program Files (x86)\Blue Iris Tools\txt\conditions.txt"
jq ".observations[0].imperial.temp" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Blue Iris Tools\txt\conditions.txt" > "C:\Program Files (x86)\Blue Iris Tools\txt\temp.txt"
jq ".observations[0].imperial.windSpeed" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Blue Iris Tools\txt\conditions.txt" > "C:\Program Files (x86)\Blue Iris Tools\txt\windSpeed.txt"
jq ".observations[0].imperial.windGust" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Blue Iris Tools\txt\conditions.txt" > "C:\Program Files (x86)\Blue Iris Tools\txt\windGust.txt"
jq ".observations[0].winddir" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Blue Iris Tools\txt\conditions.txt" > "C:\Program Files (x86)\Blue Iris Tools\txt\winddir.txt"
jq ".observations[0].humidity" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Blue Iris Tools\txt\conditions.txt" > "C:\Program Files (x86)\Blue Iris Tools\txt\humidity.txt"
jq ".observations[0].obsTimeLocal" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Blue Iris Tools\txt\conditions.txt" > "C:\Program Files (x86)\Blue Iris Tools\txt\observations.txt"

You can see it in action here:
 
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OICU2

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I think for the average lay person, the easiest way is for Mike to reconfigure BIT on the next update with an input field so we can use our personal API keys and let BIT do the same thing its been doing, just making sure the # of calls per minute and per day are within the new limits set by WU which are 30 per minute and 1500 per day. I have confirmed with WU that the free personal API keys are here to stay for the foreseeable future.
 

CapeData

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I think for the average lay person, the easiest way is for Mike to reconfigure BIT on the next update with an input field so we can use our personal API keys and let BIT do the same thing its been doing, just making sure the # of calls per minute and per day are within the new limits set by WU which are 30 per minute and 1500 per day. I have confirmed with WU that the free personal API keys are here to stay for the foreseeable future.
This method excludes those (me) that do not have a PWS :(
 

OICU2

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This method excludes those (me) that do not have a PWS :(
I think you can sign up for a free Wunderground account and acquire a free API key and pull the weather data from any other PWS or station that has an ID. Or if that is not possible, I am sure Mike is working on other options as well.

Edit: scratch that, I just confirmed you can't get a free API unless you have a PWS :(
 
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dshehane

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OK, reading through all this great material has jogged my old brain....before we had BIT we used the personal API Key to directly interface Blue Iris to WeatherUnderground to get the data for weather overlays. That is the good news. The bad news is that I am much older now and cannot remember how we did that! Is anyone old like me and used to do that and kept better notes? That probably still works and can at least get a few of us up and going while Mike figures something out for the long run.
 
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