Trixology

WeatherCat => WeatherCat Integration => Topic started by: jennajon on August 05, 2018, 01:25:30 PM

Title: Saying Goodbye to WU and Open Weather API
Post by: jennajon on August 05, 2018, 01:25:30 PM
After learning that WU is/has already killing off ALL free API keys, I shut them down. It was a 10+ year run, but I had enough.

So, now this opens a whole new can of worms; that being I am attempting to register weather station with Open Weather using PAW and of course API's.

Anyone on the boards have any experience in this area? Am i nuts to try this? And....more importantly, is it even possible to upload WC PWS info using API's?

Many thanks to all in advance.

 [cheers1]

Title: Why Open Weather? (Re: Saying Goodbye to WU and Open Weather API)
Post by: elagache on August 05, 2018, 10:36:52 PM
Dear Jenna, Weatheraardvark, and WeatherCat users who are concerned about changes to the World Wide Web,

After learning that WU is/has already killing off ALL free API keys, I shut them down. It was a 10+ year run, but I had enough.

Okay I suppose you are referring to this announcement:

https://www.wunderground.com/weather/api/ (https://www.wunderground.com/weather/api/)

Okay, so what does this actually mean?  Who is being cut off from Weather Underground?  I might follow your lead, but I need to understand better what is at issue.


So, now this opens a whole new can of worms; that being I am attempting to register weather station with Open Weather using PAW and of course API's.

Anyone on the boards have any experience in this area? Am i nuts to try this? And....more importantly, is it even possible to upload WC PWS info using API's?

Many thanks to all in advance.

Okay I assume you are referring to this company:

https://openweather.co.uk/about (https://openweather.co.uk/about)

From their description, these folks seem to be a for-profit company just like Weather Underground has sadly become.  Why would choose these guys instead of some of the other weather data upload services that WeatherCat already supports?  The additional services are listed in the WeatherCat manual starting on page 143 of the current manual.  These include the UK Met Office Window on the World:

http://wow.metoffice.gov.uk/ (http://wow.metoffice.gov.uk/)

Which is ultimately controlled by the UK Met Office.

PWS weather which is now owned by Aeris Weather.

https://www.pwsweather.com/ (https://www.pwsweather.com/)

Here is the website of the parent company:

https://www.aerisweather.com/ (https://www.aerisweather.com/)

Not sure that's better or worse.  You can also upload to WeatherBug although I'm not too sure how trustworthy they are.  If you want to upload data to something that I reasonably sure will never sell out to corporate interests we can upload to AWEKAS:

https://www.awekas.at/en/index.php (https://www.awekas.at/en/index.php)

AWEKAS is community-based and doesn't have any corporate interests that I know of.  The webpage it generates is more basic, but that's the price you pay for freedom.  Here is the page for my station:

https://www.awekas.at/en/instrument.php?id=8818 (https://www.awekas.at/en/instrument.php?id=8818)

You need to create a web template to upload to AWEKAS.  The instructions can be found on the WeatherCat Wiki:

http://wiki.trixology.com/index.php?title=Automatic_Weather_Map_System_(AWEKAS) (http://wiki.trixology.com/index.php?title=Automatic_Weather_Map_System_(AWEKAS))

I hope that's some help in the face of a world wide web and Internet that is sadly being more and more commercialized in ways that definitely violate the optimism that was found back in the days when the ARPANET was mostly an academic pursuit.

Oh well, . . . . . Edouard (http://www.canebas.org/WeatherCat/Forum_support_documents/Custom_emoticons/pout.gif)
Title: Re: Saying Goodbye to WU and Open Weather API
Post by: mcrossley on August 06, 2018, 08:56:17 AM
Yes OpenWeatherMap is a commercial offering, I'd say they are (cynically) trying to cache in on the OpenStreetMap name. But in this case, like WU, it's community sourced data for the profit of individuals, though the base API access is still free.
Title: Re: Saying Goodbye to WU and Open Weather API
Post by: jennajon on August 06, 2018, 09:56:03 AM
This is what i am referring to:
https://openweathermap.org/stations

As far as i can tell, these folks are willing to offer continuing *for the time being* free API keys to anyone who uploads information to them. At least that is fair. WU killing off the API keys extinguished that possibility in any form.

To the question "what does this actually mean?"  It basically means that the data you have been uploading to WU is no longer yours to recover. API keys allow one to take data and reform it into other databases, websites etc. WU has completely stopped that.

I felt that after 10+years of reporting data, an API key was the tradeoff. Couple that with the on again off again webcam debacle, lack of customer support etc., it was time to end the relationship.

EDIT addition: WeatherBug no longer allows community participation and have ended the uploading ability.
Title: Re: Saying Goodbye to WU and Open Weather API
Post by: mcrossley on August 06, 2018, 10:08:20 AM
A few people on the Cumulus forum have been uploading to OpenWeatherMap and it seems to work OK, but when one person emailed for some support they got no reply in two weeks :(

It would be interesting to see more experiences.
Title: Re: Saying Goodbye to WU and Open Weather API
Post by: wvdkuil on August 06, 2018, 11:25:25 AM
This is what i am referring to:
https://openweathermap.org/stations

As far as i can tell, these folks are willing to offer continuing *for the time being* free API keys to anyone who uploads information to them. At least that is fair. WU killing off the API keys extinguished that possibility in any form.

To the question "what does this actually mean?"  It basically means that the data you have been uploading to WU is no longer yours to recover. API keys allow one to take data and reform it into other databases, websites etc. WU has completely stopped that.

I felt that after 10+years of reporting data, an API key was the tradeoff. Couple that with the on again off again webcam debacle, lack of customer support etc., it was time to end the relationship.

EDIT addition: WeatherBug no longer allows community participation and have ended the uploading ability.

I think you are misinformed. This link retrieves your previous 1 day uploads to WU:
https://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KMEELLSW44&day=04&month=08&year=2018&format=1&graphspan=day

This link retrieves my daily summaries for August
https://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=IVLAAMSG47&day=04&month=08&year=2018&format=1&graphspan=month

Your data at WU is FREE to download, no API key needed as you can see when installing the history scripts or the graphs scripts.
Your data at openweathermap is also free to download but you need a free API key to retrieve your own information.

Why is everybody yelling about the WU API?
Because that API key is very valuable as it allows you to retrieve forecasts, maps, graphs about all regions of the world, and more. Some very inexpensive weather-stations where sold with the promise of a "free" API key. 
But there was never a free API-key.  You had to register as a developer and then got a free development API key.  With restrictions about the number of uses per day.

Conclusion:
As long as you only want to get the data from your PWS  or any other PWS, you can do that without any problem and for WU, you do not need an API-key. Just try the links above with your own WU-station name.

Wim


Title: Re: Saying Goodbye to WU and Open Weather API
Post by: xairbusdriver on August 06, 2018, 03:34:17 PM
Thanks, Wim. Never knew that resource. [blush]
Title: Re: Saying Goodbye to WU and Open Weather API
Post by: Blicj11 on August 06, 2018, 07:28:46 PM
Thanks for the clarifications Wim.
Title: Definitely da' plot thickens. (Re: Open Weather API)
Post by: elagache on August 06, 2018, 11:11:00 PM
Dear Mark, Jenna, Wim, X-Air, Blick, and WeatherCat faithful,

Yes OpenWeatherMap is a commercial offering . . . .

Actually I don't think it started out that way.  I can't find anything easily on the forum, but there is this thread going all the way back to 2013:

http://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=967.msg8476#msg8476 (http://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=967.msg8476#msg8476)

I have a vague memory that WeatherCat once did support OpenWeatherMap and Stu gave up on it because it was working so poorly.  At the time it was an open source volunteer project.  That implies that, like Weather Underground, it has also been bought.  So the premise of it being community-controlled has also disappeared.

EDIT addition: WeatherBug no longer allows community participation and have ended the uploading ability.

*Sigh*, I did remember to turn it off, but I had forgotten that they had given up!  :-[

. . . 
As long as you only want to get the data from your PWS  or any other PWS, you can do that without any problem and for WU, you do not need an API-key. Just try the links above with your own WU-station name.

Thanks Wim for the clarification.  That summarizes the main issues very clearly.

Unfortunately we all have to be choosy about which organizations we decide to deal with.  Nonetheless, any service from which we want something in return has to have some way to make that happen.  While volunteer services did better in a strong economy, today everything is hurting as the demise of OpenWeatherMap demonstrates.

Oh well, . . . . . Edouard

P.S. Just in case anyone else noticed, Weather Underground is once more having some "issuez" with webcam uploads . . .   Such are da' conditions that prevail.
Title: Re: Definitely da' plot thickens. (Re: Open Weather API)
Post by: Blicj11 on August 07, 2018, 01:23:24 AM
P.S. Just in case anyone else noticed, Weather Underground is once more having some "issuez" with webcam uploads .

Yes, I had noticed that I am getting some FTP errors with some webcam uploads to them. I'm still uploading away, but I assume that eventually, most serious back yard weather observers will find it easier to just pull the plug like Jennajon.