Switched from AcuRIte 5-1 station, Tempest dashboard

kcmisc1 · December 28, 2020, 3:54pm

Switched from AcuRIte 5-1 station which has a nice color display that we put on the counter. After she noticed I setup the Tempest yesterday she was not happy to find out there is no similar display for the countertop. I said download the app and use your phone. Not happy.

Wondered if one is in the works. All I could think of for simple solution is a used iPad mini with the webpage up on the Tempest card, plugged in and set to never sleep?

What have you done that is minimal technical and low cost?

Anyone create a new dashboard that is simple and easy to view with old eyes?

I have a Google Home hub that I can ask “Hey Google, what is the weather flow temperature?” Too bad it can’t display the Weatherflow Tempest dashboard. It does not seem that there is a device in the Google Home that I can rename “weather flow” to “backyard” or “outdoor” so it would be easier for my wife to ask Google.

I would buy an Amazon Show if it could display the Tempest screen.

gizmoev · July 24, 2020, 7:06pm

That or use the app and use the “Always on” mode in the app under settings.

Also, check out the Third-party Integrations section for several options.

vinceskahan · July 24, 2020, 7:22pm

Yes. Many many of them. Do a little searching the third-party integrations pages.

Really comes down to your budget and linux expertise, as well as what your time is worth to you in setting something up (and potentially maintaining it). You could go anywhere from a used tablet to a raspberry pi with a small attached display. Cost would be maybe $20 to $150 or so.

One nice one is WeatherFlow PiConsole - check out the screen shot. There are many nice displays using weewx and custom skins. Most people really like the Belchertown skin.

Too many to choose from almost…

kcmisc1 · July 24, 2020, 8:21pm

I just checked and Echo Show 8 has Firefox, so I’m going to ask if anyone is using Echo Show with the browser up at their Tempest webpage with always on and the Echo Show does stay on that page. The Echo Show 8 is $100, so pretty inexpensive.

erichennessey · July 24, 2020, 8:48pm

Had an AcuRite system, as well, and my wife also wasn’t happy about losing the nice display. I bought a $40 Android tablet from WalMart which is on the wall now in place of the old AcuRite display. It’s doing the job, but it’s a bit small to read from any distance.

I’m now looking at getting a larger tablet for a few bucks more, and I’m building a Splunk app which could possibly take the place of the Tempest app if I get the visualizations right.

vinceskahan · July 24, 2020, 8:52pm

Home Assistant (in docker, but runs on a pi) using the TileBoard add-on, displaying a little bit of weather data and my ZWave door+window sensor status. In this case the weather data comes from weewx feeding MQTT but it can be done in many ways.

kcmisc1 · July 24, 2020, 9:17pm

I’ve only been using apple products so I haven’t kept up with Android tablets so not confident on good choices except to read the reviews… I looked on Walmart and see this. It is 8” with a stand for $99 and has PIE OS on it. So I guess I could just install the Tempest app and set it to stay on

gizmoev · July 24, 2020, 10:23pm

Worst case would be to install KeepOn and run the web version of your station. The free version of KeepOn only requires that it is manually started. IIRC, only the paid version will autostart when the tablet boots up.

vreihen · July 25, 2020, 12:15am

Amazon is running a major sale on the Fire tablet line. You can side-load the WF app and Google Play onto them, and the $34.99 7" (sale price) should be enough screen space for the WF app with a single Tempest.

Personally, WeeWX and the Belchertown skin is the cat’s meow on the $99.99 10" (sale price), in my humble opinion. This replaced my Acu-Rite 5-in-1 console:

GaryFunk · July 25, 2020, 12:22am

There are third-party applications that let you customize the display.

emsflyer84 · July 25, 2020, 2:01am

I’m doing the iPad mini on the counter set to never sleep. It’s working well for me. I leave it on the sensor page, not the forecast page but I have the forecast showing on the top line of the sensor page.

kcmisc1 · July 25, 2020, 4:36am

I was thinking of a 10” fire tablet earlier today but I thought since it wasn’t pure android I could not use it. I’ll order it if you can guide me through the install process to load what I need. I would like to have a fancy dashboard. Thanks.

vreihen · July 25, 2020, 1:02pm

You can download the Fully Kiosk Browser from the Fire OS link on the top right of this page:

https://www.fully-kiosk.com/en/#download-box

The free version of Fully works great as a WeeWX/Belchertown skin display, as shown in my photo above.

If you want to run the Tempest app (or other Android stuff), there are several sites around the web with instructions and links to the four files that you can side-load onto a Fire tablet to install the Google Play Store and related support libraries to install most Android apps.

You can buy the cheaper ad-supported Fire tablets for use with Fully. They only display ads on the lock screen, and Fully keeps it awake so the lock screen never shows (except after the occasional Fire OS update/reboot every few months)…

kcmisc1 · July 25, 2020, 3:25pm

Ordered the 10” for $100 yesterday and arrives on Wednesday. Thank you about Fully, but what Is the sequence of steps to complete the process to display the WeeWX/Belchertown skin and display my data.

Thanks.

vinceskahan · July 25, 2020, 4:45pm

Man typing on a Fire in the Silk browser will make you want to look for a building to jump off of…
(love my Kindle White for books though - perfect for me FWIW)

Here’s Belchertown in portrait mode on a 2019 7" Fire (Model M8S26G) at 1024x600 with an unaltered screen resolution and not in kiosk mode or anything. Apologies for the darkness, I couldn’t get a good photo at normal (excellent) brightness). The 2020 version is on sale now for $35 (wow)

Looks like a Fire HD 8 gets you to 1280x800 ($59) and the Fire HD 10 ($99) gets you to 1920x1080 which would be a fabulous display, but of course you’d need the pi too in order to run weewx.

The screen I used is https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FZZ95WN/ for $110 which is 1280x800 and pi4 only unless you buy a couple cheap Monoprice cables to use a pi3 with it. Excellent display. Almost too bright, but careful with the resolution of the display you buy. Belchertown in kiosk mode would ‘barely’ fit on a 1280x800 display unless you go to lower than 100% sizing.

kcmisc1 · July 25, 2020, 5:39pm

Now I’m very confused. My original interpretation from your earlier responses was with the Fire tablet I could get one of those great skins to display the data after installing the Fully browser.

Now my understanding from your last reply is I need a PI3 or PI4 additionally? If yes, then I’m going to look at how to get the Google store to get the Tempest app and just run the app on the Fire tablet

vinceskahan · July 25, 2020, 7:18pm

A weewx skin is a web page. You need a computer to generate and host that web page.

If you want to run the Tempest app, you need a tablet/phone/pc/whatever that can run the app and display it. I don’t personally know if a Fire can do that, as Amazon has a pretty closed ecosystem. Maybe it can, but I don’t know.

If you want to display the WF public web page for your station (again, constrained by their look’n’feel and limitations of what they display), all you need is something that can act as a web browser. A Fire can do that, as can pretty much any other tablet that’s reasonably modern.

kcmisc1 · July 25, 2020, 9:08pm

Thanks. I had forgotten that one of my early thoughts was just get a tablet and go to the web page for my station. I got too excited about those skins as they looked great.

vreihen · July 26, 2020, 12:18am

The beauty is that you can work up to adding a Raspberry Pi with WeeWX and the Belchertown skin when you have a chance.

@vinceskahan - Don’t tell anyone in Seattle, but you can easily side-load Google Play onto the Amazon Fire tablets following directions readily available in Google. I think that you would be hard pressed to find a 1920x1080 (1080p HD) touchscreen display for less than Amazon’s $99.99 sale price on the Fire 10" tablet. Amazon sells them at a loss even at their huge quantity pricing, which is why it is doesn’t make sense for WF to make a similarly-sized Tempest console.

FWIW, I have one of each Fire tablet sizes. The 7" in portrait mode is fine for the WF app, and the 10" in landscape mode is the only one that can decently display Belchertown in Fully…

rileygeo.bob · July 26, 2020, 6:45am

Here is a solution’s that works with Fire or an Android phone

You also have other pages for graphical details.