Open Weather Map
Open Weather Map is an internet service providing hyper-local weather information and also offers the functionality to upload weather measurements from your own local weather station(s).
Other weather systems are available in the Weather stations page.
Functionality
The Open Weather Map integration at the moment has 3 main groups of weather data it can read:
- Current weather (9 sensors)
- Daily forecasts for today and 7 days following (max 80 sensors!)
- Hourly forecasts for current hour and 47 more (max 384 sensors!)
For each forecast day and/or hour, a set of devices is created containing the forecast data for that particular day/hour.
If you like to build your own dashboard, screen ,etc. based on this information, it is possible to even add 3 more devices per day/hour in the forecast that contains description and icon (type) information useful for displaying purposes.
Current weather
This represents the actual weather at the moment. Different sensors (9 in total) are available including an on/off switch that indicates if it rains or not which in turn can be used to automate things like closing windows, turn-off garden sprinklers, open sunscreens, etc.
Daily forecast
If available for the specified location, the forecast for the current day (day 0) and the coming 7 days is given by 10 different sensors for each day including expected minimum- and maximum temperature, humidity, etc.
An important one is the Probability of Precipitation indicating the changes of something coming down from the clouds in any shape or form like rain, snow, drizzle, hail. etc.
Optionally, several text sensors are also available which can be used to build a dashboard for example showing the whole week forecast.
Hourly forecast
(If available for the specified location) To know what is coming in the next hours, the hourly forecast shows 8 sensors for the current and 47 more hours. So you can find out if you need to take a coat or umbrella with you when walking the dog later today :)
Forecast screen
Instead of using the default Domoticz forecast screen (currently (Q1 2021) the i-frame based on DarkSky information), Domoticz now can display one of the Open Weather Maps gadget on its forecast screen using the provided settings. Just activate the 'Use in UI' setting and take a look at the Forecast screen!
Setting up
To use the Open Weather Map you have to provide your own API key.
You can register yourself at the Open Weather Map website https://openweathermap.org/ were you can apply for the 'Free plan' for the 'Current weather and forecasts collection' service. Here you can get your API key for this service which you have to enter into the settings in Domoticz.
If you don't explicit specify a location using the format latitude,longitude but leave the value 0, the 'home' location of Domoticz will be used. This home location is set in the 'Settings' screen of Domoticz.
(You can see in the log which location is being used).
It is possible to use the integration multiple times, for example if you want to get weather data for both your home and holiday home locations :) Just set up 2 hardware devices using the Open Weather Map integration.
You can select which group of weather information you want the Open Weather Map integration to collect. Only the 9 current weather sensors or the total 473 sensors!
Open Weather Map versus other 'free' weather services (July 2020)
Main reason to use the Open Weather Map integration is the disappearance of many services for actual free weather data.
- DarkSky (formely forecast.io) has been acquired by Apple and will stop (API at least, Android already since 1-8-2020) by the end of 2021
- Wunderground (as part of The Weather Company, owned by IBM since 2016) also stopped there API's
- AccuWeather is focussed on US mainly.
- PWSWeather has a lot of free data from Personal Weather Stations, but is also US owned (AerisWeather)
Not (yet) implemented
Personal Weather Station support so you can upload your data to the Open Weather Map service and the PWS becomes part of the network of weather stations and other can use your PWS data same as you now use others :)