InqWeather - Forecasting Weather Station

@inq I am also interested in MQTT, and being 80 really need simple explanations or pointers to good tutorials. 

@codecage Wait until you hit 80. I would love to be only 76 again.

Posted by: @inq

I am interested in learning more about MQTT. 

Posted by: @codecage

but the worst thing is I think I have lost everything I learned.

Fortunately getting up and running with MQTT is one of the easier aspects of all this coding malarky.  You do need a mqtt message broker, and there are public ones available to get going with if required, but better, to my mind anyway, is to set up your own in house broker which can be hosted on any old linux machine or indeed any old (or new) raspberry pi.  There are probably pc windows based brokers too, but I've not gone there.

It use to be very trivially easy to install the broker - just run

sudo apt install mosquitto

and thats all there was to it.  But the last time I did this something small changed for added security or something like that and there was an additional step to add something somewhere before it would work.  I'm sure I made a note of what I did and I will look it out shortly.

Once the you have a broker running then you need to find a client library so that you can publish and subscribe messages.  I usually use python for this, but I have used an arduino mqtt client and have an example program somewhere. 

It wont take long for me to find the necessary, but are you only interested in arduino C examples or do you also want python examples?  Or maybe micropython examples as thats slightly different to the main python client?

@byron Speaking for myself, my mqtt interest is with arduino, ESP, RasPi, maybe even MAC clients/servers (see how little I know).

I will take a guess that a client app is receiving data to display or process more before passing it along to another client or even broker?

and a broker is collecting or massaging data (possibly from another broker or a client ???) before 'publishing it.

That is where I am starting from and at 80 the hill looks steep.

Posted by: @byron

It wont take long for me to find the necessary, but are you only interested in arduino C examples or do you also want python examples?  Or maybe micropython examples as thats slightly different to the main python client?

For me, I prefer C... and stop there to stay out of any Python vs C++ debate. 😊 

VBR,

Inq

@inq I also prefer C

Posted by: @zander

@inq I also prefer C

I prefer C++, the Arduino language

Posted by: @frogandtoad

Posted by: @zander

@inq I also prefer C

I prefer C++, the Arduino language

There are some (not as much as I would like), however, some c++11 (ISO) features, at least available in Arduino, though not documented in the Arduino core library! Having said that however, there are some more C++ features, such as that from (ISO) c++14 that are and may be available in newer Arduino hardware devices such as esp8266 and esp32 for example - This is a game changer!

Cheers 🙂

@inq 

I was reading through your IngWeather project and I have a few questions. 

But first let me explain my project.  My wife has several raised garden beds spread across the back of our yard.  She also has some garden beds in the ground soil.  I wanted to build an automated watering solution that would read/monitor soil moisture, but realized most of these sensors are junk.  My next thought would be to track/monitor the weather (temp, humidity, rain, etc) across a few days (say previous two and current).  For the current day it would be nice to capture planned high, humidity, forecast (sunny, cloudy, etc).  With the current day forecast and the previous trend I can then decide how long to run the sprinklers (I am just starting to form the project concept).  

Is all your data from the sensors, or can you capture the forecast data from online?

can I save the data and query the data for the previous x number of days?

Does the library work with the ESP32?

Thanks

Mike

@huckohio I can tell you NO to the esp32 question.

I don't know if Dennis uses Open Weather, but if you are interested in forecast data then this link may help. LINK  I got an API Key and am using the free plan for now.

If you decide for whatever reason that you don't want to use the Inq libraries, then I can recommend another that I am using.

Here is a link to the weather station I am building LINK

@zander

Posted by: @zander

↑

If you decide for whatever reason that you don't want to use the Inq libraries, then I can recommend another that I am using.

Here is a link to the weather station I am building LINK

Ron, I've made no decision on libraries and welcome any recommendations you have.  I will look at the link you provided.

BTW, hope your are doing well health wise.

Mike

@huckohio I only point that out as it has abilities for historical and forecast data albeit some is at a cost (small). For my purposes the free plan should suffice. 

Do not misunderstand me, The InqWeather sketch that Dennis offers is very good, but I don't think it has the ability to fetch forecast data from the OpenWeather server.

Health? I am still waiting to hear from a cardiologist so I can start down the path of getting a pace maker. I hear from several friends that I will notice a difference.

@zander 

I have mainly ESP32 MCUs.  Can the ESP8266 send data to the ESP32?

@zander

I believe the forecast data will be a must-have.  I like the project you recommended and think I'll start there.  Thank you!

As for feeling a difference with the pace make, the answer is absolutely.  We have several family members that have had pacemakers installed and the difference in their health, energy, focus was significant.    I hope you hear something soon.

Mike

@zander

I googled the question I asked you and I see the answer is yes.

I also see there is an Open Weather library for the ESP32.  Thanks for the suggestion.  I think I start with an ESP32, BME280 sensor (for current weather) and using the Open Weather API.  I connect the data to my existing Nextion display that I used on another project.

Hope you didn't waste any time.