rpi-metar 0.3.2

Visualizing METAR data on a Raspberry Pi with LEDs.

About

Inspired by some DIY projects, this script allows you to quickly discern weather conditions by changing the colors of LEDs to reflect the current METAR information. You will need a Raspberry Pi, some WS281X LEDs, and the four letter designators of the airports you are interested in.

This code assumes you’ve connected to GPIO 18 (PWM0) and have added blacklist snd_bcm2835 to the /etc/modprobe.d/snd-blacklist.conf file.

Don’t want to DIY it? This is the code that powers the Aviation Weather Maps products. Enjoy a premade product, or continue reading and happy tinkering!

Install

sudo su
apt install python3-venv
python3 -m venv /opt/rpi_metar
source /opt/rpi_metar/bin/activate
pip install rpi_metar

Configuration

You need to tell rpi_metar which LEDs correspond to which airports. You may do this by creating the /etc/rpi_metar.conf file. There must be an [airports] section where the airport codes are assigned to LEDs. For example:

[airports]
KDEN = 0
KBOS = 1

The LED indexes can be skipped and do not need to be continuous. If you don’t have an LED associated with an airport, it does not need to be entered.

You may also control the intensity of the LEDs via the configuration file. There must be a [settings] section. Within there, a brightness can be set (integer values from 0 to 255). In a well lit room, 75 or 85 are recommended. In a brighter room, try 128.

[settings]
brightness = 85

Autostart

Create the /etc/systemd/system/rpi_metar.service file with the following contents:

[Unit]
Description=METAR Display

[Service]
ExecStart=/opt/rpi_metar/bin/rpi_metar
User=root
Group=root
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Make systemd aware of the changes:

systemctl daemon-reload

Make sure it’s set to run at boot:

systemctl enable rpi_metar

Start the service:

systemctl start rpi_metar