snweatherstation

Another weather station for Raspberry Pi, logging temperature, humidity and pressure (station height and reduced) in a database table or to a file. If configured, also foracast data from https://openweathermap.org/ are logged in the database.

A web application is available at https://github.com/signag/snweather-ui to visualize measured data together with historical and forecast data.

Getting started

Usage

usage: weatherstation.py [-h] [-t] [-s] [-l] [-L] [-F] [-f FILE] [-v]
                         [-c CONFIG]

    This program periodically reads environment sensor data
    and stores these either in the database and/or in a file and/or just prints measured values.

    If not otherwise specified on the command line, a configuration file
       weatherstation.json
    will be searched under $HOME/.config or under /etc.

    This configuration file specifies the database connection and other runtime parameters.


optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -t, --test            Test run - single cycle - no wait
  -s, --service         Run as service - special logging
  -l, --log             Shallow (module) logging
  -L, --Log             Deep logging
  -F, --Full            Full logging
  -f FILE, --file FILE  Logging configuration from specified JSON dictionary file
  -v, --verbose         Verbose - log INFO level
  -c CONFIG, --config CONFIG
                        Path to config file to be used

Configuration

Configuration for weatherstation needs to be provided in a specific configuration file. By default, a configuration file "weatherstation.json" is searched under $HOME/.config or under /etc.

For testing in a development environment, primarily the location ../tests/data is searched for a configuration file.

Alternatively, the path to the configuration file can be specified on the command line.

Inclusion of weatherforecast data

weatherstation can record foracast data for the geographic position of the weather station in order to be visualized together with measured data. Currently, only the service from https://openweathermap.org/ is supported. In order to be able to request data from this site, it is necessary to create an account (which is free) and to generate an API key. The service is free for a limited number of requests (60) per second, which will never be exceeded by weatherstation.

Structure of JSON Configuration File

The following is an example of a configuration file:

{
    "sensorType": "DHT22",
    "raspiPin": "PIN13",
    "measurementInterval": 900,
    "height": 226,
    "dbOut": true,
    "fileOut": false,
    "includeMeasurement": true,
    "includeForecast": true,
    "dbConnection":
    {
        "host": "localhost", 
        "port": 3307, 
        "database": "weather", 
        "table": "weatherdata",
        "user": "testuser", 
        "password": "$[TestUser-1]@?"
    },
    "fileName": "weatherData.txt",
    "forecast":
    {
        "source":
        {
            "url": "https://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/onecall",
            "payload":
            {
                "lat"   : "54.188055",
                "lon"   : "7.869444",
                "units" : "metric",
                "lang"  : "de",
                "appid" : "xxxxx"
            }
        },
        "forecastDbOut": true,
        "forecastFileOut": false,
        "forecastRetain" : 4,
        "forecastTables":
        {
            "hourlyForecast": "weatherforecast",
            "dailyForecast" : "dailyforecast",
            "alertsForecast": "alerts"
        },
        "forecastFile": "forecastData.txt"
    }
}

Parameters

Supported Sensor Types

See also https://github.com/signag/snraspi-lib/blob/main/docs/EnvironmentSensors.md

MariaDB

weatherstation stores weather data in a MariaDB database (see https://mariadb.org/).

MariaDB is available on Linux and Windows platforms. A MariaDB server is also provided as plugin on most of the popular NAS systems. For weatherstation, you may use any of your available MariaDB servers, as long as it is visible to your Raspberry Pi.

Alternatively, you may also install a MariaDB server on your Raspberry Pi.

NOTE MariaDB Client and connectors are installed together with weatherstation.

Setup MariaDB Server on Raspberry Pi

INFO Skip this step if you will be using an existing MariaDB server

Installation

sudo apt install mariadb-server php-mysql
sudo apt install phpmyadmin

Service configuration

For automatic start:

sudo systemctl enable mariadb

For manual start:

sudo systemctl disable mariadb

sudo systemctl start mariadb
sudo systemctl stop mariadb

Database Schema Setup

weatherstation requires a database table with a specific structure. For forecast data, two additional tables are required.

An SQL script template is available under ./data: createDBtable.sql in the installation folder.

The table names can be adjusted in the script and configured in the weatherstation config file so that different tables can be used to distinguish different physical weather stations in the same database.

Run this SQL script against the database to create the required database table(s).

Configure Weatherstation Service

To continuously log weather data, weatherstation should be run as service.

See https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/linux/usage/systemd.md

A service configuration file template can be found under ./data in the installation folder.