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Chowmain - Internet Weather Forecast Drivers

The Forecast.io service provides free (upto 1000 calls per day) weather data and forecast. Forecast.io is backed by a wide range of data sources, which are aggregated together statistically to provide the most accurate forecast possible for a given location.

The OpenWeatherMap service provides free weather data and forecast API suitable for any cartographic services like web and smartphones applications. Ideology is inspired by OpenStreetMap and Wikipedia that make information free and available for everybody. OpenWeatherMap provides wide range of weather data such as map with current weather, week forecast, precipitation, wind, clouds, data from weather Stations and many others. Weather data is received from global Meteorological broadcast services and more than 40 000 weather stations.

The Chowmain Forecast.io and OpenWeatherMap drivers brings all of this data into Control4 for use in the home automation system. This is useful for automating services within the home based upon the external environment.

Note that this is not a replacement for a personal weather station. We recommend utilising Extra Vegetables Cumulus Weather Stations or WeatherHawk weather station drivers/hardware if you require accurate readings as this provides accurate real time local weather information.


Features

  • Ability to select the Unit type (metric, imperial or internal)
  • Current Weather Conditions for:
    • Temperature (degrees)
    • Humidity (percentage)
    • Pressure (hPa)
    • Wind Speed (mps)
    • Wind Direction (degrees)
    • Clouds (percentage)
    • Precipitation Intensity
    • Precipitation Probability
    • Dew Point (degrees)
    • Ozone
    • Weather Conditions (string)
  • Forecasted Weather Conditions (Today & Tomorrow) for:
    • Temperature Minimum
    • Temperature Maximum
    • Humidity (percentage)
    • Precipitation
    • Wind Speed (mps)
    • Wind Direction (degrees)
    • Pressure (hPa)
    • Clouds (percentage)
    • Moon Phase (percentage)
    • Dew Point (degrees)
    • Ozone
    • Weather Conditions (string)

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you give us some examples of how we could use this driver?

  • Humidifiers can be turned on automatically if it is going to be a dry day,
  • Towel rails can be turned on if its going to be a humid day
  • If it is going to be a hot and sunny day, close the shutters to shut the heat out
  • If it is hotter indoors than it is outdoors and the wind direction is facing the motorised windows then open the windows.
  • If it is going to be a hot day turn on the AC
  • If it is going to rain don’t automatically water the garden (I would also put in some additional logic to ensure that it will water the garden if it is extremely hot and if it hasn’t watered the garden in X amount of days).
  • If it is going to be a cloudy day and the customer has solar then don’t turn on the smart appliances until tomorrow.

Are there any other cool things we can do with this driver?

  • Combine with our Advanced Announcements driver to read the weather forecast out in the morning.

What hardware will this work on?
This will work on any Control4 controller running oS 2.2 or later.

Why have two internet weather drivers?
Why not? Not all internet weather information is built equally and we want to give you the option of getting one the is the most accurate for your location. One may work better in one country than the other. Two drivers for the price of one!

What happens when the API changes?
The beautiful thing about the extra vegetables auto-update feature is that driver updates can be pushed out to systems. No dealer intervention needed. Rest assured that should any of these services change their API we will update the driver to match.

How do I find out more information about the driver?
Please see the links below for more information about the driver.

Download Product Slick

Download Forecast.io Installation Guide

Download Open Weather Map Installation Guide


How do I buy the driver?
This driver is developed by Chowmain software & apps and is distributed and supported by Houselogix, Inc. 

Download Driver / Purchase Licence

Who do i contact for technical support?
This driver is developed by Chowmain software & apps and is distributed and supported by Houselogix, Inc. 

Support

Do you provide trial licences?
All Chowmain drivers for Control4 come with a 48 hour trial. This is activated once you add the driver to the project. No additional steps are necessary. 

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Alan, this is fantastic. Any chance of adding a "severe weather alert" feature whereby we can select the alerts to announce (for me Severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings)? One caveat is that it would need to poll every four minutes (radar update frequency in the US)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Polling every few minutes is fine.  Though the API's don't offer severe warnings but it does offer wind speeds which may help.  This is accessible as a variable which you can program against.

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Alan, this is fantastic. Any chance of adding a "severe weather alert" feature whereby we can select the alerts to announce (for me Severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings)? One caveat is that it would need to poll every four minutes (radar update frequency in the US)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Id love a tornado warning alert

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Polling every few minutes is fine.  Though the API's don't offer severe warnings but it does offer wind speeds which may help.  This is accessible as a variable which you can program against.

 

Gotcha.  Thanks for info.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 years later...
  • 2 months later...

@alanchow - a few questions:

1) What is the difference programming off Forecast.io vs programming off of Open Weather Map?  

2) Also I see in the API allows for precipitation type and precipitation accumulation - is it possible to update the driver to get that info into Control4?

3) for Precip Probability, their documentation says its the probability between 0 and 1, inclusive.  What does that mean?  What if I wanted to program something saying "if the probability is 95%....).  In your driver would I just use 95% under the programming conditionals?

4) Lastly - your documentation points to a "get weather" programming step - is that needed to then program off the variables?  I can see under monitoring all the current conditions are there, but do I need to program "get weather" at 6am as you suggest so other things trigger?

I am looking to get some heated stairs to work given certain conditionals, that is my end game

Thanks in advance!

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Sorry for the late reply.  Didn't see this post.

  1. Forecast.io and OpenWeatherMap are two different services.  Both of which provide similar functionality but one may be better for your application than another.
  2. The driver already returns these values
  3. The variable will return a number value of 0-100
  4. The driver will only update the values (ie poll the web service) when you fire this action.  you can tie it into schedules, timers, buttons or whatever you want but regardless this action must be taken to update the values.
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On 12/14/2016 at 9:36 PM, alanchow said:

Sorry for the late reply.  Didn't see this post.

  1. Forecast.io and OpenWeatherMap are two different services.  Both of which provide similar functionality but one may be better for your application than another.
  2. The driver already returns these values
  3. The variable will return a number value of 0-100
  4. The driver will only update the values (ie poll the web service) when you fire this action.  you can tie it into schedules, timers, buttons or whatever you want but regardless this action must be taken to update the values.

Thanks @alanchow

For "Current Weather Conditions" is there a list of what the program offers?  For instance it says "clear" right now.  Last week when I was playing around it was lightly snowing outside so it said light snow.  I want to program something for when its snowing, so do they offer light snow, snow, moderate snow, severe snow, blizzard, etc.  Do you know what those variables are because for your programming I would need to write them in IF current weather conditions = XYZ.....

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1 hour ago, eggzlot said:

Thanks @alanchow

For "Current Weather Conditions" is there a list of what the program offers?  For instance it says "clear" right now.  Last week when I was playing around it was lightly snowing outside so it said light snow.  I want to program something for when its snowing, so do they offer light snow, snow, moderate snow, severe snow, blizzard, etc.  Do you know what those variables are because for your programming I would need to write them in IF current weather conditions = XYZ.....

Not off of the top of my head.  You can get this info from the API's website. 

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14 minutes ago, alanchow said:

Not off of the top of my head.  You can get this info from the API's website. 

https://darksky.net/dev/docs/response

I looked before posting, it says rain, snow or sleet.  But with my own eyes I've seen light snow.  in programming could I use *snow* or something to pick up any words that may come before or after snow?

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15 minutes ago, eggzlot said:

https://darksky.net/dev/docs/response

I looked before posting, it says rain, snow or sleet.  But with my own eyes I've seen light snow.  in programming could I use *snow* or something to pick up any words that may come before or after snow?

Control4's programming requires it to match.

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  • 2 years later...

Hello, I am new to this forum. I have an issue with my Open Weather Map driver. I can not "Get Current Conditions", nor does the "Forecast" ever populate when I run that as well. It does seem to auto update the "Current Conditions" on the hour, every hour.

I am not a dealer, I have Composer HE, and I am quite proficient with the programming. To test, I simply say, "Get Current Conditions", if colder that 'X', turn on light. Nothing happens.

Any insights??

Thanks.

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5 hours ago, Nick L said:

Hello, I am new to this forum. I have an issue with my Open Weather Map driver. I can not "Get Current Conditions", nor does the "Forecast" ever populate when I run that as well. It does seem to auto update the "Current Conditions" on the hour, every hour.

I am not a dealer, I have Composer HE, and I am quite proficient with the programming. To test, I simply say, "Get Current Conditions", if colder that 'X', turn on light. Nothing happens.

Any insights??

Thanks.

Nick, what version of the driver are you using?  Have you been updated to the DriverCentral version?  Current version is 20170710

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On 2/14/2019 at 3:11 PM, Nick L said:

Hello, I am new to this forum. I have an issue with my Open Weather Map driver. I can not "Get Current Conditions", nor does the "Forecast" ever populate when I run that as well. It does seem to auto update the "Current Conditions" on the hour, every hour.

I am not a dealer, I have Composer HE, and I am quite proficient with the programming. To test, I simply say, "Get Current Conditions", if colder that 'X', turn on light. Nothing happens.

Any insights??

Thanks.

The driver isn't designed to ever update the forecast or conditions.  It will only do it if the command 'Get Forecast" and 'Get Current' is executed via programming.  Also note that 'Get Current Conditions' will fire and event.  You should be programming your conditional logic under the 'Forecast Received' or the 'Current Weather Received' events.

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  • 1 year later...

Hey, since Dark Sky is going to be going away, I've started trying to use the Open Weather Map version.  However, I don't get anything for the forecast.  I DO get current conditions.   Any ideas why or if I am doing anything wrong?

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