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Weather in Control 4


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I have always wanted to have real time weather in Control 4. Diamond Design helped me get Extra Vegetables driver for Cumulus (I have an Ambient Weather WS - 2080 system for about $100.00) installed and "working". 

 

However - it never really worked - the house somehow never seemed to know what the temperature was.  I finally got fed up with it and my dealer and I worked with Extra Veg technical support and they updated my system to version 7.0.3 of their driver - they logged on to my system and found a rather nasty "bug" and exterminated it.

 

I can now say that I reliably have the ability to test the weather any time, the wind speed, any of their 30 or so parameters real time.  I can heartily recommend the Ambient Weather WS-2080 weather station (wireless so it is VERY easy to set up), the CUMULUS weather software, and the Extra Vegetables driver version 7.0.3. They are excellent and work well together. The entire setup should cost less than $200.00 or so depending on what your dealer charges to install it.

 

Bill

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This sounds pretty cool.  What kind of weather based programming features have you done with it? 

1. I have a waterfall outside - if the temperature is less than 34 degrees the waterfall shuts off as it will freeze and then the "autofill" will keep running - which then triggers the FloLogic to shut off the water to my house because it senses a leak.

2. the house has all three heat pumps thermostats connected to Control 4. So - if it is November through March and the temperature goes above 68 degrees outside. I keep the house in heat mode.

3. if it is April through October and the temperature goes below 65 degrees I keep the house in COOL mode.

4. if the wind goes above (gusting or sustained) 7 miles per hour I raise the solar blinds.

5. if the rain sensor detects rain and it is between 6 am and 10 pm I have the house announce that it is raining.

6. if the windows are open and it is raining they are shut automatically.

 

I would be interested in hearing what others have done using outside temperature information as well.

Bill

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How do you have it shut your windows?

Sent from my Droid MAXX via Tapatalk.

I have several 16 foot and 18 foot and one 28 foot high sets of windows. They cannot be easily accessed so I have them electrically controlled and I can open or close them with Control 4.

Bill

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  • 2 weeks later...

Dang, I have this setup working since about August and I haven't even done any programming on it yet.  I need to get to work.  I'd pay your dealer to just give me samples of all the cool stuff you have setup.

 

One other thing, if it is raining, or if it has rained withing x hours, and rainfall was over x amount, don't turn on sprinklers or do reduced program.

 

And if it is blowing above x miles/hour, delay or restrict sprinkling.

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Dang, I have this setup working since about August and I haven't even done any programming on it yet.  I need to get to work.  I'd pay your dealer to just give me samples of all the cool stuff you have setup.

 

One other thing, if it is raining, or if it has rained withing x hours, and rainfall was over x amount, don't turn on sprinklers or do reduced program.

 

And if it is blowing above x miles/hour, delay or restrict sprinkling.

My sprinklers are all underground so I don't have any that "spray".

You don't have to pay my dealer a dime - I would be willing to spend time with anyone that wants to talk - I have often thought of opening a conference line and just seeing if anyone shows up (announcing it of course).  If there is interest I would love to do that.

 

Also - if anyone lives near central Texas - I would love to have a get together and talk about the house and show what it can do.

Bill

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That's great Bill.  If you don't mind sharing a great starting point would just be copy and paste's of some of the codes.  Or we can talk, I would be up for a conference call by Skype or Google hangout or whatever.

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That's great Bill.  If you don't mind sharing a great starting point would just be copy and paste's of some of the codes.  Or we can talk, I would be up for a conference call by Skype or Google hangout or whatever.

Ihave tried everything that I know to paste code in here - Control 4 does not let me highlight and copy code.

I have all kinds of screen grabbers but this forum does not let me paste pictures in like the one someone else did above.  Can you tell me what to do to pase in pictures?

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  • 4 weeks later...

Operational question for those of you with this up and running.  If need be I can go directly to EV, but thought I would start here.  According to the EV website...

 

"The integration requires that the Cumulus software updates a website with information it receives from the weather station.  You will therefore need webspace and a PC running to permanently monitor your weather station.  The driver will then retrieve the latest weather conditions every time Cumulus updates the web data."

 

So my question is about the website required.  Is this website provided/integrated with the Cumulus software or can it be something like Weather Underground?  If it could be Weather Underground, or various others, would this allow you to integrate without even getting a weather station?  You could pick a weather station close to your house, and just use its data.  Thanks for the help.

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Operational question for those of you with this up and running.  If need be I can go directly to EV, but thought I would start here.  According to the EV website...

 

"The integration requires that the Cumulus software updates a website with information it receives from the weather station.  You will therefore need webspace and a PC running to permanently monitor your weather station.  The driver will then retrieve the latest weather conditions every time Cumulus updates the web data."

 

So my question is about the website required.  Is this website provided/integrated with the Cumulus software or can it be something like Weather Underground?  If it could be Weather Underground, or various others, would this allow you to integrate without even getting a weather station?  You could pick a weather station close to your house, and just use its data.  Thanks for the help.

 

I have a web site that is my personal web site that I use to get this data from - Weather Underground is also used by me - I don't think that you can use anyone else's as the software requires that you POST your data so you would have to have rights and I doubt that anyone else is going to give you that. 

Bill

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Are the consoles for viewing purposes only?  Or do you have to connect them to a computer in order to get the data?  Could you buy just the ISS, for example, and avoid the console all together?  Are there any products out there that can connect wireless to the system so you don't have to find a spot in the rack to hide/store the console?  Space is at a premium in my racks, where the server is, and I would prefer to just not have the console at all, but I am not sure if that is possible.  They appear to all connect via USB, do you know of any that connect by rj45?  Am I missing something here?  Thanks. for the help.

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