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Weather Alert (e.g., Tornado) Events via TCP


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Hey all -- I just got the Generic TCP driver and for my first use case want to solution for severe weather alerts (given I recall they're no longer natively supported by any driver). Has anyone already figured out a good implementation? Happy to be be the first/contribute but don't want to reinvent the wheel. Thanks!

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Do any users of the Generic TCP Driver know if the HTTP GET functionality can be used to query an API and bring back a JSON result which logic can be run on? I don't see anything like that in the documentation, but I can't otherwise think of a reason for the functionality.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I used the "old" and free TCP driver in the past to do just that: severe weather alerts.  I just ran Node-Red on an old Pi that would query whatever I wanted (in this case an API for my own weather system), then would fire the TCP event #1-15 based upon the severe weather alert notice.  I then had custom announcements setup correlating to the weather alert and the programming was simply based upon "if TCP driver receives 1, play announcement 1"

Is there a "new" tcp events driver?  Thought the old one broke back in 2.6 or something like that

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  • 4 weeks later...

Really if they'd just put back the weather alerts function in the core driver it would meet a lot of use cases out there.  While I agree local PWS is a major plus, not having the weather alerts is a big pain, especially since they are also free from NWS on your SAME / FIPS / COUNTY RSS feed.

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1 minute ago, msgreenf said:

and no "company" is behind that... Are users going to turn around and sue finity69x2? no.  will they sue control4 if they didn't get the alert - yup

This is the funniest c4xcuse yet.  "We can't offer obvious functionality that users want and is available elsewhere - the liability!!!  Everything is great though." 

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Just now, wnpublic said:

This is the funniest c4xcuse yet.  "We can't offer obvious functionality that users want and is available elsewhere - the liability!!!  Everything is great though." 

it's not obvious for most of the US.....

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1 minute ago, msgreenf said:

it's not obvious for most of the US.....

I'm guessing my knowledge of legal matters including the validity of liability waivers compares favorably to yours...wouldn't challenge you on technical/networking issues tho.

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Perhaps there is valid legal concern, but the weather station driver DID have all those alerts prior to the deprecation of WU.  Those were specifically programmable against and are still listed in the documentation (with a call out that they no longer work, but they are listed in detail).  

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42 minutes ago, poisenoire said:

Perhaps there is valid legal concern, but the weather station driver DID have all those alerts prior to the deprecation of WU.  Those were specifically programmable against and are still listed in the documentation (with a call out that they no longer work, but they are listed in detail).  

Doesn't change that I suspect liability is the issue. You can shut down a function for that very reason as well.... I also think documentation may need updating. 😏

 

2 hours ago, wnpublic said:

I'm guessing my knowledge of legal matters including the validity of liability waivers compares favorably to yours...wouldn't challenge you on technical/networking issues tho.

You may be guessing correctly - but tell me this: who's signing that waiver, when? C4 making that function available without a required signed waiver for a dealer to install and a user to program against it would be a huge opening to SUE for someone for something (sad as that is) - even if it would come to nothing, the legal cost alone could be tremendous. And as per the above raised comparison - it's not that likely that the dealer would be the target, because there'd be limited gain. Sue Control4/Snap AV on the other hand......

Heck, it could come from the other direction too - WU stating they don't want this function in 3rd party implementation as the data association could make THEM liable even if C4 is deemed not to be.

 

 

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  • 1 year later...
On 3/8/2021 at 11:46 PM, booch said:

Could be awhile, but I'll figure it out!

So pumped -- was a bit under the weather so having a calm night and decided to dust this off and give it another crack -- figured it out!

Using Node-Red to query NWS/weather.gov every 60s then bringing the status into C4 variables via the Generic TCP Command Driver.

Going to refine/package this over the next week then will share files/details. Pretty straightforward, actually, once familiar. (See flow pic.)

Weathergov.thumb.JPG.758c936f3e9bf685dc6967ef5a61b8a8.JPG

 

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