Maybe this is responding to a thread that’s waaaay too old, but given the thrash over HomeKit, could the siri shortcut be augmented to return just the current temperature? Like many others, I want to trigger things (fans, shades, etc.) based on the current temp, but can’t even read that. I could arguably write a siri short cut that checks the temp every hour (half hour, etc) and take action based on that. Unless I’m missing something, the two current Siri Shortcuts don’t provide just the temp (I can stick in a variable).
At this point, the only way to get Tempest into HomeKit is through a third-party integration. I use Homebridge with the homebridge-weatherflow-tempest plugin, which gives me all the basic stuff in HK. I’m working with the developer to add a contact sensor for lightning detection, so I can use that to trigger automations, alerts, etc.
I use home assistant, which has been better than nothing and I’ve been able to run light based automations to close my garage door. Same with using the rain sensor to trigger the door to close. Honestly, if you’re inclined the third party software options work well enough. I think Weatherflow has given up on a number or projects over the past few years.
Any updates on this topic? Maybe with Starling hub for integration into Apple HomeKit. Staling originally just integrated Nest Google products in HomeKit, but has expanded to allow several other non homekit devices to be integrated. The hub works flawlessly.
The current path to HomeKit for Tempest is via Matter. We have a demo of this running in our lab and, fingers-crossed, it looks like it will be part of the next version of the Hub, which is set to go into production later this year. It’s not clear if we’ll be able to add Matter/HomeKit compatibility to existing Hubs via an OTA firmware update, but if it’s possible, we’ll do it.
Keep in mind, Matter only recognizes three weather parameters: air temperature, relatively humidity and air pressure. And HomeKit only recognizes two of those (temp & rh). As long as Matter continues to get traction, that will improve over time, but to really take advantage of all the data Tempest provides in your smart home environment, Home Assistant is currently your best bet.
I assume that this is Matter over wifi, and not Matter over Thread?
From my experience with Home Assistant (HA) with a small vendor’s Matter over Thread devices who is known for pushing the feature envelope, the Matter protocol is still very much a work in progress that’s evolving quickly but still missing many basics. (HA’s Matter support was finally un-tagged as “beta” last month.) One theme that keeps recurring for anyone who tries to use that vendor’s devices operating natively in HomeKit is how limited Apple’s support is for anything but the very basics of home automation, and people are having to install/use HA to work around those limits.
I came to the conclusion a few years ago that HomeKit is not really useful for much other than as a front-end to HA, especially if you want to do automations. My favorite HA automation is for our Blizzard the OCD psycho weather dog’s electronic pet door, which is enabled/disabled by the lightning sensors in my Tempest stations because he lets himself outside to try and bite the lightning whenever his laser-focused radar ears hear thunder in the distance. Even with this setup, there were a few times where his ears out-performed the Franklin AS3935 lightning sensors.
With that said, HA has native support for Tempest stations via UDP, and third-party support to the WF-T cloud APIs for both observation and forecast data via an awesome third-party integration (weatherflow_forecast) available to install via HACS. This is why I removed my feature request vote for HomeKit support last year…
Correct. Our Hub will effectively become a “Matter Bridge” allowing all of the normal functionality of the Tempest to continue, and optionally exposing the parameters that Matter understands (temperature, humidity, pressure) to the local Matter environment. HomeKit then exposes what it understands (temperature & humidity) in the Apple Home environment. As Matter (and HomeKit) add support for other weather parameters, we will add those as well.
As you’ve found, HomeKit is not super useful yet, especially for a weather station. But it’ll get there eventually!
@dharp and others, what do you plan to do with HomeKit and Tempest?
Apple is the largest corporation in the world. They have been working on HomeKit for 10 years now (released in 2014, I just looked it up), and the protocol is still missing basic functions for even home automation. The only innovations coming out of Apple these days are animated emojis and changing the corner radius of app icons, and I doubt that they will ever implement station weather data in HomeKit because it would step on the toes of the Apple WeatherKit developer silo folks.
Obligatory disclaimer that I’m typing this post on an Apple Macbook Pro, sitting next to an iPhone 16 Pro, with an Apple Watch Ultra 2 strapped to my wrist…
I’m at the same point, on Apple since 1987 but gave homekit like 1 day test and abandoned it. It all seems super simple but … there is so little you can do with it. Maybe one day if matter is mature and really cross platform fully integrated (not half as it is today) …
@dharp and others, what do you plan to do with HomeKit and Tempest?
I’ve been using homebridge-weather-plus for years now. To me, HomeKit/Matter is more than just the Apple Home app — between the Eve app and Home+, there’s more weather station visualization and automation available to me than just the two parameters the Apple Home app exposes. I understand they’re using extended data that’s technically not Apple’s or Matter’s spec. But it works.
For example, I have an herb garden that’s watered by an Eve Aqua, which will simply skip its schedule based on recent/predicted rain (from my own Tempest!). I have automated window shades that don’t go close based on the outdoor lux levels.
I’m using the homebridge plugin to get current conditions from my Tempest. That works great, and doesn’t create internet traffic. One of the standout features of the Tempest is lightning detection, which would be super useful for triggering HomeKit automations. Turn on a red light if lightning has struck within 10 miles in the last 20 minutes. Sound a buzzer every time lightning strikes within that radius, and reset the 20-minute timer.
But lightning detection is miserably inaccurate at the local-station level. It requires cloud-based data processing to be of any use. But there’s no useful lightning data in the standard REST API calls; all you get is averages and totals. The “evt_strike” message is only available via local UDP (where it is worthless) or the WebSockets API, which the homebridge plugin doesn’t use.
…and I’d almost bet the proverbial farm that the HomeKit protocol doesn’t have a data type to pass it along to devices or automations even if it could receive the strike data.
If you are already having to run Homebridge, then I’d say that you have out-grown the HomeKit ecosystem and should be looking at something like Home Assistant for more integrations and nearly infinite automation logic. HA has a native Tempest local UDP integration built-in, and an awesome third-party integration that uses the WF-T cloud and presents real-time events like lightning to HA to fire automations. One that I have turns off our electronic dog door for an hour whenever lightning is detected, because Blizzard our OCD psycho weather dog hears thunder and goes running outside to try and bite the lightning…
with Tempest.