Your welcome, I really like the display it shows a lot more information. If you do decide to go ahead, I can help guide you through the process.
I left the timbits in the photo for the Canadian Stations
I am using an ONN Tablet 8" from WalMart. Will consider upgrading to a 10" ONN soon. I’ve only had to back out and restart the app twice in a week as it froze for whatever reason. I even hang it on my wall by the desk by using velcro on the back of the tablet and on the wall. Great thing is, use the velcro to hang photos, if you wanna move it you don’t even mess up your wall!
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disclaimer - I don’t have a piconsole but I’ve run the software enough to have looked into how it works etc., so I think I can answer your questions…
This particular piece of software does what it does and isn’t really extensible/configurable. There are many third-party integrations that are very configurable, albeit also requiring more skills. In the absence of you saying exactly ‘what’ more you want to add, I always suggest weewx as an alternate way to get there with a slightly higher skillset needed depending on what you want to add to what it displays.
You need the display, the case, and the pi and need to put the display+pi into the case. You need to plug the thing into the wall using a good power supply. That’s all. It ain’t rocket science.
You also ‘do’ need to install the os onto a SD card for the pi (easy, many great howtos for the steps to follow) and you need to install the piconsole software (again, the docs for this are very good). Takes maybe 15 minutes end to do this once you get your pi onto your network.
No programming required.
Yes that’s what it does. After you tell the software your api token type information and answer a couple questions, it can grab your data and display it for you
Your choice. You are prompted for that when you install the piconsole information
Somebody else posted a parts list and I ‘think’ there are instructions on the piconsole pages as well. One thing I might note is that you ‘can’ run the piconsole software on a pi (if you have one) and get your feet wet before spending the extra $100 for the display and case.
No programming, just answer a few questions during installation. Hardest thing for a new pi user is just getting the os onto the SD card, getting the pi onto the network at home, and learning how to log in and run a few simple commands. There are sooooooo many good howtos for this it’s amazing. It takes a little time investment, that’s all. You can’t break anything regardless.
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@vinceskahan is spot on. I have tried to make the installation process for the PiConsole as simple as possible for those people who are not fully comfortable working and “programming” on a Pi. Unfortunately I cannot make the process of getting the Pi up and running in the first place any easier, but there are excellent resources out there to help you through this stage (Help Guides and Resources - How to Use Raspberry Pi). After all, the Pi was originally designed to get people into coding from a position of zero experience!
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The Raspberry Pi (and foundation that develops it) was intended for use by school-age children in the United Kingdom, to teach electronics, programming, etc. The price point makes them essentially disposable, and there’s tons of introductory articles on the web written for teachers, parents, and students alike…
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Somewhere someone had asked about the display being shown on their TV. I can assure you that if you have the Amazon Fire Stick as I do, and you have the Amazon “Silk” web browser downloaded, as I do, then you CAN use your TV as a display for your Tempest weather station from the internet.
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Personally, I think the WF app sucks. If they produced a more professional quality screen, I’d be ok with this idea.
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it is likely that IF(!) weatherflow is ever going to create it’s own professional(?) quality screen, it will still show you the same app functionality.
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The one thing I’ve learned in too many decades of doing this is that ‘everybody’ thinks they are a GUI expert and nobody thinks anybody else’s app looks good enough.
Heck, I don’t even like my own.
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the one thing I’ve learned is that even when you made the perfect gui, people want to be able to change things like color, font etc. It really isn’t any better, but it makes them feel it is better, because now it is a bit of their own design and therefore they think it is better.
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I like the Belchertown skin in WeeWX in dark mode. Pat O’Brien really did an awesome job with the layout, and it’s my go-to home weather display…
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Just get a 2nd hand old android or the like and BOOM! I have 2 old phones on the lowest brightness unless I can’t see them. I have stuck them up using double-sided
magic tape stuff
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Question for developers… after I let you know how much I am enjoying your Tempest product.
My son and I are both very intrested and hopeful that you are at least considering the development of a perminent indoor display that could receive the data from the Tempest outdoor unit simultaneously to the receipt of that data by the Wi-Fi interface ‘toaster’. I understand that this display would be unnecessary for many folks but I have seen much discussion about this and my son and I would both be immediate purchasers when it became available. Please advise if this has or is being considered. I hope y’all have at least explored the possibility to the point of doing market research and identifying if the return on investment would likely be reasonable… or not. Thank you
Do you have an old iPad or Android tablet? They work great as permanent always on displays. Just load up the same app or webpage you already use, change the settings to Always On and Full Screen, and done! I have 2 tablets running 24/7 for well over a year now.
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I realize you can use a tablet of your own to view all the weather apps from tempest and I do use an android tablet always on as a seperate way to watch. However I can’t see everything on this tablet at once due to the limited size of my screen. I too would love to see weatherflow produce there own display big enough to see it all and enjoy the extra viewing from another location in the house. Hope they will strongly consider putting there own display out there for sale with backup in case of a power failure…
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I have mine on an old iPad, it is on all day by my computer.
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Amazon can sell their Fire 10" tablet for $99 on sale every month or so, because they buy in million-unit orders to keep the cost per unit low. WF would be best-case developing a unit to be sold only in quantities of hundreds, and I suspect that the cost would be three times what the Amazon Fire 10" tablet costs in such low quantities. It makes no business sense to make a custom display for a niche market…
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Maybe this feature request should be for a tablet-friendly landscape orientation layout in the iPad and Android apps???
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Not too shameless…!
Last link on page below link took me to is broke. Need link to display unit (cost). What would you charge to build & provide, fully programmed & functioning? If not you, what would a ‘fair cost’ be, including procuring, building, programming, etc. - I don’t mind paying a reasonable cost for the effort…
jc