Is Fully Kiosk Browser and the Tempest web site a viable option on your tablet???
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Actually, that seems to work pretty good so far….thanks!
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I didn’t realize how much I do appreciate the dedicated display. It seems there are many options for a DIY so the question really becomes, why haven’t they developed the app to better present all the data in a more contemporary way? For a high end amateur weather station the display is too rudimentary and doesn’t show the true capabilities of the Tempest.
I’m new here so if this has been discussed kindly point me to the right thread. Are there other display options? PWS Monitor is an iPhone app that gathers data from Wunderground stations.
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My “coding” and IT days ended over 20 years ago and I’d much rather purchase a display that someone has built. I can’t be the only one that would prefer to do this.
Is anyone selling these as a completed ready-to-go display?
Thanks all and cheers
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Apologies - this comes up a ‘lot’ so let me answer for the next hundred guys asking the same question…
Cheapest not-bad way to get there currently perhaps
Use a third-party weather site
I haven’t kept up with what big sites you can set your WF gear up to feed, but some of the famous maker sites like WU/PWS/CWOP and the like have web pages that aren’t that bad. Take a look at each of them and see if any of ‘those’ websites have what you’re looking for in terms of a look’n’feel and amount of data you can view there.
If so, you can get there by simply configuring your WF gear to feed the third party site, and pick up a $40-60 Kindle Fire as an always-on console to view their web page. Works great.
MUCH longer answer for self-hosted solutions
Build a custom solution on your LAN
Current cost would possibly exceed the cost of a Tempest Station and Hub…really.
This comes up a ‘lot’ so let me reiterate some real questions here:
- How much would you be willing to spend for such a thing ?
- Would you be willing to drop-ship all the components to somebody to assemble and trust them to do the work and ship an assembled unit pre-paid back to you when they get it done ?
- How big does the display have to be ?
- What turnaround time are you looking for ?
And how shrink-wrapped zero-IT-knowledge-required does the solution look to be ?
- Are you expecting something with a touchscreen that boots up and prompts you for network information to get it online and the like ?
- Do you need some kind of ‘factory reset’ functionality thing to clear things to an unconfigured state for when you move (or typo it) ?
- Are you willing to devote any labor on your end for care+feeding to keep it working ?
And most importantly, it’s costly to go first…
- are you willing to front ‘all’ the labor money for somebody to develop a solution ? You’re looking at likely a lot of hours there, depending on what you answer for how turnkey and no-IT-needed your solution needs to be.
(more complicated solutions requiring a computer on your network)
To cut to the chase, you’re currently looking at $200+ for anything other than a Kindle Fire looking at the WF default web page they make available or some other third-party site that fits your eyes.
Some thoughts on the best ones I’ve seen and used…
WF PiConsole
- requires a computer - pi4 recommended
- pi are close to impossible to find still due to supply shortages
- very popular solution here with a long (long…) thread here you can look at for its look’n’feel
- very unusual software stack with a very IT-centric installation and upgrade mechanism, but if you are farming it out then it’s not your problem to worry
- requires continued access to WF Servers, which has been flaky occasionally on the WF side
- requires ‘you’ to set up WF API credentials and share them (ugh) with your subcontractor
- requires you to get the pi under the hood onto your network and working or
- uncertain long-term software/hardware compatibility but if you install it and walk away it should run basically forever
- not configurable really - you get what you get (which is pretty nice)
- local display only, not viewable on a phone/tablet or remotely
- ‘possibly’ could wrapper the software with some kind of installer thing to ask you a few questions and let you fill in the blanks on a touchscreen, but uncertain if that’s easily doable or not
- that said, it is certainly very pretty and many people just love it
WeeWX with the Belchertown skin
- requires a computer - pi4 recommended but it can run on a pi3 or pi3+ just fine too.
- pi are close to impossible to find still due to supply shortages
- you ‘could’ buy an alternate small unixy computer for this one if you wanted
- literally thousands of weewx users for over a decade
- many hundreds of Belchertown skins love it to death
- essentially it’s a pretty web page over any linux/unixy computer like a pi
- runs LAN-only with no need to access WF servers or Internet at all
- it uses your sensors’ data only, so you can’t get access to anything WF tweaks on their server side (example - altered lightning and rain data based on surrounding sites)
- rather configurable although if you wanted somebody to do this for you, you’d need to make some decisions and tell them what to tweak. Not really something you’d want to touch under the hood if you really want a shrink-wrapped solution. Unlikely to expect some magic installer wrappering this one with a simple ask+answer questions installer, but maybe. Maybe.
- it’s a slick web page with a nice phone/tablet appearance too on smaller screens
- again, you’d need to get the pi onto your network or make that part of the to-do list for your subcontractor for this thing
- this is most people’s favorite weewx display skin I’d say
Supply Chain Issues
They’re real. It is close to impossible to find a pi4 unless you pay scalpers literally hundreds of dollars for a 40 buck computer. The displays and cases are also sometimes hard to find.
Bottom line - money
For a PiConsole you’re looking $175-200 or so for hardware at ‘list’ prices
For weewx+Belchertown using a Kindle Fire for an always on display plus a standalone pi for the compute side, you’re down in the $100 range at ‘list’ prices. Some setup of the Kindle is needed which isn’t ‘that’ hard to do, but it’s not zero labor zero thing to do.
But - you can’t ‘get’ a pi currently due to supply issues. Reportedly they should start to ease up in 2023 but it’s reasonable to think you might be 6 months out before the hardware is available for a raspberry pi, unless you wanted to go weewx+Belchertown and throw in a $125 small unix computer there (making your total more in the $200 range)
Excluding labor and shipping that is…and labor depends on what exactly you want.
I’m sure if you threw money at somebody, they might get a taker, but it would be expensive. Really expensive.
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After several emails with the Tempest folks, it is crystal clear they have zero intention of developing any sort of display and, surprisingly, don’t seem to think their app needs any updating. I was able to get the weatherflow app up and running on a Kindle Fire 7 and while that works it pales in comparison to my Ambient Weather station and its’ display.
If they don’t want to do a display, fine (I personally think it’s misguided and will ultimately result in fewer sales as competitors improve and include displays (e.g., Ecowitt, Ambient Weather WS-5000-IP (or any Ambient), Davis, etc.). But WHY won’t they update the app to at least look like a display? The current app provides so little information at a glance; It’s too small and also one needs to click each category to get additional info.
It seems if one isn’t a software dev or into tinkering with Raspberry Pi they’re out of luck. Anyone on here selling displays?
Very bummed at Tempest’s decision to stick to the hardware and forego improving how that data is displayed, even in their own app. I see what others have done here, fantastic!
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John - the why they’re not developing what you’re hoping for is obviously a business decision. Same reason Davis has a 1968-style console they still use as a user interface rather than raising the price 20 bucks and modernizing it to look less like a Heathkit.
You keep asking if anybody’s selling displays. To ask again - what would YOU spend for such a thing ?
If you’re talking 50 bucks, hard pass. If you’re talking 1000 bucks, we can talk 
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I don’t quite understand why you are comparing the Ambient Weather display to the Tempest forecast page. If you want similar detail, switch to the Tempest detail page. It shows almost exactly the same data but in a format that I personally find much more readable. I have thought several times about toying with a dedicated display but it hardly seems worth the effort. I always have some sort of device at hand that will do the job (smart phone, tablet) and can either open the app or load the webpage. WeatherFlow did develop a display and made the decision to avoid locking users into a single dedicated device and instead take advantage of the devices we already have. Some additional customization might be nice to have (a lot of users have complained about the purple color) but for me that is secondary to quality weather hardware and data.
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Well, as long as you ask, I’d like a dedicated display so that everyone in the house can glance at a display and be done with it without having to take out a phone or ipad or whatever to see. I compared it to my Ambient Weather because that is what I had right before the Tempest. I doubt anyone could argue that the Tempest page on my iPhone is a better display and provides as much data as the Ambient display (or most others for that matter). Right now I have my phone open and I see Temp, pressure, lightening, wind speed/direction, rain, UV. On my Ambient I see much more info.
The sole purpose of any of these weather stations is to gather a lot of data and do it well. But this means nothing if that data is not conveyed well, and my 2 cents is other weather stations are doing an extraordinary job of collecting the data and then actually sharing it in a meaningful way. The image I snapped of my two stations a couple posts north of here demonstrate how a lot of info can be conveyed quickly (image on the left
), while the Tempest screen seems anemic with some of the data in such small print I can only read it when up close, certainly not from across the room. The Tempest detail page shows 6 attributes on my iPhone and 4 on the Kindle. So that’s why I was comparing the Ambient Weather display to the Tempest forecast page–the detail page shows even less info on my Kindle. The point is, it would be nice to have on a wall so that others can see without needing to whip out their device.
From a business perspective it seems Tempest has a winner, but not to leverage what might be one of the best amateur weather stations with a better app or dedicated display upsets my business sensibilities, I guess. The user experience means everything and based on this discussion and the hundred plus people on it, I’d say there is a desire for something more than Tempest will provide.
My question is no longer, “why doesn’t Tempest make a display?”, but is rather, “Why not take the easy way out and make a kick ass App with the data points arranged in a manner like the displays so many of us are familiar with?” I spent over an hour yesterday hacking an old Kindle Fire so that I can get a crappy display of my weather data and can really only see the outside temp from anything more than 3 feet away. I’ve tried using my Wunderground page but it is not refreshing consistently and I get pop-up ads. MyPWS is not Tempest friendly. I bought Weather Display so that I might port the data to Weather Cloud in the hopes I can get some kind of decent display…At this point it’s sorta ridiculous. I was surprised that the Tempest folks were so adamant they were not going to even think of updating the app and won’t be doing a display. I definitely see a niche to be filled by an enthusiastic dev who can do phone Apps.
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Try turning the Amazon Fire sideways…
There is at least one android/ipad app. See btstWx ~ WeatherBox - #470 by btst.online for one example.
Yes - you continuing to complain is certainly not going to change things on this topic.
Everybody who doesn’t do the work seems to be a GUI designer. No two people think the same thing looks good. It’s an impossible ask ‘especially’ when there is no business reason behind spending the labor and dealing with the inevitable “but I don’t LIKE your font selection” complaints and the like.
You can devote some time+effort+money on your part, or you can sell your WF gear and buy another vendor’s product, or you can live with what you have.
FWIW, I think both your examples are beyond gag-inducing hideous, so I rolled my own dashboard using Home Assistant. As I said, everybody has a different line in the sand re: what looks good to them.
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Try volunteering to organize a work luncheon or awards banquet for 75-100 people some day. Oh my god, the world is coming to an end because the cheese was sliced 1mm too thick for my liking! 
True story - I was organizing a luncheon for about 65 colleagues from work, and clearly communicated to the restaurant that we only had two hours to eat. An hour and forty five minutes after we arrived, the salad was finally served as the first course. No way could anyone have stayed for the main course and been back to work in 15 minutes. To make up for the mess-up, the restaurant owner sent me 65 certificates for a free dinner the next day and an apology letter to the group.
Next time we met, I read the apology letter to the group and waved the stack of free dinner certificates. Many people were anxious to take them, because the restaurant usually wasn’t that bad. I asked them to consider one thing…that nobody was going to dinner alone…so the certificates were more of a BOGO for whoever accompanied you. Then, I made a proposal that we donate all 65 certificates to the nearby church soup kitchen. Every one of those 65 tickets was donated.
I need to add that the soup kitchen didn’t show up at the restaurant with two busloads of their clients, but bartered the certificates back to the restaurant for ongoing food donations and employee volunteers…
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Gee, thanks for sorting all this out for me. I guess you don’t care for other peoples views. In replying to you I am now “continuing to complain.” You asked the damn question so if you’d like to have a chat offline, please do contact me directly. This is supposed to be a space for sharing ideas and given the title of this thread is “dedicated display console” I don’t understand your tone and condescending passive aggressive statements like above.
Your statement “no two people think the same thing looks good” and “it’s an impossible [t]ask” make no sense given that other weather stations have landed on a look that thousands of people find agreeable enough to buy. For what it’s worth, I WAS a GUI designer and software developer 20 years ago, so don’t try to sell the “oh it’s impossible to make everyone happy” bit as these decisions are made in business every day.
And my point above, if you had read my entire post, addresses your comment, “there is no business reason behind spending the labor and dealing with the inevitable.” I believe there absolutely is a business reason that can be easily solved by improving the app and the user experience.
You seem to have a problem with me so take it up with me directly.
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Sigh - lets stop looking for reasons to be offended.
If you did software for a living, you know everything ultimately is a business decision. Do you fix this bug. Do you make that configurable. Do you enter/exit this market. Do you add this or that feature. Or do you not do so.
It’s all time+money versus perceived benefit. The guys making the decision win.
What you are asking has been asked+answered in the negative for literally years. Sometimes you have to accept a ‘sorry - nope’ answer.
So far folks have given you at least FIVE alternative solutions available now.
Install the btstwx mobile app. Build a PiConsole. Build a weewx system and pick (or develop) a skin you like. Build a Home Assistant dashboard. Post to PWS or the like and use a Kindle Fire as a display.
I don’t know what else to say here. You can solve your own problem if you want to.
Alternately since you’re a software person, I’d suggest you write a software spec, post it in a new thread or do a GoFundSomething and see if you can get somebody to develop a solution for you at a price that you can accept.
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Hi!..I’m a new Tempest owner and new to this forum. I’m not an IT person so I have no interest in writing SW to get a better display. I purchased a low cost tablet and it serves its purpose but certainly lacks a “wow” factor. I think John 10’s observations are quite well founded. Given the number of comments on this topic dwarfs all the others it is an issue that customers would like to see addressed. And isn’t listening to the customer a core value of any successful business. Anyway just my 2 cents and wishing everyone well…W
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My wife got the tempest for me for my birthday. Before I box it up and send it back for lack of a screen and given the current usury prices of the Rasberry Pi, is there any alternative to the rather lacking app (an app that emulated what is in the WF Pi Console would be perfect)? I want something that is always on so I can work with my 8 year old to learn about weather and an always on display is a critical part of that experience. Happy to build out a WF PiConsole at list price ($200 ish), or buy a cheap tablet to make it happen… Otherwise it’s time for an Ambient 5000 or something like it.
Currently running HomeAssistant on a PI4… so anything on that platform that I could use as a dashboard would be killer…
Thanks
Chris
Asked and answered a lot in various threads for years here.
For a display, an inexpensive Kindle Fire is your best bet. You can find a 7" for $50 or so US pretty easily.
I display my info here on a Fire 7 in a Home Assistant dashboard that displays weather data from a variety of sensors from weather station, AQI sensors, some indoor/outdoor sensors etc. Works great. My old dashboard is (here) - the colors change based on state so I can tell at a glance too.
If you’re running HA on the pi4 and ‘not’ running their embedded locked down HA-only os, a better option would be to add weewx to the pi4 and use the fabulous Belchertown skin to display on the kindle. Most folks like dark mode and running on a 10" display for the added real estate, but it works great on the 7" and 8" too as well as even your phone. Great skin and very simple to set up.
The Belchertown skin author’s site is (here) showing some nice tweaks he runs. The default skin setup is a bit simpler without the (cool) Hays charts.
If you have the pi4 and can add stuff to it, you have a $50 problem plus the cost of your time, but you can even use installing weewx+Belchertown as part of the learning experience. If you’ve battled through how cryptic and painful HA is to set up, you can easily do something as easy as weewx+Belchertown.
You can run weewx+Belchertown on any pi every built basically, if you have others sitting around unused, but a pi3 or later would be best. It positively screams on a pi4.
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I just use an Amazon 7 tablet and run the BTST google play app as a display on my tablet. There is a way to get the display to stay on when not using the Tempest app, which you can quickly YouTube. I love it and yes it is a cheap option
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Excellent solution…Thanks for posting. I dowloaded app from the Playstore and it is working great
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