This is a great discussion! I’ve added the tag “mobile” because I’m sure there will be similar needs in the future. I was going to move it to the #owners:integrations category since we don’t support mobile weather stations, yet, but I’ve left it in #general for now until we see how the discussion evolves.
The reason the WeatherFlow system doesn’t currently support “mobile” weather stations is because they are a completely different kettle of fish from the standard “fixed” weather station. Although it’s not a perfect analogy, if you’re a student of fluid dynamics you may be reminded of the epic battle between Joseph-Louis Langrange and Leonhard Euler!
Traditionally, weather stations were strictly fixed in one spot. That’s still the case for the vast majority of stations out there.
The location information (lat/long/elevation) in a is intrinsic to the station itself. It’s part of the meta-data and doesn’t change much, if at all. The general guideline we use at WeatherFlow is that if a station moves less than 100 m or so, we simply update the location data and leave it as the same station. However, if it moves more 100 m, that’s a different station! I suspect that’s the same reason Weather Underground makes you create a new station if the location changes.
However, the number of “mobile” weather stations is increasing rapidly. RV’s, cars, trucks, ships, planes, paragliders, windsurfers! For these “mobile” weather stations, the location is actually part of the observation. The GPS is just another sensor. There are much different user interface issues when the source of your data is not fixed in one place.
Imagine a graph from a single weather station that starts in Florida for a couple months in the winter & spring, then moves north for a month, starting and stopping, then settles in North Dakota for two months in the summer, etc. What does a single graph of data from that station mean? Without the context of location on the graph? How do you display a meaningful timeseries of temperature (for example) when the device is moving?
The UI for mobile station is challenging, but the bigger issue is that it’s just very different from a fixed station. If and when we decide to support it, it will likely be a completely separate system. I’d love to see what the #developers community comes up with in the meantime!
In the case of @kirk (and other RVers), the work-around is to either update your location, or create a new station, each time you settle at a new spot.