I’m thinking of ordering a second station for use at our cabin. However we have no Internet access there. I do have a local network with wireless available. The goal would be to simply capture and display the data locally.
I just want to verify that the hub will function and send out UDP packets even if it can’t connect to the WeatherFlow servers.
Hi, Bob.
It’s stated to work that way but I’m confused about to link the Air and Sky to the hub. as that seems to require Internet access.
That would be an unfortunate situation if the Hub needs to see the Internet to make the initial linkage. . . . especially since WFArchiver works so well collecting data from the Hub when there is no Internet access. My only other question is how much the data timestamp might drift in the Hub if it cannot see the Internet.
I have other devices that would work just fine on the local network but basically shutdown if they can’t phone home. I want to make sure the hub can be configured without Internet access and won’t timeout and shutdown at some point if it can’t reach the WeatherFlow servers.
That’s a good question. @dsj Please tell us about the internal clock and how we set up a Hub when there is no Internet access.
as we need the app to pair, I guess there is need to have internet as it phones home.
But nothing stops you to pair the full system at home and then move it to it’s final spot and only use the udp stream with local network. For me I see no issue except if the hub needs to phone home from time to time for some reason and indeed David will tell that.
yes, it will send udp data if no connection to the internet via a router
I have tested this myself
e.g great for storm chasing (have the Hub powered from your car USB)
and then see the live data from your SKY (e.g on top of the car) via the app (via the bluetooth data connection to the hub)
We know it works post-setup. But can a station be setup without an Internet connection?
the interaction is done with the app via bluetooth to the hub
but the station id might be assigned via the weatherflow cloud servers
but that might not be needed just for udp data
maybe someone in the know will chime in
but as I remember this hub can save just a week of data from the AIR.
As mentioned by @weather-display and as implemented in WFArchiver by @GaryFunk, the UDP data stream continues even when the Hub is not connected to the Internet. The data that can be saved by the Hub is saved for transmission to the WeatherFlow backend when Internet connection is restored (and is limited by the capacity of the Hub to store the data), but that does not stop the local UDP broadcast of the data from the attached AIR and SKY devices which occurs continuously as the data comes in. The UDP broadcast does not care if anyone is listening or if such broadcast is successfully received. Also, the UDP broadcast is a layer 3 broadcast packet that is generally not routed (with some very limited exceptions such as ip helper routing addresses for DHCP request packets).
The critical question here is:
If David doesn’t answer (he’s really bust this week) I will take my second station and reset it. Then I’ll try to set it up with NO Internet access during the setup.
How do u reset it?
Removing batteries does not reset it
Which “it” do you refer to?
So I agree that in theory, it shouldn’t care about an Internet connection and continue sending out UDP packets forever. But I’m looking for confirmation that that’s the case.
What happens when it runs out of internal storage because it hasn’t been able to upload data? Will it decide to give up and stop communication on the local network?
I’m asking because I have equipment that fails when it can’t phone home and the failure mode is to disconnect from the local network. It does this even when the only thing I want to do with it is local network based. So I want to verify that the hub won’t do this
I’m not so concerned about the setup as I can do that where I have Internet and then move it.
So maybe better stated my questions are:
The answer to #1 may be “we don’t know, but if it there are, it’s a bug” and that would be fine.
I’m testing for this. I am checking each step to see when can and cannot be done with no Internet connection.
Thanks for the information!
It sounds like what you’ve tested is quite different from what I want to do. Using a bluetooth connection for a short, temporary, setup is not quite the same as a long term wifi connection setup. I’ve seen the posts about using it mobile and it sounds like it should work for my case too, but I haven’t heard of anyone using it at a permanent no-Internet location.
Thanks Gary! Don’t go to too much trouble though. I was just hoping for a quick confirmation that they don’t intentionally prohibit it from working without Internet.
Here is what I know so far.
The application will not startup and full initialize if there is no Internet connection. Therefore you cannot set up a station, modify a station or monitor a station with the application.
Since you cannot connect the Hub to a Wi-Fi access point it cannot send UDP data.
Once a station is fully set up to a Wi-Fi access point, no Internet connect is necessary for the Hub to broadcast UDP data.
I am setting up a separate Wi-Fi access point so I can test long-term UDP data from the Hub,
Hmm, so does this mean it can or can’t be setup at one location and then re-configured at another with no Internet? When I take this up to our cabin, I’ll still need to set the WiFi password for the local network there.
The way you wrote it, it seems to imply that the phone app won’t configure the hub if it can’t connect to the Internet. Or is it just the initial sign-in that work without Internet and once signed in to the app you can still launch and use it without Internet? I wasn’t thinking that the app would be a problem.
I guess I could create a duplicate of the cabin network at home and configure the hub and then hope that it successfully connects and works when moved.