Weewx on the Raspberry PI

By on under weather

I've always loved gadgets. When the first Raspberry Pis came out a few years ago, I was pretty confident that eventually, I'd get one. About three years ago I decided I wanted to build a media server and the RPI seemed the perfect tool for the job. While it works, it didn't do all that I had hoped. It wasn't the device's fault; the software just didn't quite match up with my particular use case. So, the device sat idle for a while. 5}

Eventually, though, another use came along in the form of a VPN server for my internal network. For this I used the excellent SoftEther VPN software. If you have need for a VPN server to access your internal network, I strongly recommend this software.

Along the way, though, other uses for the little device began to emerge. One
such use is to provide some of the weather data that I couldn't provide via my
Meteobridge device as I
outlined in this post.

While the Meteobridge device could provide almost all of the data I needed to serve the weather website, it cannot generate NOAA-type files in order to feed some of the scripts I run on my website. So, I started looking for alternatives. In keeping with my motivation for moving to the Meteobridge, I didn't want to have to run a Windows machine. Rather, I wanted another small, low-power device. the RPI came to mind. After doing some digging around I discovered weewx, an opensource software that did exactly what I wanted.

In truth, the RPI running weewx can do everything that the Meteobridge can do
and a whole lot more. Had I started a bit earlier, I might have chosen to use
only weewx rather than Meteobridge. I believe that the Meoteobridge license
comes up for renewall in a year or so. I may chose to drop it in favor of
Weewx.

The one thing holdimg me back, though, will be the really nice imaging that
Meteobridge provides for webcams. I do have a webcam that I include on my
website. Having that really nice, clean banner across the bottom of the image
makes for a very nice looking presentation.

I guess I'll have to ponder that one a while!