New AcuRite Platform

[bluegrassguitar]

Boris,
AcuRite will soon release a new website to replace the old AcuLink "My Backyard Weather." It is much more professional and a real improvement over the old one. Since I have a Meteobridge and want to continue using it after the launch of the new platform, I was wondering whether you plan to update MB to accommodate it?

[Adrianwx23]

Any updates on this? I also have meteobridge connected to my Aculink bridge to my web router. I'am concerned in regards to meteobridge not working once acurite rolls out there new platform. Here is a link to whats coming new. Hopefully an update coming soon to support.

https://www.acurite.com/learn/my-acurite/whats-new

https://www.acurite.com/learn/my-acurite

[admin]

This looks more like changes to their server platform.
As Acurite is not selling in Europe it will be hard for me to get
new systems from them, once they change the bridge unite. I have
to work with ambientweather on it. Hopefully, Acurite will
design their new products more open, so that data can be grabbed from
their bridge device without channeling their whole traffic through
the Meteobridge, which we are forced to do with their current bridge product.

[bluegrassguitar]

Boris, you will not need new hardware. If you currently have an AcuLink bridge, it will be automatically updated with new firmware.

[Adrianwx23]

Boris any updates?

[admin]

I don't have more information than you have. They are stating some things will change.
As the Acurite bridge is not able to upgrade its firmware on the fly (afaik), there is a good
chance nothing will change on the client systems and they just improve their
cloud solution (if this is not overstating it) and will share some apps to give
more data in a nicer shape to their users.

Please realize that Acurite is a low budget niche player, only avail in the US and does not
cooperate with 3rd party SW developers. Your expectation that they will tell anything
about how to interoperate (if they change SW on the client side) is very optimistic and
the developers around the world are by far not excited if/when Acurite will upgrade
their products. So we will see what they are capable to release and will try to keep
things working if we can get a grip of the needed information.

But as said before, this all sounds mainly like an update on their cloud services and the
apps making use of this.

[Adrianwx23]

I don't have more information than you have. They are stating some things will change.
As the Acurite bridge is not able to upgrade its firmware on the fly (afaik), there is a good
chance nothing will change on the client systems and they just improve their
cloud solution (if this is not overstating it) and will share some apps to give
more data in a nicer shape to their users.

Please realize that Acurite is a low budget niche player, only avail in the US and does not
cooperate with 3rd party SW developers. Your expectation that they will tell anything
about how to interoperate (if they change SW on the client side) is very optimistic and
the developers around the world are by far not excited if/when Acurite will upgrade
their products. So we will see what they are capable to release and will try to keep
things working if we can get a grip of the needed information.

But as said before, this all sounds mainly like an update on their cloud services and the
apps making use of this.

So will my meteobridge work with the new MBYW when it comes out? Just concerned i'am gonna loose support to CWOP and other 3rd party sites. CWOP in particular is very important to me.

[nincehelser]

I don't have more information than you have. They are stating some things will change.
As the Acurite bridge is not able to upgrade its firmware on the fly (afaik), there is a good
chance nothing will change on the client systems and they just improve their
cloud solution (if this is not overstating it) and will share some apps to give
more data in a nicer shape to their users.

Please realize that Acurite is a low budget niche player, only avail in the US and does not
cooperate with 3rd party SW developers. Your expectation that they will tell anything
about how to interoperate (if they change SW on the client side) is very optimistic and
the developers around the world are by far not excited if/when Acurite will upgrade
their products. So we will see what they are capable to release and will try to keep
things working if we can get a grip of the needed information.

But as said before, this all sounds mainly like an update on their cloud services and the
apps making use of this.

Boris-

I'm not an employee of Acurite, just a user who is now testing the latest firmware.

We've spoken before on wxforum.net about how the Acurite Bridge operates. I gave you some ideas on how you could read the bridge based on work I and others have done which you incorporated into Meteobridge.

The bridge firmware is upgradeable over the network. it always has been. The latest available firmware is often downloaded when a person first sets up their bridge, and occasionally at other times as necessary.

The upcoming myAcurite rollout does update the firmware in the bridge and adds substantial new functionality. A firmware-upgraded bridge is being called a SmartHUB. Same hardware, just different firmware.

myAcurite is a major redesign and bears little resemblance to MyBackyardWeather.com.

I assume you already have an Acurite bridge. If your email is on-record as the owner, Acurite should soon be sending you information about how the migration to myAcurite will be handled.

As for your other comments, obviously we have had different experiences as developers. While Acurite doesn't divulge much if any technical information, they also don't hinder those of us who have worked to figure things out. In fact, the new firmware for the bridge is more human-readable than ever. You should have no problem figuring it out as it closely resembles wunderground's upload protocol.

As for Acurite products being available only in the US, that's not true. I don't know anything about their marketing, but I do know they have been selling special configurations of the 5n1 sensor for people in the southern hemisphere like Australia.

I'm just trying to clear up some of your misconceptions about how the bridge works. It's up to you to decide what you want to do to support your customers.

[admin]

Thanks for the more insight information. I will wait and see what Acurite will offer this time.
Hopefully, their new firmware will make data somehow accessible in a more reasonable way
instead of reading pass-though traffic which tells a lot how much Acurite cares about
interoperability of their devices.

We will see what they come up with. I can't make any promises if/how/when support
for these devices updates will be handled by Meteobridge. As I don't know how my bridge
device being located in Europe will work with this and a never gave their cloud offering
any attention.

I think it will be extremely bad behavior from Acurite, if they automatically force update
the bridges and by that cutting off a part of their customer base from using 3rd party software
with it and then on top of this to take a position that it is the task of the 3d party vendors to
invest on getting things fixed again, while not receiving any information from Acurite
what has changed and how to adapt.

As you seem to be close to Acurite tech stuff and seem to have a some sympathy to their
products, please give them a hint that they need to do something actively if they don't
want to loose support from other SW vendors completely... if they care at all...

[admin]

So will my meteobridge work with the new MBYW when it comes out? Just concerned i'am gonna loose support to CWOP and other 3rd party sites. CWOP in particular is very important to me.

Please give Acurite some fire that they have to give 3rd party vendors information about how to adapt. Your are a customer of them and they are changing the product in a way that makes it less attractive to you. It is an issue they have to deal with.

[admin]

As Acurite does not offer details or support so far but they seem to start migration of Aculink bridges (got first notes from users asked to do so) I will need a migrated Aculink device to sniff the data format (which has changed according to user nincehelser from the wxforum). If one of you is willing to migrate his/her Aculink bridge and gives me access to the connected Meteobridge, that will be of great help to develop the code changes.

If you don't want to be beta tester on this, please don't do the update on the Aculink bridge Acurite might offer you in the next days. It will most probably render your Aculink out of Meteobridge operation, until I have adapted the Meteobridge code.

I am sorry, that I cannot offer a smooth migration right now, but that would have needed upfront information from Acurite who did not do anything in that direction.

[admin]

Just released version of Meteobridge does support old and new Aculink bridge firmware. So you can upgrade your Aculink device now.

[cfwiggum]

Just released version of Meteobridge does support old and new Aculink bridge firmware. So you can upgrade your Aculink device now.

Excellent! I was reading through this thread and assumed it would end with sadness. Now I'm a lot less nervous for whenever the firmware update comes through!

[admin]

Acurite itself did not support in any way, but with the help of other users I was able to do it.

[joe002]

Thanks for upgrading the meteobridge to support the latest firmware from AcuRite.

I just installed your version 3.0 and notified AcuRite that they can update my firmware.

As you may have noticed, with the latest from AcuRite they now support a number of different kinds of sensors. Will you be supporting these additions too?