Share Your Availability Best Practices

[BertL]

I'm relatively new using Meteobridge to send my PWS data to several networks. I've read Meteobridge's great documentation several times, read this forum and another at WXforum.net back for the last couple of years, and have my own MB operational and working well. My next objective is to ensure I've done everything I can ensuring Meteobridge continues to send data without interruption, and to automate everything possible that I can.

What are you doing to ensure best availability of Meteobridge for you? e.g.
- How often are you manually rebooting Meteobridge to obtain the latest updates? (Only when the power goes out, as-needed, or on some manual schedule?)
- How do you determine if all your Weather Networks are receiving data without interruption? (Are you logging on to each site every day, waiting for them to send you an email that data is interrupted, logging-on to Meteobridge to look at Live Data status upon occassion, or have you figured-out a way to automate an alert if one of the networks is not receiving data?)

To start this off, here's what I've done.
- I have Meteobridge, my Davis VP2 console and home internet routers on UPS to handle several hours of unexpected power outage
- I have checked via my Davis VP2 console diagnostics that they have very strong communication with my ISS
- I have calibrated my Davis ISS/console sensors and validated correct data receipt at each weather network
- I have backed-up my Meteobridge configuration
- I've set up and tested two one-time alarms using Meteobridge's powerful language that notifies me via email:
-- of low Davis ISS battery conditions
-- when lastgooddata has extended too long

Is there something more you are doing that I could also implement to automate my network reporting and ensure it remains available? Thanks in advance for sharing!

[BertL]

In case it's useful to others, or if you have constructive feedback for improvement of what I'm already doing, here are my present One-Time Alarms:

1. Notify after 10 minutes of no good data being received from my Davis ISS. (The condition purposely does not raise at MB boot-up -- that's why I didn't include ||=-1, and resets after 1 minute of good data.)
Raise: [mbsystem-lastgooddata]>=600
Clear: [mbsystem-lastgooddata]<=60 && [mbsystem-lastgooddata]!=-1
Subj#Body: WeatherBridge: Network Reporting Interrupted#Bert’s Place Weather Station sensor data has not been received for [mbsystem-lastgooddata] seconds.\n\nSymptoms may include:\n— Either the Davis console and/or WeatherLinkIP have lost power/connectivity, while WeatherBridge is still operational\n— ISS battery has failed completely and/or excessive transmission errors to the console are occurring\n\nResolution: Reporting will automatically resume without further notification if the situation clears itself, otherwise you may want to physically check the console and/or logon to WeatherBridge Live Data to see what's going on.

2. Notify if Davis ISS battery looses power (I found through testing when this condition occurs, some more basic sensors from my ISS continue to send for some period of time until all stops, and then of course sensor data from my Davis console will continue to be valid.)
Raise: [th0lowbat-act]=1
Clear: [th0lowbat-act]=0
Subj#Body: WeatherBridge: ISS Battery has Failed#Bert's Place Weather Station battery is low or discharged.\n\nISS reporting IS IMPAIRED with increasingly reduced sensor data until the problem is resolved.\n\nSymptoms may include:\n— Rain, Wind, UV, Solar, and Ext Temp & Humidity appear stalled or are no longer reporting on the Davis consoles, WeatherLinkIP and WeatherBridge\n— Internal Temp, Humidity & Pressure produced by the Davis console continues to be reported\n\nResolution: The situation may self-correct without further notice as the ISS receives solar power to recharge its battery after sunrise at [mbsystem-civilsunrise=apm].

3. Notify when there is the possibility of ice (I walk my dog very early in the morning when small patches of ice are sometimes possible even if my own ISS isn't showing freezing temps. I selected temperature ranges from trial-and-error around my neighborhood, but will continue to refine these.)
Raise: [th0temp-act=F.1]<39
Clear: [th0temp-act=F.1]>42
Subj#Body: WeatherBridge: Ice Warning#The temperature has fallen to [th0temp-act=F.1:--]°F at Bert's Place.\n\nSymptoms: There's a chance conditions outside are icy.\n\nResolution: BE CAREFUL until it warms up!

[BertL]

Hummm. It's been nearly 2 weeks and 100 people viewing this thread, but no one else is using alarms, or is doing anything to monitor their Meteobridge to ensure it is continually sending data to your website or other weather networks? I bet others could benefit from your ideas if you'd take a few moments to share.

[doncurtis]

I have mine set to email me if a reboot occured. To text me if nogooddata greater than 10 minutes, if windspeed or direction sensors go offline or if temp or humidity go offline. I also have it set to reboot once a day an to stick with version 3.1 of the software.

[Ian.]

Thanks for sharing, I'm learning from your experiances, so your posts are of great value to me.

I'm struggling to get MessageBird working, I have entered the API key in MB Pro, no matter what I put in the Originator box, nothing sends, Any tips?

[Ian.]

It looks like my messages are being buffered my MessageBird:

Buffered The message has been sent but is in queue for delivery.

* A2P is Application2Phone, or in this case from MessageBird to your client.

** Validity time is the validity of the SMS which is 48 to 72 hours, depending on the operator's settings.

I need to find out from them about this as the whole point of the SMS is to alert me, ideally in 'near time'.

Ian

[admin]

From my experience the SMS is sent within a minute. Buffer ranges may be
relevant, when your phone is off or out of reach. My understanding is that
they then retry up to the 48 hours minimum. So this is more of a feature instead
of an issue

[Ian.]

MessageBird sorted by support, my SMS messages were trapped by their filtering system, as a point to note, Originator must be between 3 and 11 characters in length on MB - Pro

[doncurtis]

Thanks for sharing, I'm learning from your experiances, so your posts are of great value to me.

I'm struggling to get MessageBird working, I have entered the API key in MB Pro, no matter what I put in the Originator box, nothing sends, Any tips?

I don't use messagebird. I am able to use email to send text. 1234567890@vtext.com for me since I am on Verizon (replace the digits with phone #) perhaps your carrier has something similar.

[Ian.]

Good tip, I checked my provider (O2) and this feature has been withdrawn