meteohub.de

Hey Folks,

I recently picked up a new Meteobridge PRO on backorder and I'm pretty excited to get it working with a remote weather station (Davis Vantage Pro2 + LTE Gateway) that I have running.

In the meantime, I'm trying to understand more about what my data uploading options are.

Since the Meteobridge is going to be powered by a solar panel and battery, I've already disabled the wifi in order to conserve battery life. Once it's operational, I'll disable the screen as well. Limiting the number of running push services will probably also help. (Aside: other recommendations?)

What I would like to understand is: "What would be the best approach to upload all possible weather data that the Meteobridge collects in near real time?" My plan is to limit most of the processing on the Meteobridge itself and do most of the data crunching and rendering in the cloud.

It's a lofty ask and I realize that there will be some limitations -- with that said, here is what I'm curious about:

* Is it better to upload the data via FTP or HTTP? Are there limitations on how much data can be passed from Meteobridge via HTTP? Are there any known performance issues/considerations when using (S)FTP?
* This maybe more appropriate for FTP -- is there a comprehensive template that the community recommends using? Obviously I can define my own and do file/string parsing in the cloud, but I didn't know if people here have experiences/preferences on using a dense file format (for smaller uploads) versus a common file format so that it could be later consumed easily by other systems or people. I'd like to upload everything that I can now, so that in the future I'll have the historical information I need when I realize that "I should have been uploading this all along"
* Recommendations on how often to upload the data? i.e. "I wouldn't do anything less than 1 minute, the Meteobridge will do X"

Although at some point the weather data will be stored in a database, I'm thinking that using the Meteobridge mysql support might be too intensive for my system -- hence why I'm exploring FTP/HTTP as possible solutions.

Anything else that I should consider thinking about/doing?

Thanks!

Re Power options? You will have to assume the sun won't shine for a period and possibly running the battery down, which isn't a good thing to do. You will need to prioritize your power arrangements and system to cover this. You could either use a solar regulator with LVD or a separate LVD in the system to shutdown the router and/or MBP, maybe together, maybe separately depending on what else you have running on the LTE router.

If you power both down & up together then there is an option in MBP to wait on power up boot which will allow the router to start & connect before the MBP starts trying to connect.

In this scenario then you may want a secondary logger device to maybe maintain a data history, however you don't mention if you have or have not a Davis logger on the VP2. If using the RF of the MBP then a serial logger is low power and can be kept running with minimal of power, if WLIP then this increases the power requirements and requires a different approach.

How "near" is your thoughts on near real time? An awful lot of options and directions with this one, just depends on what you are exactly trying to achieve and why? Do you really need real time? Maybe a split upload using one of the services @ 5 or 10 minutes and a fine resolution data archive (say 1 minute) every hour or 2 hours or once a day? I am not sure anybody else can answer this type of question for you. Options are almost unlimited.

Thanks for the reply @Mattk. Here is some more info about my system/rig:

* The LTE Gateway is on it's own solar/battery system so the MBP won't be competing with that.
* Currently I have a Vantage Pro2 Console and WeatherLink IP device running on a solar/battery system, but a cloudy days prevents the battery from fully recharging. Since the MBP's (w/RF) power requirements are a lot lower than the Console + WLIP, I'm going to just use the MBP instead.

Interesting comment re: timing reboots with router and MBP.

By "near real time" I mean, "if I were to continuously stream weather data to another system". I can imagine a whole range of theoretical possibilities why the device would NEVER reach real time performance (i.e. can't keep a persistent connection open, the time it takes to establish, send, and close a connection, power consumption, etc), but I don't have practical experience of using the MBP yet to know what is even possible out of the box.

Once I have the MBP shipped to a neighbor and have them install it, I can then start doing some timings remotely. I'm optimistic that I could probably upload data once per minute without exceeding it, but I have no idea how much overhead FTP will add (i.e. connecting, retrieving a template, upload) and whether and HTTP request has it's own limitations (i.e HTTP GET request length). Too bad there isn't a websocket option -- AFAIK.

I guess I will just have to try it out and post my results here

...Since the MBP's (w/RF) power requirements are a lot lower than the Console + WLIP...

I wouldn't be so sure about that, WLIP runs around 90-100ma, Console isn't all that great either and an Envoy is less than the WLIP, MBP runs around 360ma.

Hmm.. I think you're onto something re: the power requirements @Mattk. I guess I was so looking forward to not being dependent on weatherlink.com to download my weather data from that I failed to double check my math.

Console (http://www.davisnet.com/product_documen ... _06312.pdf)
5 VDC .0045 watts 0.9 mA average
WeatherLinkIP (http://www.davisnet.com/product_documen ... LinkIP.pdf)
5 VDC, 0.5 watts maximum consumption (0.1 A)
Total = 100.9 mA

MBP (https://www.ambientweather.com/amweatherbridgepro.html)
"3 Watts at 5V" (thus 600 mA)
(I couldn't find the 360 mA spec that you referenced)

wah, wah.

The form factor of the enclosure that I'm currently using is too small to support a larger battery that could power both the Console + WLIP (and that would also now apply to the MBP too).

Aside: At some point I was hoping to also install a camera out there, but I knew that I would require a whole new power system to do that... I guess the time to start thinking about that has arrived!

Thanks very much for your insight @Mattk!

WiFi or cellular operation will add much to an overall power consumption. Going that route does boost your power demand beyond regions a tiny solar panel can feed.

MBP (https://www.ambientweather.com/amweatherbridgepro.html)
"3 Watts at 5V" (thus 600 mA)
(I couldn't find the 360 mA spec that you referenced)

360 mA came straight off an MBP, an MBP running RF from a VP2. In this config generally runs between 340-360mA @ 1.85-2watts