Wunderground Update Receiver Binding

Many personal weather stations or similar devices are only capable of submitting measurements to the wunderground.com (opens new window) update site.

This binding enables acting as a receiver of updates from devices that post measurements to https://rtupdate.wunderground.com/weatherstation/updateweatherstation.php (opens new window). If the hostname is configurable - as on weather stations based on the Fine Offset Electronics WH2600-IP - this is simple, otherwise you have to set up dns such that it resolves the above hostname to your server, without preventing the server from resolving the proper ip if you want to forward the request.

The server thus listens at http(s)😕/:/weatherstation/updateweatherstation.php and the device needs to be pointed at this address. If you can't configure the device itself to submit to an alternate hostname you would need to set up a dns server that resolves rtupdate.wunderground.com (opens new window) to the IP-address of your server and provide as dns to the device does DHCP. Make sure not to use this dns server instance for any other DHCP clients.

The request is in itself simple to parse, so by redirecting it to your openHAB server you can intercept the values and use them to control items in your home. E.g. use measured wind-speed to close an awning or turn on the sprinkler system after some time without rain. This binding allows you to mix and match products from various manufacturers that otherwise have a closed system.

If you wish to pass the measurements on to rtupdate.wunderground.com (opens new window), you can use a simple rule that triggers on the wundergroundupdatereceiver:wundergroundUpdateReceiver:<channel-id>:metadata#last-query-trigger to do so. It can also be used to submit the same measurements to multiple weather services via multiple rules.

Supported Things

Any device that sends weather measurement updates to the wunderground.com (opens new window) update URLs is supported. It is easiest to use with devices that have a configurable target address, but can be made to work with any internet-connected device, that gets its dns server via DHCP or where the DNS server can be set.

Discovery

The binding starts listening at the above-mentioned URI as soon as it is initialized. Any request with an unregistered stationId is recorded and if auto-discovery is enabled appears in the inbox, otherwise can be registered when a manual scan is initiated. For each request parameter a channel is generated, based on a list of known parameters from https://support.weather.com/s/article/PWS-Upload-Protocol?language=en_US (opens new window) and other observed parameters from various devices. If you have a device that submits a parameter that is unknown in the current version of the binding please feel free to submit an issue to have it added.

While discovery is active, either in the background or during a manual scan, any request parameters that don't have a channel associated with them are added to the thing's channels. This supports using multiple devices that submit measurements to the same station ID. The thing is the wunderground account, not the individual devices submitting measurements.

Thing Configuration

The only configurable value is the station id, which should match the one configured on the device. If you don't plan on submitting measurements to wunderground.com (opens new window), it can be any unique non-empty string value, otherwise it must be the actual station ID.

Channels

Each measurement type the wunderground.com (opens new window) update service accepts has a channel. The channels must be named exactly as the request parameter they receive. I.e. the wind speed channel must be named windspeedmph as that is the request parameter name defined by Wunderground in their API. The channel name set up in the binding should be considered an id with no semantic content other than pointing to the wounderground API. Additionally there is a receipt timestamp and a trigger channel.

Request parameters are mapped to one of the following channel-types:

Normal channel-types:

Request parameter	Channel type id	Type	Label	Description	Group
winddir	wind-direction	Number:Angle	Current Wind Direction	Current wind direction	Wind
windspeedmph	wind-speed	Number:Speed	Current Wind Speed	Current wind speed, using software specific time period.	Wind
windgustmph	wind-gust-speed	Number:Speed	Current Gust Speed	Current wind gust speed, using software specific time period.	Wind
windgustdir	wind-gust-direction	Number:Angle	Gust Direction	Current wind gust direction expressed as an angle using software specific time period.	Wind
tempf	temperature	Number:Temperature	Outdoor Temperature	Current outdoor temperature	Temperature
indoortempf	indoor-temperature	Number:Temperature	Indoor Temperature	Indoor temperature.	Temperature
rainin	rain	Number:Length	Hourly Rain	Rain over the past hour.	Rain
dailyrainin	rain-daily	Number:Length	Daily Rain	Rain since the start of the day.	Rain
solarradiation	solarradiation	Number:Intensity	Solar Radiation	Solar radiation	Sun
UV	uv	Number:Dimensionless	UV Index	UV index.	Sun
humidity	humidity	Number:Dimensionless	Humidity	Humidity in %.	Humidity
indoorhumidity	indoor-humidity	Number:Dimensionless	Indoor Humidity	Indoor humidity in %.	Humidity
baromin

Advanced channel-types:

Request parameter	Channel type id	Type	Label	Description	Group
windspdmph_avg2m	wind-speed-avg-2min	Number:Speed	Wind Speed 2min Average	2 minute average wind speed.	Wind
winddir_avg2m	wind-direction-avg-2min	Number:Angle	Wind Direction 2min Average	2 minute average wind direction.	Wind
windgustmph_10m	wind-gust-speed-10min	Number:Speed	Gust Speed 10min Average	10 minute average gust speed.	Wind
windgustdir_10m	wind-gust-direction-10min	Number:Angle	Gust Direction 10min Average	10 minute average gust direction.	Wind
windchillf	wind-chill	Number:Temperature	Wind Chill	The apparent wind chill temperature.	Temperature
soiltempf	soil-temperature	Number:Temperature	Soil Temperature	Soil temperature.	Temperature
weeklyrainin	rain-weekly	Number:Length	Weekly Rain	Rain since the start of this week.	Rain
monthlyrainin	rain-monthly	Number:Length	Monthly Rain	Rain since the start if this month.	Rain
yearlyrainin	rain-yearly	Number:Length	Yearly Rain	Rain since the start of this year.	Rain
weather	metar	String	METAR Weather Report	METAR formatted weather report	Sun_Clouds
clouds	clouds	String	Cloud Cover	METAR style cloud cover.	Sun_Clouds
visibility	visibility	Number:Length	Visibility	Visibility.	Sun_Clouds
dewptf	dew-point	Number:Temperature	Dew Point	Outdoor dew point.	Humidity
soilmoisture	soil-moisture	Number:Dimensionless	Soil Moisture	Soil moisture in %.	Moisture
leafwetness	leafwetness	Number:Dimensionless	Leaf Wetness	Leaf wetness in %.	Moisture
AqNO	nitric-oxide	Number:Dimensionless	Nitric Oxide	Nitric Oxide ppm.	Pollution
AqNO2T	nitrogen-dioxide-measured	Number:Dimensionless	Nitrogen Dioxide	Nitrogen Dioxide, true measure ppb.	Pollution
AqNO2	nitrogen-dioxide-nox-no	Number:Dimensionless	NO2 X computed	NO2 computed, NOx-NO ppb.	Pollution
AqNO2Y	nitrogen-dioxide-noy-no	Number:Dimensionless	NO2 Y computed, NOy-NO ppb	NO2 computed, NOy-NO ppb.	Pollution
AqNOX	nitrogen-oxides	Number:Dimensionless	Nitrogen Oxides	Nitrogen Oxides ppb.	Pollution
AqNOY	total-reactive-nitrogen	Number:Dimensionless	Total Reactive Nitrogen	Total reactive nitrogen.	Pollution
AqNO3	no3-ion	Number:Density	NO3 ion	NO3 ion (nitrate, not adjusted for ammonium ion) µG/m3.	Pollution
AqSO4	so4-ion	Number:Density	SO4 ion	SO4 ion (sulfate, not adjusted for ammonium ion) µG/m3.	Pollution
AqSO2	sulfur-dioxide	Number:Dimensionless	Sulfur Dioxide	Sulfur Dioxide, conventional ppb.	Pollution
AqSO2T	sulfur-dioxide-trace-levels	Number:Dimensionless	Sulfur Dioxide Trace Levels	Sulfur Dioxide, trace levels ppb.	Pollution
AqCO	carbon-monoxide	Number:Dimensionless	Carbon Monoxide	Carbon Monoxide, conventional ppm.	Pollution
AqCOT	carbon-monoxide-trace-levels	Number:Dimensionless	Carbon Monoxide Trace Levels	Carbon Monoxide, trace levels ppb.	Pollution
AqEC	elemental-carbon	Number:Density	Elemental Carbon	Elemental Carbon, PM2.5 µG/m3.	Pollution
AqOC	organic-carbon	Number:Density	Organic Carbon	Organic Carbon, not adjusted for oxygen and hydrogen, PM2.5 µG/m3.	Pollution
AqBC	black-carbon	Number:Density	Black Carbon	Black Carbon at 880 nm, µG/m3.	Pollution
AqUV-AETH	aethalometer	Number:Density	Second Channel of Aethalometer	second channel of Aethalometer at 370 nm, µG/m3.	Pollution
AqPM2.5	pm2_5-mass	Number:Density	PM2.5 Mass	PM2.5 mass, µG/m3.	Pollution
AqPM10	pm10-mass	Number:Density	PM10 Mass	PM10 mass, µG/m3.	Pollution
AqOZONE	ozone	Number:Dimensionless	Ozone	Ozone, ppb.	Pollution

Metadata channel-types:

Request parameter	Channel type id	Type	Label	Description	Group
dateutc	dateutc	String	Last Updated	The date and time of the last update in UTC as submitted by the device. This can be 'now'.	Metadata
softwaretype	softwaretype	String	Software Type	A software type string from the device	Metadata
rtfreq	realtime-frequency	Number	Realtime Frequency	How often does the device submit measurements	Metadata
lowbatt	system:low-battery	Switch	Low Battery	Low battery warning with possible values on (low battery) and off (battery ok)	Metadata

Synthetic channel-types. These are programmatically added:

Channel type id	Type	Channel type	Label	Description	Group
dateutc-datetime	dateutc-datetime	state	Last Updated as DateTime	The date and time of the last update in UTC as submitted by the device converted to a DateTime value. In case of 'now', the current time is used.	Metadata
last-received-datetime	DateTime	state	Last Received	The date and time of the last update.	Metadata
last-query-state	String	state	The last query	The query part of the last request from the device	Metadata
last-query-trigger	String	trigger	The last query	The query part of the last request from the device	Metadata

The trigger channel's payload is the last querystring, so the following dsl rule script would send the measurements on to wunderground.com (opens new window):

val requestQuery = receivedEvent
sendHttpGetRequest("https://rtupdate.wunderground.com/weatherstation/updateweatherstation.php?" + requestQuery)

The PASSWORD, action and realtime parameters are ignored, as they are wunderground technical constants, that devices must send. The ID parameter is used to identify the correct thing the request pertains to, i.e. the stationId configuration value.

As described by the wunderground specification a device can submit multiple values for the outdoor temperature, soil temperature, soil moisture and leaf wetness channels by inserting an index number into the name of the request parameter, fx. tempf can be temp1f, temp2f, etc. This is supported by the discovery mechanism, creating a channel for each of the values.

Examples

Thing file

Configuration using thing and item files is not the recommended method, as you have to manually replicate the configuration discovery produces. Channels must be named as the request parameters in the channel type table, otherwise the binding will not be able to update with values from requests. So the request parameter names submitted by your particular device(s) need to be found before being able to write appropriate thing files. You need to intercept a request from your devices(s) using something like wireshark. Both thing and item files must be created manually to produce a result practically identical to the one produced through automatic discovery.

Assuming you have intercepted a request such as https://rtupdate.wunderground.com/weatherstation/updateweatherstation.php?ID=MYSTATIONID&PASSWORD=XXXXXX&windspeedmph=3.11&dateutc=2021-02-07%2014:04:03&softwaretype=WH2600%20V2.2.8&action=updateraw&realtime=1&rtfreq=5, you can configure a thing to intercept the request thus:

Thing wundergroundupdatereceiver:wundergroundUpdateReceiver:ATHINGID "Foo" [stationId="MYSTATIONID"] {
    Channels:
        Type wind-speed : windspeedmph []
        Type dateutc : dateutc []
        Type softwaretype : softwaretype []
        Type realtime-frequency : rtfreq []
        Type dateutc-datetime : dateutc-datetime []
        Type last-received-datetime : last-received-datetime []
        Type last-query-state : last-query-state []
        Type last-query-trigger : last-query-trigger []
}

The pattern for a given channel is Type <channel type id> : <request paramter> [] from the channel types table. Casing of the request parameter is significant. None of the current channels take config.

Item file

Number:Speed WuBinding_WeatherStation_WindSpeed "Current Wind Speed [%.2f %unit%]" <wind> { channel="wundergroundupdatereceiver:wundergroundUpdateReceiver:ATHINGID:windspeedmph" }
DateTime WuBinding_LastRecieved "Last Recieved Time [%1$tY-%1$tm-%1$td %1$tH:%1$tM:%1$tS]" <time> { channel="wundergroundupdatereceiver:wundergroundUpdateReceiver:ATHINGID:last-received-datetime" }

The binding tries to post received values as the item types described in the channel types table, so attaching a channel that takes a given type to an item of a different type has undefined behaviour.

Rule examples

You can use the trigger channel to create a rule to calculate additional values. Create an new manual Item with a meaningful id, fx. WundergroundUpdateReceiverBinging_HeatIndex with a Number type. Create a rule that triggers when the trigger channel is updated and the following DSL:

    if ( (WH2k6_OutdoorTemperature.state != NULL) && (WH2k6_OutdoorTemperature.state != UNDEF) &&
         (WH2k6_Humidity.state != NULL)           && (WH2k6_Humidity.state != UNDEF)
       )
    {
        val Double tempf    = (WH2k6_OutdoorTemperature.state as QuantityType<Number>).toUnit("°F").doubleValue
        val Double humidity = (WH2k6_Humidity.state           as QuantityType<Number>).toUnit("%").doubleValue

        // https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/html/heatindex_equation.shtml
        if ( tempf>=80.0 ) {
            var Double heatindex = -42.379 + 2.04901523*tempf + 10.14333127*humidity - 0.22475541*tempf*humidity - 0.00683783*tempf*tempf - 0.05481717*humidity*humidity + 0.00122874*tempf*tempf*humidity + 0.00085282*tempf*humidity*humidity - 0.00000199*tempf*tempf*humidity*humidity;

            if ( (humidity <= 13.0) && (tempf >= 80.0) && (tempf <= 112.0) ) {
                heatindex = heatindex - ((13.0 - humidity)/4.0) * (Math::sqrt(17.0-Math::abs(tempf-95.0)/17.0));
            } else if ( (humidity >= 85.0) && (tempf >= 80.0) && (tempf <= 87.0) )  {
                heatindex = heatindex + ((humidity - 85.0)/10.0)*((87.0-tempf)/5.0);
            }
            WundergroundUpdateReceiverBinging_HeatIndex.postUpdate(heatindex + "°F")
        } else {
            WundergroundUpdateReceiverBinging_HeatIndex.postUpdate(UNDEF)
        }
    }

You would then have to trigger another rule to submit the original request with any calculated values appended.

You can also define a transformation to fx. get a cardinal direction (N, S, W, E):

(function(s){ 
  if ( (s == "NULL") || (s == "UNDEF") )
  {
      return undefined;
  }
  else
  {
    var dir = ["N ⬇️", "NNO ⬇️", "NO ↙️", "ONO ⬅️", "O ⬅️", "OSO ⬅️", "SO ↖️", "SSO ⬆️", "S ⬆️", "SSW ⬆️", "SW ↗️", "WSW ➡️", "W ➡️", "WNW ➡️", "NW ↘️", "NNW ⬇️"];   var wind          = parseInt(s.split(" ")[0]);
    var winddiroffset = (wind + (360.0/32.0)) % 360.0;
    var winddiridx    = Math.floor(winddiroffset / (360.0/16.0));
    var winddir       = dir[winddiridx];
    
    return winddir + ' ('+ wind +'°)';
  }
})(input)

The examples were kindly provided by MikeTheTux.

Caught a mistake or want to contribute to the documentation? Edit this page on GitHub (opens new window)