Using Weather Display Mac Data integration with Indigo

NOTE: This thread is for instructions on using Weather Display Mac’s new Indigo integration feature. If you have any issues to report or need further assistance please post a new thread to the Mac forum. Feel free however, to post to this thread any additional tips and tricks on how you are using the Indigo integration from Weather Display to use weather data in your Indigo setup :slight_smile:

USING WEATHER DISPLAY TO INTEGRATE WEATHER DATA TO INDIGO

Thanks to Brian (Windy) for including the Indigo feature in Weather Display Mac, and also to Matt and Jay, the Indigo developers, for assisting me in building the new [color=green]Weather Display Mac - Indigo Webserver (IWS) Plug-in[/color] . The testing and development cycle on this idea was short, and I got a lot of help from all, including Windy’s testing of the feature from NZ to Eastern Canada, a distance of 9,500 nm, and my home was updated for a couple days with NZ weather every minute!!

[color=green]Indigo[/color] is the premier Home Automation software on the Mac. It includes an intelligent home server that supports most if not all home automation switches and devices using Smarthome Insteon technology, as well as older X-10 devices, along with many other systems including irrigation/watering systems, alarm systems, has complete web based remote access and supports many exotic combinations of triggers that perform automation functions either based on Time or variables that are created internally or fed from other applications , as well as from remote handheld devices and in home switches that help you create scenes as well as perform complex tasks along with the mundane things we all take for granted. All this and helps save on water and energy bills! More info on Indigo here. You can also go to [color=green]this thread on the Indigo support forum[/color] where we hatched the idea originally as there were others involved in the thread from both forums… like you artpics :slight_smile: whom I thank as well.

Sending Weather Display Mac data to Indigo offers a rich set of environmental data on which to base the triggers in my HA setup. Example - I use the rainLast7Days and rainToday tag from Weather Display that update the similarly named variables in Indigo, to assess whether or not to water the lawn. Each day Indigo makes a decision whether to water if it is not raining now, and if the rain from the previous 7 days does not equal 25mm/1 inch. Very cool Also, when I access the house on the web to operate light switches, or to turn the hot water heater on, or to see if the garage door is open, I also see the weather conditions right there on the Home’s HA web page without going to my weather website. There are many others, but the key thing here is that ONLY Weather Display has the complete flexibility and rich data set that allows me to get really crazy with my setup, providing me with over 2000 different tags to customize my data integration to Indigo. Until now I was using Applescripts to perform this, but now it is a one time setup in Weather Display Mac and I have my home automation system able to recieve and act on environmental data with a resolution as often as one minute!

To use this new feature

  1. Make sure you have Indigo installed and working properly of course, the web server set up to run, and also that you have installed the new [color=green]Weather Display Mac - Indigo Webserver (IWS) Plug-in (Click me)[/color] Then RESTART the Indigo Web Server as you normally do when adding any plug-in.

  2. Read the Read Me file in the above plug-in folder that unzips on your system for instructions on it’s installation and use.

  3. Go to Weather Display’s FTP Control Panel, and navigate to the Indigo tab.

  4. Input your username and password for your Indigo webserver (IWS) you have set up in Indigo preferences. Also pop down to the Server URL field and it should read: http://127.0.0.1:8176/wd/ This is the local address of the webserver’s port as well as the plug-in used during the process. NOTE that if you changed the port in your IWS you will need to change it in this line (by replacing the 8176 in the above example)

  5. Input the data you wish to send. A couple simple things here. First never use spaces, and there must be an escaped "" ampersand “&” between the fields you wish to send. There is an easy line of code (see examples below) you can copy and paste from the Read Me file included in your plugin that will get basic weather data moving for you quickly. You can also get fancy by selecting other data to send by going into the tagslist.txt found in the WeatherD icon’s bundle, in its resources folder. (right click on WeatherD icon and select show contents, then navigate to the file in the resources folder)

  6. Select the time interval you wish to send the data to Indigo, from 1 minute (my favorite) to every hour, or custom times. Turn the red button to green for on, and save and close the control panel.

Now if you open Indigo and view the variables list you will see the new Weather Display populated variables listed with a “wd_” prefix to the label you gave it in the “Data to Send” code line.

Example of “data to Send” using fields from the tagslist.txt file - Simple weather data:

\&OutsideTemp=%tempnodp%\&OutsideHum=%hum%\&WindSpeed=%avnodp%\&RainToday=%todayraininmm%\&WindGustSpeed=%1mingustwind%

Each new data point starts with “&” then the variable name you wish to apply like “OutsideTemp” from above. Then “=” and the tag from the tagslist.txt file you want to populate the variable name with - “%tempnodp%” in the above case. What you will see from the above example in your variables list in Indigo can be seen in pic 1 below.

Also, the first time you send the data to Indigo the plug-in will create the variable for you so you will see a message in Indigo’s error log indicating that this has been done, as well as a message each time Weather Display updates your variables with a message like this:
2010-03-17 10:45:02 AM
WebServer WD Weather Data Updated

Enjoy the new Indigo - Weather Display data integration. Once you get going there are myriad possibilities to customize the way you use your environmental data, from adjusting air conditioning based on inside temperature to closing the drapes on a sunny morning!

And feel free to post your own tips and tricks below!

All the best,
Jmar

EDITS - to replace testtags.txt with tagslist.txt,
to put reminder to restart Indigo webserver when adding plug-in,
to add URL to Indigo support forum’s corresponding thread for WD Mac integration


Updated Indigo-WD variables.png

Thank you VERY much jmar. Have it working but it took a reboot of the Mac . Prior to reboot got the error “undefined page requested “http://127.0.0.1:8176/wd/importData” from 127.0.0.1” in indigo event log. Now to go through the list of available data :slight_smile:

:smiley: i will be testing in the next few days will get back to you.

thanks

RT

Yes, a reboot of the Indigo web server is required after installing any plug-ins. I will adjust the post to reflect that. Thanks

The plug-in has already been tested and works well. If you have any issues with your specific setup please post a separate thread as requested above. Just want to make this thread a resource for usage and install. Thanks guys.

But let us know how you use it in this thread! We are all ears :slight_smile: or eyes lol 8O

yep sorry wrong words i meant using 8)

LOL. NP. I am looking forward to seeing what you Indigo power users are doing as you go forward with this. I and many others will learn a lot I am sure! :slight_smile:

thanks very much for all your help with this Jmar :slight_smile:

Wow, Jim, Windy et al! Pretty cool for sure :smiley:

Arnie

You’re welcome. It was, and always is a pleasure to work with you Brian. WD Mac has come so far in the 18 months or so I’ve been here and you have always been so open to improving the user’s experience as you move it forward. Great support!

Arnie, you’re looking for a new toy aren’t you! lol