Weather Underground - WUnder Plugin

[jitterjames]

There is an error in the action XML.

Please replace Wunder.Refresh with Wunder.Change for now.  The parameters will remain the same.  Wunder.Change is the correct action but I forgot to update the xml which defines the actions you see in the editor.

Please note that for city you should enter

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Toronto, Ontario
or

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M3C0C1
or

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pws:IONTORON34

[Haddood]

perfect, is the change is permanent or it is for the next command? I mean will it default back to the location set in the plugin?

[jitterjames]

As with pretty much all other options or variables that you can set in the program, the change is semi-permanent.  It will continue to use this value until either you change it again, or you restart the program, at which point it will default back to what you have set in the plugin options.

If you are going to be frequently changing the location, it will probably cause problems with our free weather underground api-key though and the plugin may stop working for everyone, so please don't overdo it.  When using a single location, the plugin will only refresh the data at most once every 15 minutes, but if you change the location it will force a refresh.

We are only allowed a total of 500 calls per day, and a maximum of 10 calls per minute, for all VoxCommando users combined.

[nikeb]

Hi James

it's been some days that i can't reach my wunder commands cause i have this kind of error:

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RAW STREAM:

{
  "response": {
  "version":"0.1",
  "termsofService":"http://www.wunderground.com/weather/api/d/terms.html",
  "features": {
  }
,
"error": {
"type": "invalidkey"
,"description": "this key is not valid due to exceeding rate plan"
}
}
}


I guess it's because, i saw on that specific wunder page, the api plan are changed.
Is there any workaround/fix on that?

Thank you in advantage

[nime5ter]

There is no fix possible for the Wunder plugin. The API used to be free. Now it is not. VoxCommando cannot support 3rd party services that charge fees to developers.

If you know how to write basic code with Python, you can try using  https://openweathermap.org/api

Or see this post, which suggests using IFTTT.
https://voxcommando.com/forum/index.php?topic=2885.msg24435#msg24435

https://ifttt.com/weather

[jitterjames]

It is a shame. I will look into alternatives when I return from my trip next week but essentially nime5ter is correct.

[jitterjames]

I'm thinking about creating a new plugin using the AccuWeather API.  This will probably yield better results than Weather Underground did anyway.

How many people would be interested in this?

AccuWeather's free API is limited to just 50 calls per day, which is barely enough for one person using the plugin and I can see how it will become an issue even for trying to create the plugin because while testing I will need more than 50 calls per day.

Our most obvious options would be to:

1) Have each user create their own api key and use it for free with a limit of 50 calls per day.

2) Somehow share the cost of a monthly subscription which is $25 USD / month but allows 250 thousand calls.

Somehow the second option seems sort of unlikely, but you never know.  If 10 people want it badly enough to pay $2.50 per month it would be doable... We could just accept donations and see how it goes

Thoughts anyone?

[nikeb]

My 2 cents

I guess for the final user would be nice even Just get a personal key and use 50 calls per day if there is an easy way to register/obtain the key, like a sort of openlink or webservice.

I would pay 2.5 dollars every month if you ask (and maybe more than 20 other people would) but would be worth to try

[jitterjames]

Getting an api key is easy.  Just visit https://developer.accuweather.com/ and sign up.

If you want to help alpha test the plugin when it's ready you can sign up in advance.

[PegLegTV]

I would think that 50 calls a day would be more then adequate for the every day user.

I only request the weather maybe three times a day on average, morning wake up call, powering on my living room system and then asking the weather later In the day if I didn't catch the other two.

The 50 calls per day could be stretched if you store some of the information in a map table (High, Low, Sunrise, Sunset...) and use that through out the day, that's how I'm using IFttt right now and it works well.

I'd be willing to help test the plugin when needed

[keithj69]

One solution one of the devs over at homeseer is using for weather is Darksky.  https://darksky.net/dev  Not sure if this is something of interest or possibility here.