These python3 utilities let you test (and simulate) a WeatherFlow station installation
These permit you to listen to UDP broadcasts from your Hub and:
- print the received UDP broadcasts to stdout
- print the decoded broadcasts in a more human-friendly form
- publish derived topics to MQTT
- publish derived topics to influxdb (v1.x and v2.x)
- support any combination of Air/Sky/Tempest
- support multiple instances of Air/Sky/Tempest at your site
They also provide a utility to permit you to simulate a WeatherFlow Hub with minimal test data.
NOTE - These utilities are tested using v119 of the WeatherFlow hub firmware.
These utilities are provided as-is and at your own risk.
As of September 1, 2020 - I no longer have any WeatherFlow gear and can't test 'anything' on real gear While PR for fixes/enhancements are of course accepted, I am 'very' unlikely to ever merge them. If you have PR that can enhance these utilities, it's ok to submit them here so others can find them, or optionally go appropriately wild and fork this repo.
Bottom line - be polite please.
It is important to understand your reasonable expectations regarding this software working via listening to the local UDP broadcasts of observations and events emitted by the Hub. The following are limitations of the WeatherFlow gear itself and how it is implemented by the vendor.
-
you can not expect 'rain' readings to be accurate. WeatherFlow adjusts the accumulated rain for a calendar day via their proprietary RainCheck algorithms, which run in a batch job on the morning of the 'next' calendar day based on midnight at your location. While you can trust that the rain start 'event' you see is truth as your station's sensors saw when rain started, you can 'not' reasonably trust rain accumulation or rain rate based on the UDP broadcasts by your Hub.
-
you can not expect 'lightning' to be accurate. WeatherFlow essentially crowd-sources and calculates an aggregated lightning reading for your station as you would see it their web page or mobile app. While the UDP lightning data from your station 'is' used by the WeatherFlow servers as part of this aggregation on their end, you are not the 'sole' source of lightning data reported for your station (as viewed on their web or mobile app).
-
all other data reported from the UDP broadcasts on your LAN 'can' be assumed to match up with what you would see if you used the WeatherFlow web page, mobile app, REST, or Websockets APIs which all connect to WeatherFlow servers on Internet.
-
The listener by default binds to all active network interfaces, so if you have multiple live network interfaces on the same subnet, it is possible that you will 'hear' multiple copies of the UDP broadcasts.
-
The author has experienced this on a Intel NUC running Ubuntu 18.04LTS, although it does not seem to be the default behavior on the raspberry pi running Raspbian. The preferred workaround, of course, is to disable wifi if you have a wired computer. The listener also supports an optional
--address x.x.x.xparameter where you can hard-set the ip address of the interface on the runtime host that you want to listen on.
- python3 only, tested on 3.10 but earlier versions 'should' work ok
- buildable via 'poetry'
- installable via 'pip'
- removed threading for supportability reasons
- Added ability to write directly to influxdb (thanks to user clouserw via PR)
- Multiple Air/Sky devices per hub is now supported. See the -M option below
- The --weewx option has been deleted
- The listener now supports python3. All examples below have been updated accordingly.
- Typical output has been significantly quieted down, with debugging output suppressed unless you use the --verbose flag
pip3 install wfudptools [--user]
wfudpsimulator
usage: wfudplistener [-h] [-r] [-d] [-s] [-l LIMIT] [-x EXCLUDE] [-i] [-m] [-n]
[-w] [-b MQTT_BROKER] [-t MQTT_TOPIC]
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-r, --raw print raw data to stddout
-d, --decoded print decoded data to stdout
-s, --syslog syslog unexpected data received
-l LIMIT, --limit LIMIT
limit obs type(s) processed
-x EXCLUDE, --exclude EXCLUDE
exclude obs type(s) from being processed
-i, --indent indent raw data to stdout (requires -d)
-m, --mqtt publish to MQTT
-M, --multi-mqtt specify there are multiple air/sky/tempest present
-n, --no_pub report but do not publish to MQTT
-b MQTT_BROKER, --mqtt_broker MQTT_BROKER
MQTT broker hostname
-t MQTT_TOPIC, --mqtt_topic MQTT_TOPIC
MQTT topic to post to
-a ADDRESS, --address ADDRESS
address to listen on
--influxdb publish to influxdb
--influxdb_host INFLUXDB_HOST
hostname or ip of InfluxDb HTTP API
--influxdb_port INFLUXDB_PORT
port of InfluxDb HTTP API
--influxdb_user INFLUXDB_USER
InfluxDb username
--influxdb_pass INFLUXDB_PASS
InfluxDb password
--influxdb_db INFLUXDB_DB
InfluxDb database name
--influxdb2 publish to InfluxDB v2
--influxdb2_url INFLUXDB2_URL
InfluxDB v2 HTTP API root URL
--influxdb2_org INFLUXDB2_ORG
InfluxDB v2 Organization
--influxdb2_bucket INFLUXDB2_BUCKET
InfluxDB v2 Bucket
--influxdb2_token INFLUXDB2_TOKEN
InfluxDB v2 Token
--influxdb2_debug Debug InfluxDB v2 publisher
-v, --verbose verbose output to watch the threads
for --limit, possibilities are:
rapid_wind, obs_sky, obs_air,
hub_status, device_status, evt_precip, evt_strike
wind_debug, light_debug, rain_rebug
- Typical usage scenarios
- Debugging your WeatherFlow SmartWeather station
- Printing out unaltered data received from the station broadcasts
- Decoding the station data into a more human-friendly format
- Limiting the output to one observation/status/event type
- Reformatting the JSON data for easier interpretation
- Syslogging unexpected JSON received
- Publishing to MQTT
- Mosquitto MQTT Client Primer
- Subscribing to MQTT published topics
- WeatherFlow MQTT topics
- Subscribing to MQTT published topics
- Publishing to InfluxDB
Typically it is expected that this script would be used to generate MQTT publish messages for a MQTT broker to make available for consuming devices. You can do so as follows:
# publish to mqtt, exclude one observation type, syslog unknown data received
nohup wfudplistener --mqtt \
--exclude "rapid_wind" \
--syslog >/dev/null 2>&1 &
# or publish to mqtt, and limit to only two observations
nohup wfudplistener --mqtt \
--limit "obs_sky obs_air" >/dev/null 2>&1 &
# or publish to mqtt, and 'exclude' a particular observation type
nohup wfudplistener --mqtt \
--exclude "rapid_wind" >/dev/null 2>&1 &
FWIW, the author typically runs the first variant above by simply putting the command into /etc/rc.local so it starts up on bootup.
Running the listener interactively can help debug the health and realtime observations of your WeatherFlow station.
The --raw option prints out decoded UDP broadcasts in JSON format to stdout...
pi@zero:~ $ wfudplistener --raw
{"hub_sn": "HB-00010412", "ob": [1535684062, 0.63, 272], "serial_number": "SK-00013695", "type": "rapid_wind"}
The --decoded option prints a more human-friendly output of the decoded UDP broadcast...
pi@zero:~ $ wfudplistener --decoded
hub_status => ts = 1535819472 firmware_revision = 91 uptime = 333458 rssi = -35
rapid_wind => ts = 1535819474 mps = 1.34 dir = 190
rapid_wind => ts = 1535819477 mps = 1.48 dir = 211
The '--limit type' option limits the event/status/observation(s) being processed.
pi@zero:~ $ wfudplistener --raw --limit hub_status
{"firmware_revision": "91", "fs": "1,0", "mqtt_stats": [53], "radio_stats": [5, 3], "reset_flags": "BOR,PIN,POR", "rssi": -35, "seq": 33368, "serial_number": "HB-00010412", "timestamp": 1535819752, "type": "hub_status", "uptime": 333738}
{"firmware_revision": "91", "fs": "1,0", "mqtt_stats": [53], "radio_stats": [5, 3], "reset_flags": "BOR,PIN,POR", "rssi": -35, "seq": 33370, "serial_number": "HB-00010412", "timestamp": 1535819772, "type": "hub_status", "uptime": 333758}
Note: you may supply multiple limited observations ala:
# comma-delimited
wfudplistener --limit obs_sky,obs_air
# quoted and space-delimited
wfudplistener --limit "obs_sky obs_air"
You can also exclude observations, processing everything else, ala:
wfudplistener --exclude "rapid_wind"
wfudplistener --exclude "device_status rapid_wind"
wfudplistener --exclude device_status,rapid_wind
The --indent option reformats the output to be a little more readable...
@zero:~ $ wfudplistener --raw --limit rapid_wind --indent
{
"hub_sn": "HB-00010412",
"ob": [
1535819864,
0.0,
0
],
"serial_number": "SK-00013695",
"type": "rapid_wind"
}
{
"hub_sn": "HB-00010412",
"ob": [
1535819867,
0.0,
0
],
"serial_number": "SK-00013695",
"type": "rapid_wind"
}
The --syslog option will syslog any received JSON data that has an unknown or missing device["type"]. You almost certainly do 'not' want to use this option and also specify the --indent option, as the default JSON dumped will be a (long) one-liner suitable for syslog.
Add the --raw --quiet --output DIRNAME to write the JSON to DIRNAME.
By default, this will log all sensors and hubs detected. You may limit the observations via the --limit option.
# for serial number ST-000001, this will write to /var/tmp/ST-000001.rapid_wind
@zero:~ wfudplistener --raw --quiet --output /var/tmp --limit rapid_wind
# omitting the --limit switch will log all observations
The --mqtt option publishes JSON to MQTT.
pi@zero:~ $ wfudplistener --mqtt
publishing to mqtt://mqtt/wf/status/sky
publishing to mqtt://mqtt/wf/obs/sky
publishing to mqtt://mqtt/wf/rapid_wind
publishing to mqtt://mqtt/wf/rapid_wind
Adding the --decoded option shows decoded data from the broadcast as well
pi@zero:~ $ wfudplistener --mqtt --decoded
rapid_wind => ts = 1535821622 mps = 1.07 dir = 316
publishing to mqtt://mqtt/wf/rapid_wind
hub_status => ts = 1535821622 firmware_revision = 91 uptime = 335608 rssi = -35
publishing to mqtt://mqtt/wf/status/hub
Adding the --raw option shows the data that would be published as well as the raw UDP data
pi@zero:~ $ wfudplistener --mqtt --raw
raw data: {"hub_sn": "HB-00010412", "ob": [1535821559, 0.94, 272], "serial_number": "SK-00013695", "type": "rapid_wind"}
publishing to mqtt://mqtt/wf/rapid_wind
{"direction": 272, "speed": 0.94, "timestamp": 1535821559}
The listener defaults to publishing MQTT topics to a host named 'mqtt' on your local network. You may supersede this at runtime via the --broker <broker_hostname_or_ip_here> option. See the usage instructions above for details.
Supporting multiple sensors means changing the published topic to something that permits the consumer to tell Sky-A apart from Sky-B, for example. This can be done by adding the -M or --multi-mqtt option to your command invocation. This changes the published topic to /sensors/<SERIAL_NUMBER>/<TOPIC> ala:
In this example, note the -n option has been added for illustrative purposes only:
# typical invocation for a one-Sky one-Air system
$ wfudplistener -m -n --limit "rapid_wind"
publishing to mqtt://mqtt/wf/rapid_wind
# add -M if you have a multi-Sky and/or multi-Air system
# note the different MQTT topic it publishes to
$ wfudplistener -m -n -M --limit "rapid_wind"
publishing to mqtt://mqtt/sensors/SK-00013695/wf/rapid_wind
While documenting mosquitto-mqtt, or any other MQTT client/broker, is out of scope for this document in the general sense, the following are some examples of how you might do so using mosquitto-mqtt assuming you have published topics to MQTT using the --mqtt option to this listener.
This gives an example of how to use the mosquitto_sub MQTT client to subscribe to a published topic. See the mosquito_sub man page for detailed usage of that client.
pi@zero$ mosquitto_sub -t "wf/obs/#" -h mqtt
{"firmware_revision": 20, "hub_sn": "HB-00010412", "obs": [[1535685379, 1006.8, 18.51, 76, 0, 0, 3.51, 1]], "serial_number": "AR-00013349", "type": "obs_air"}
{"firmware_revision": 43, "hub_sn": "HB-00010412", "obs": [[1535685389, 18, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.08, 2.06, 258, 3.45, 1, 0, null, 0, 3]], "serial_number": "SK-00013695", "type": "obs_sky"}
It is also possible to publish directly to a influxdb database
This will print to InfluxDB v1.x on a remote host 'influxdb' using a specified port and database, and also enable the multisensor syntax for more searchable generic topic names in the database. This particular example requires no influxdb username/password, so those options have been omitted.
# this is typical usage for calling the program via /etc/rc.local or from a shell
# - it backgrounds the command, and stay alive after the calling shell exits
nohup wfudplistener --influxdb --influxdb_host=influxdb --influxdb_port=8086 --influxdb_db=testdb -M &
An equivalent example for InfluxDB v2.x:
nohup wfudplistener --influxdb --influxdb2_url="http://influxdb:8086" --influxdb2_org=testorg --influxdb2_token=longsecret --influxdb2_bucket=weather -M &
Initially it might make sense to add the -n (no_pub) flag to see is being published, to aid in you writing queries or grafana dashboards versus your influxdb data. Remember, however, that the -n flag writes to stdout, so you'd want to run the command in the foreground.
# see with it 'would' publish, but do not actually publish anything
# (this will need two control-C to kill the process)
# you might want to also add -v to see the reporter and listener threads
wfudplistener --influxdb --influxdb_host=influxdb --influxdb_port=8086 --influxdb_db=testdb -M -n
