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Ambient Weather WS-2902A

A Forum to archive Cumulus MX development suggestions that have been rejected or solved by other means.
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Buford T. Justice
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Ambient Weather WS-2902A

Post by Buford T. Justice »

I would like to request support for this weather station:

https://www.ambientweather.com/amws2902.html

It uploads its data to https://www.ambientweather.net/ if connected to the Internet. There are no cables to hook it up to a computer.

It has been very popular on Amazon:

https://smile.amazon.com/Ambient-Weathe ... ll_reviews

The reason I no longer actively update my Sager scripts is because Cumulus MX presently doesn't work with this weather station :(
water01
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Re: Ambient Weather WS-2902A

Post by water01 »

OK but there is a problem, if it doesn't hook up to a computer how is CumulusMX going to get it's data?
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Re: Ambient Weather WS-2902A

Post by ExperiMentor »

Well, this station does connect to local network by WiFi and has an IP address, so it does not need a wire. It is another EasyWeather / Fine Offset variant. Have you tried telling Cumulus it's an EasyWeather / Fine Offset and giving it the IP address? That might work

If not, it's unlikley support will be added - if they don't publish details of how to get the data out of it, we can't expect Mark to work out how to import it into Cumulus.

I do see however that the station will directly upload to several other external websites (eg Weather Underground, IFTTT), not just Ambient Weather's own site.
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Re: Ambient Weather WS-2902A

Post by water01 »

Have you tried telling Cumulus it's an EasyWeather / Fine Offset and giving it the IP address? That might work
You cannot connect this type of weather station via an IP address, it assumes that the station is connected via a hardware address (a HID device on a USB port).
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HansR
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Re: Ambient Weather WS-2902A

Post by HansR »

You might try asking Ambient Weather.

It is an interesting development, these cheaper weather stations, compared to the much (much) more expensive Davis apparatus.

I actually have been looking at this one yesterday - I expect my Davis to give up within foreseeable time and a new one costs me 1200 Euros for my version. That is a huge difference. I can see the difference in technique (the advantage of splitting the independent anemometer) but hey, that's 7 time more expensive! I can buy a new one every year for the lifetime of a Davis!
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galfert
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Re: Ambient Weather WS-2902A

Post by galfert »

The solution to connect the Ambient WS-2902A to Cumulus MX is very simple and affordable. This also works for other Ambient stations like the WS-2000, WS-1400-IP or WS-1550-IP WS-1201-IP(or non-IP) ...etc. And it also works for other Fine Offset clones...Maplin, Froggit, Misol, Conrad, Tycon...and so on.

All you need is to buy the Ecowitt GW1000 from Amazon. It will work with your Ambient branded station. The Ecowitt GW1000 that you order from Amazon (since you are in the US) will be 915 MHz and it is the same frequency as your Ambient WS-2902A station. All Ambient branded station use 915 MHz. This means that the GW1000 will pick up all your Ambient sensors (the WH65B or WH24 and others if you have them). The GW1000 doesn't actually interface to your display console....it just picks up the sensors directly, just as if you had a second display console. The GW1000 is a like a console but without a display. If you have a Froggit, Maplin, Misol...etc...just be sure to match the frequency to your station as other Fine Offset clones can have 433, 868 and 915 MHz. If you are outside of the US you would need to contact Ecowitt directly to get the GW1000 with the correct frequency.

The GW1000 uses power via USB plug. No data is sent over this USB plug. It is only used for power. The data is made available to Cumulus MX over your local network as the GW1000 connects to your WiFi just as your WS-2902A connects to your WiFi. You configure the GW1000 with the mobile app WS View, which is pretty much like the Ambient awnet app, but you'll have extra controls to manage the GW1000 with the WS View app.

The biggest difference between the GW1000 and the WS-2902A display console is that the GW1000 supports a local network API that Cumulus MX has been designed to support. The WS-2902A does not have this API so you can't query it for data over the local network. The GW1000 works with your sensors because the Ambient WS-2902A and the Ecowitt GW1000 are all manufactured by Fine Offset.

So, yes it works. Just look at my signature. It is what I'm using. Added bonus is that with the GW1000 you can also run other software if you wish. With just one GW1000 I am running Cumulus MX, Weather-Display, Meteobridge, and WeeWX....all at the same time.

GW1000 $36 from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/ECOWITT-Gateway- ... 07JLRFG24/

Once you get the Ecowitt GW1000, besides Cumulus MX and other software support, you'll also gain some other abilities for your station. You'll be able to upload to Ecowitt.net, and MeteOffice WOW which are services that Ambient consoles do not upload to. Your WS-2902A display console will still be able to continue to upload to Ambientweather.net. The WS-2902A and the GW1000 will not actually know about each other. They are just receivers of your sensor data. Not even the sensors know. The sensors are just like little radio stations and they don't know who is picking up their weather data signal. The RF is one way between sensor and consoles. This is why you can easily add multiple displays... and even upgrade your display to the newer WS-2000....although I would probably recommend upgrading the Ecowitt HP2251-C display instead because it will be compatible with more optional sensors.
Last edited by galfert on Mon 20 Apr 2020 5:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Ambient Weather WS-2902A

Post by PaulMy »

Hi BTJ,
It has been a while,
Still using your 2014 bt-sager-cu forecaster every day.

All you need is to buy the Ecowitt GW1000 from Amazon.
The data is made available to Cumulus MX over your local network as the GW1000 connects to your WiFi
You should be aware that while the GW1000 works well with CumulusMX, it is not a data logger so can't catch up if the computer is stopped.

Enjoy,
Paul
Davis Vantage Pro2+
C1 www.komokaweather.com/komokaweather-ca
MX www.komokaweather.com/cumulusmx/index.htm /index.html /index.php
MX www.komokaweather.com/cumulusmxwll/index.htm /index.html /index.php
MX www. komokaweather.com/cumulusmx4/index.htm

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Buford T. Justice
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Re: Ambient Weather WS-2902A

Post by Buford T. Justice »

EXCELLENT idea galfert! I just ordered it.
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Buford T. Justice
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Re: Ambient Weather WS-2902A

Post by Buford T. Justice »

@PaulMy
How has the accuracy been?
newscene
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Re: Ambient Weather WS-2902A

Post by newscene »

Hi there.

I have a Waldbeck Halley – WH2650 that as far as I know, it is kind of a clone from WS-2902A and is also sold with other brand names like HP2550 FOSK, Froggit WH3000, etc. It seems that the external unit is the same for all models but for the indoor unit some models have a console, others just have a small Wi-fi device (that is my case). The station is fantastic and it's data compares extremely well with my neighbor's Davis that costed him 10x more :-)

I have the station working and sending data to WU (https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/ICALDA3) and to Ecowitt (https://www.ecowitt.net/home/index?id=8998). It is also sending data to mysql and I am using this mysql data in my site (https://meteolitoral.com/mtp)

The great advantage of this system is that there is no need for a dedicated PC, but since I have 2 old computers that can be running 24/7, and since I have been using Cumulus for 5 years, I tried to connet the station to CUMULUS MX, using the option GW-1000.
As it was explained here, it simply doesn't work with cumulus, and I will have to buy a GW-1000 to make the interface.
However, I tested my station with Weather Display, and after selecting the GW-1000 option in WD, it started reeceiving data, without the need for a GW-1000!
My question is: why doesn't Cumulus accept my station data, while WD does, if both have the same GW-1000 option?
I am a Cumulus lover and to be honest, I don't like WD at all, and I don't intend to use it, so it was very frustrating to see that Cumulus needs a GW-1000 to work with my new station, while WD doesn't, making it much easier!
Is there any hope that in the future, Cumulus MX will work with these new stations that work with Ecowitt, without the need to buy a GW-1000?

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Re: Ambient Weather WS-2902A

Post by mcrossley »

*If* the WH2650 uses the same protocol as the GW1000 then it may work. I have no documentation about the WH2650 though it appears to use the same WS View app as the GW1000 device.

It would be interesting to see the MXdiags log if you start CMX with the "-debug" command line parameter.
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galfert
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Re: Ambient Weather WS-2902A

Post by galfert »

newscene wrote: Mon 27 Apr 2020 12:45 am Hi there.

I have a Waldbeck Halley – WH2650 that as far as I know, it is kind of a clone from WS-2902A and is also sold with other brand names like HP2550 FOSK, Froggit WH3000, etc. It seems that the external unit is the same for all models but for the indoor unit some models have a console, others just have a small Wi-fi device (that is my case). The station is fantastic and it's data compares extremely well with my neighbor's Davis that costed him 10x more :-)
You are exactly correct. They are all manufactured by Fine Offset. One particular reseller is like a subsidiary company to Fine Offset and that is Ecowitt. You can go to Ecowitt and pretty much order any part. The different consoles (with and without displays) are compatible with the different sensor arrangements with some exceptions and qualifications.
My question is: why doesn't Cumulus accept my station data, while WD does, if both have the same GW-1000 option?
I am a Cumulus lover and to be honest, I don't like WD at all, and I don't intend to use it, so it was very frustrating to see that Cumulus needs a GW-1000 to work with my new station, while WD doesn't, making it much easier!
Is there any hope that in the future, Cumulus MX will work with these new stations that work with Ecowitt, without the need to buy a GW-1000?
The GW1000 and the WH2650 consoles are very similar as you have noticed. They are both managed with WS View mobile app. They both show you live data in WS View. The way that both of these devices send data to WS View is identical using a local API protocol. The API documentation is in fact the same document for both of these as it mentions both the GW1000 and the WH2650. In fact the exact same command is issued to the WH2650 to get data which is documented as CMD_GW1000_LIVEDATA. I suspect though that the returned results may be slightly formatted a bit differently. Since the software needs to parse through the returned data results it may just be that the way the Weather-Display parses through the returned data is different than how Cumulus MX parses through the data, causing it to not work with Cumulus MX.

The good news is that I'm sure that Cumulus MX could be tweaked so that it works with both the GW1000 and the WH2650. But that is in the hands of Mark.

So you could wait to see if Mark can get around to this . It might require your help as Mark would need to see the raw data packets returned by the WH2650 and he doesn't have that unit. So you could donate a unit to Mark to work with...or he may be willing to somehow work with you remotely on this. Or you could just get a GW1000 as they aren't too expensive.

The WH2650 is just not too popular. I really don't know why the WH2650 even exists as on paper it seems to do exactly the same thing as the GW1000. The WH2650 seems like a predecessor to the GW1000 as it uses the older form factor of the ObserverIP which was an Ethernet only device. The WH2650 replaces Ethernet for WiFi is all it seems. But the WH2650 supports this new local network API and the ObserverIP does not.
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newscene
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Re: Ambient Weather WS-2902A

Post by newscene »

mcrossley wrote: Mon 27 Apr 2020 3:52 pm *If* the WH2650 uses the same protocol as the GW1000 then it may work. I have no documentation about the WH2650 though it appears to use the same WS View app as the GW1000 device. It would be interesting to see the MXdiags log if you start CMX with the "-debug" command line parameter.
Hi Mark, thank you so much for your support and for giving me the hope that my WH2650A still has a chanche to "communicate" directly with CMX :-)

Here are the MXdiags and the error message.
In settings I have left the tick in "auto detect" and included the IP that WS View shows for the device (198.162.0.100). Anyway I tried the "autodetect" alone and IP alone, but the error is the same as when both are selected.
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newscene
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Re: Ambient Weather WS-2902A

Post by newscene »

galfert wrote: Mon 27 Apr 2020 3:54 pm The good news is that I'm sure that Cumulus MX could be tweaked so that it works with both the GW1000 and the WH2650. But that is in the hands of Mark.
So you could wait to see if Mark can get around to this.
Hi galfert! Thank you so much for you explanation that helped me understand much better how the WH2650 works.
One of the reasons why this station is a best seller in amazon.es is the fantastic price of $110 and after using it for 3 months already, I have no doubt that comparing it with my former and much more expensive stations, it is really a winner.
You are right, the GW-1000 is currently at "sales price" at only $35.99 but the problem is that it isn't available from any european amazon, and if delivered from US, it has an estimated delivery time of 3-5 weeks, not counting on the corona virus delays, so... I do hope that Mark can come up with some good news in between :-)
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galfert
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Re: Ambient Weather WS-2902A

Post by galfert »

You can always order a GW1000 directly from Ecowitt. They ship worldwide.

Some European countries can also get the Froggit DP1500 which is exactly a GW1000. But you better make sure that you have a 868 MHz station if you order the Froggit.

The US Amazon only sells 915 MHz.
Ecowitt GW1000 | Meteobridge RPI | CumulusMX on Synology NAS
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Windy: pws-f075acbe
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