How to use "use a HTTP station for extra sensors"

[dale]

Searching the Wiki and this board does not seem to provide any documentation for the Extra Sensor Settings named "Use a HTTP station for extra sensors". Can someone explain its purpose and how to configure it? If I have an Ambient weather station, should I simply say my primary weather station is GW1000 and leave this all blank? When would this be used?

Related question: With an Ambient Weather Station (WS-5000) is is better to specify the primary weather station as Ecowitt GW1000 or HTTP (Ambient)? I assume it is better to use Ecowitt GW1000 so any additional Ecowitt sensors will be viewed as part of the station, but are they any advantages to using HTTP (Ambient) if I have a GW1000 on the network?

[Mapantz]

I'm using it for picking up lightning/soil moisture from my GW1000, even though my primary station is a Davis VP2. Before it was implemented, I was running two instances of CMX. One for the Davis, one for the GW1000. The HTTP addition means I only need to run one instance of CMX!

If your primary station is an Ecowitt or Ambient etc, it should be able to get the extra sensor info automatically.

[water01]

I use HTTP for my Ecowitt HP2551 and it picks up all additional sensors and sends there status out via HTTP to both Ecowitt.net and MX.

[mcrossley]

If I have an Ambient weather station, should I simply say my primary weather station is GW1000 and leave this all blank?

Yes.

When would this be used?

See the reply from @Mapantz

Related question: With an Ambient Weather Station (WS-5000) is is better to specify the primary weather station as Ecowitt GW1000 or HTTP (Ambient)? I assume it is better to use Ecowitt GW1000 so any additional Ecowitt sensors will be viewed as part of the station, but are they any advantages to using HTTP (Ambient) if I have a GW1000 on the network?

As you say if you use the HTTP Ambient protocol and you just have Ambient sensors there is no practical** difference.
But if you added some Ecowitt sensors, they would not appear in the HTTP Ambient protocol, but would be in the GW1000.

** The three actual differences are...

1. The HTTP updates are pushed from the console/GW1000 to CMX. CMX just sits there waiting for data. Whereas the GW1000 polls the GW1000 for data periodically, and increases the polling rate to match the fastest updating sensor you have.
2. You can only define one HTTP protocol destination. Whereas multiple different instances of software can read the data using the GW1000 protocol. This may not be an issue for most people, but it will for some.
3. The GW1000 protocol also pulls information about your sensors at start-up and every 10 minutes thereafter and dumps the into into the log. You will be able to see if sensors are disconnecting, signal strength, battery indicators.

[Gyvate]

Maybe to add to Mark's statements:

both, the HP2551 (WS-2000/-5000) console and the GW1x00 console provide the same amount of sensor information - the HP2551/WS-2000 console via the Ecowitt/Ambient http protocol, the GW1x00 console via an API query. They both support the whole fleet of the Ambient sensors.

In your use case, assuming you have the same (extra) sensors active for both consoles, only one of them would be useful - they provide already all you need. And using the GW1x00 API with CMX keeps the custom server of the WS-2000/-5000 console (and its own one) free.

Also the GW1x00 can read all your sensors (Ecowitt and Ambient) whereas the WS-2000/-5000 console only processes the Ambient sensors. So if you happen to have Ecowitt (extra) sensors, the WS-2000/-5000 wouldn't show them (and not transfer them to CMX).

In a pure Ambient (Fine Offset clone) ecosystem, you can use any of the consoles. You could even use the GW1x00 via the http interface, but there wouldn't be any added value.
In a mixed Ambient/Ecowitt ecosystem, the GW1x00 is definitely preferred as it provides all sensors.

If you had e.g. a WH31 extra Temp/Hum sensor from Ecowitt and your WS-5000, you could theoretically add it to the sensors provided by the WS-2000/-5000 , both via http protocol. Not sure if this works, if CMX can handle both at the same time (WS-2000/-5000 as primary and GW1x00 as extra http and vice versa), but again it wouldn't provide any added value.
Still, you can try and see what it gives.

The recommendation is GW1x00 only via the API.

In general the http extra sensor option is meant for heterogeneous station environments (supported FineOffset clone stations and stations of different brands, e.g. Davis) where you want to add extra sensor readings e.g. of one world to the readings from the other world and display them together in CMX. You make your choice which base sensor you want to have (primary).
It's not meant for integrating Ambient and Ecowitt ecosystems as this is already done by the Ecowitt consoles.


N.B. I'm using GW1x00, as meanwhile there are GW1000 and GW1100 models on the market, the GW1000 no longer produced and sold by Ecowitt. Both provide the same functionality (for practical purposes) and use the same API