Re: Clock and Temperature 1.10

If you're getting a lot of calls with exactly the same parameters, I can offer to let you use our caching proxy.  Basically, identical URLs will pull from the cache instead of going to the upstream service, with a timeout of an hour (probably OK for weather).

Re: Clock and Temperature 1.10

Thanks Duane. I appreciate the offer. I am not sure how many different locations are requesting data. Based on the math, it looks like there are about 83 Chumbys using this widget. While I can account for a few of those in my collection, my guess is that there are probably another 25 or 30 unique locations requesting temperature data. I don't know how that would affect your own server, which I am sure gets plenty of traffic already.

Let me make the change in the widget to request temperature every 2 hours, instead of every 20 minutes. Then let's see if it generates complaints. If it does, we can move on to Plan B, and work with your caching proxy.

Re: Clock and Temperature 1.10

Nah, don't worry about it. Given the load we're set up to handle, that wouldn't move the needle.

All of the Google News widgets are using the proxy now, and those are very popular widgets.

Just let me know.

Re: Clock and Temperature 1.10

I am trying to decide if the caching proxy would really help in this circumstance. If I assume that there are 30 different locations that need to pick up a temperature, then there would be 30 different URLs to be cached.

For example, for my location, the URL is:
http://free.worldweatheronline.com/feed … 67890ABCDE

while for someone in New York City, the URL might be:
http://free.worldweatheronline.com/feed … 67890ABCDE

I assume for Google News, you are delivering the same URL to everyone. But for this widget, I am guessing that on average, only three Chumbys are using any particular location.

So would this complicate things significantly for you?

On a side note, I am now testing a version of the widget with a two hour temperature read time. Assuming I don't see any problems, I will upload it over the weekend for general use.

Re: Clock and Temperature 1.10

According to World Weather Online, this widget is still making about 85 requests per hour, or about twice what they will support, which is why users are still seeing "---" as the temperature for about half the day. This also suggests that about twice as many folks are using this widget than I thought.

As a temporary measure, I am planning to further reduce the request interval to keep under the 1,000 requests per day, or 42 per hour that I can get with the free API. I am just not willing to pay about $200 per year to support this widget, which is what World Weather wants to support 5,000 requests per day.

An alternative, what I am starting to work on is instead getting the current temperature from OpenWeatherMap.org, which supports much higher request rates under their free API. While this service also supports worldwide weather information, it looks like the programming is more complicated than for the other API, which means I am struggling with this transition. While I have some basic programming skills, they are only basic, especially when it comes to ActionScript.

One issue is that to use Open Weather's information, it looks like I need to specify the country. Obviously, I know I need to include the US, but don't know where other users are located, so I need a little help.

Question 1: If you are using this widget (Clock and Temperature), what country are you located in?

Question 2: If I need to get additional real estate on the configuration screen to accommodate more possible countries, I was thinking of eliminating the option to customize colors. If you use this widget, are you using the default colors, or have you picked your own?

Thanks.

Re: Clock and Temperature 1.10

I'm using this widget - I'm in Australia and I'm using the default colours. Thanks for your work.

Re: Clock and Temperature 1.10

Another couple of questions for you steelpaw. Are you currently using the latest version of this widget (3.02) or an earlier version? If you are using 3.02, does this show the temperature in your area, or does it just show dashes?

When I checked my WorldWeatherOnline account a few minutes ago, I see that there are still about 500 queries a day using my key. I am trying to figure out where those requests are coming from, because I thought that the Chumby system would automatically check for a new version of a widget every once in a while, and then download the current version, which uses OpenWeatherMap. It seems strange to me that I would still have so many people on the old version of the widget even after two weeks.

Anyway, I will try to work on adding an option for Australian locations.

Re: Clock and Temperature 1.10

I am not sure what version I am using - I can't find where this information is. I would have added it to the channel at least a year ago.
The version that I am using seems to be showing the correct temperature, but in Fahrenheit rather than Celsius. I have changed the temperature units at chumby.com several times, but the change doesn't seem to register, even though I have remembered to press 'save'.

Re: Clock and Temperature 1.10

The version number will be in very, very tiny numbers in the lower right hand corner of the screen. Unless you are using a very old version that I made before figuring out how to do that trick.

I know that the temperature display can be problematic, although I think that works better in the later versions of the widget.

My suggestion is to test this by building a new channel, and then add "Clock and Temperature" to it and let's see if you can now get temperature in Celsius. Thanks for your patience.

Re: Clock and Temperature 1.10

You should be able to force the device to get the latest version of a widget but using "clear cache" button in the "pi" screen, then a "channel"=>"reload".

Re: Clock and Temperature 1.10

They are tiny numbers, aren't they? Now that I've put my reading glasses on and been directed where to look, I can see that I am on version 3.02. I will try the new channel thing soon.

Re: Clock and Temperature 1.10

Steelpaw, I want to let you know that I finally tracked down the problem with the Celsius vs. Fahrenheit readings and got that fixed. While troubleshooting that, I also found a bad problem with the location assignment portion of the program, and fixed that. The current version is now 3.21. (Yes, the numbers are still very, very tiny.)

My next step is to develop an international version of this widget. Right now, unfortunately, the current version of this widget only works for US locations by zip code. My hope is to get a new version finished by the end of May, as I have several days off towards the end of May as we commemorate Memorial Day here in the US.

Re: Clock and Temperature 1.10

Steelpaw, I uploaded a new version of this widget (3.24) which should work for all locations. You will need to specify your country in the configuration dialog box. Please go to the appropriate channel in your lineup and go to  the configuration. You should be able to select either Celsius or Farenheit. Let me know if you still see issues.