Topic: Normal vs Night Mode vs Power Save Network Usage question

After reading some of the posts showing the monthly network costs for our Chumbys and Chumdash units, I thought there might be some network savings between the different modes (Normal,Night,Power Save) of our devices.

Rather than just guess, I thought I would ask our experts.  I am sure most of us with devices in our bedrooms put them in Night or Power Save mode overnight.  If we have additional devices in other locations (kitchen,workshop, ?), we might be able to reduce the monthly network costs for Blue Octy by scheduling them to enter Night or Power Save mode each day.

1) When the devices are in Night or Power Save mode, do they connect to the Chumby servers ?  If so, how often ?

2) For the unsubscribed units, how often do they retrieve the weather information ?

Re: Normal vs Night Mode vs Power Save Network Usage question

The devices currently poll for weather data every 35 minutes, but directly from the provider, not through us.

However, this is very likely to change, as I expect the data feed it's using will be deprecated as Sony continues to shut down their services.  At some point, I will need to provide alternative feed that will be using our resources, so that traffic will be increasing.  i am already planning that out - but it means that we will have another recurring cost for something that is currently being provided for free to unsubscribed dash users.

In Night Mode, the network activity does drop significantly, however, it does still poll the servers occasionally, looking for updates.

Re: Normal vs Night Mode vs Power Save Network Usage question

Knowing nothing about how this currently works I may be asking a stupid question, but would it be possible to have a weather feed based on something like Weather Underground's API?  The access key is free to individuals and could be entered by the user.  The API returns JSON and/or XML.

https://www.wunderground.com/weather/api/d/docs

Re: Normal vs Night Mode vs Power Save Network Usage question

I doubt wunderground would be OK with that.  They could argue that this is just an attempt to work around their commercial offering.  We're talking about thousands of new API keys - they'd notice for sure.

There would be some other technical barriers, but would probably be workable, though it would likely require modifying all of the themes, and having people reenter their weather locations to get the correct selectors.

Re: Normal vs Night Mode vs Power Save Network Usage question

Duane wrote:

I doubt wunderground would be OK with that.  They could argue that this is just an attempt to work around their commercial offering.  We're talking about thousands of new API keys - they'd notice for sure.

There would be some other technical barriers, but would probably be workable, though it would likely require modifying all of the themes, and having people reenter their weather locations to get the correct selectors.

There are pebble watch faces that utilize this "back door".  They haven't noticed those -- yet.

Re: Normal vs Night Mode vs Power Save Network Usage question

Duane wrote:

I doubt wunderground would be OK with that.  They could argue that this is just an attempt to work around their commercial offering.  We're talking about thousands of new API keys - they'd notice for sure.

There would be some other technical barriers, but would probably be workable, though it would likely require modifying all of the themes, and having people reenter their weather locations to get the correct selectors.

Pebble also points to openweather a lot.  I believe that's a free feed.  Maybe use that?

https://openweathermap.org/api

7 (edited by riblet2000 2017-08-24 13:58:42)

Re: Normal vs Night Mode vs Power Save Network Usage question

jhonryan wrote:

Pebble also points to openweather a lot.  I believe that's a free feed.  Maybe use that?

https://openweathermap.org/api

"You can freely use our products and data with non-commercial or commercial purposes. However, the OpenWeatherMap should be credited as a weather data source in a visible part of your application."

Their freebie option gives up to 60 queries per minute.  They only update that tier once every two hours.

Re: Normal vs Night Mode vs Power Save Network Usage question

riblet2000 wrote:
jhonryan wrote:

Pebble also points to openweather a lot.  I believe that's a free feed.  Maybe use that?

https://openweathermap.org/api

"You can freely use our products and data with non-commercial or commercial purposes. However, the OpenWeatherMap should be credited as a weather data source in a visible part of your application."

Their freebie option gives up to 60 queries per minute.  They only update that tier once every two hours.

60 a minute isn't that bad -- depending on how it responds to number 61.   They also have a 5 day forecast.   The 2 hour updates isn't great...  But I'd rather have every 2 hours than not at all.