Home Assistant Dashboard for Ambient Weather Stations

Ambient Weather devices are cool. The Integration with Home Assistant is really well done. But what's really epic is to combine the Ambient Weather station with a lovelace dashboard. This tutorial will show you how to do all of it!
One cool thing I added in this video was a way to integrate the Ambient Website with your dashboard even if you don't have a device! This uses a neighbors station, but it works really well (and it's using data that is publicly available).
This video tutorial walks you thorough every aspect, from the integration setup with API keys and AppIDs to the dashboard setup including a custom HACS Compass integration.
If you're looking to pick up an Ambient Weather station, please consider checking out these affiliate links which help the channel:
WS-2902C Model (Used in this video) - amzn.to/2Q5dnTL
WS-5000 Model (Fancy high end one) - amzn.to/3xZfOIq
--=== Other useful links ===--
Home Assistant Ambient Weather Documentation
www.home-assis...
WAQI Site: waqi.info/
World Air Quality Index (WAQI) Integration: www.home-assis...
WAQI Token Link: aqicn.org/data...
YAML for WAQI:
sensor:
- platform: waqi
token: AQICN_API_TOKEN
locations:
- Las Vegas
#HomeAssistant #Dashboard #Lovelace #Tutorial

[@TAPUAV]

Awesome!! Thanks for taking the time to cover each section in depth and explain how to create a custom dashboard!!

[@geektoolkit]

Glad to help! I loved dashboards and wanted to help others. I may create some more of these as I get others setup

[@nmummau]

Very cool. The variety of your videos is really getting me (new to Home Assistant) to think out of the box about integrations. Thanks for the inspiration.

[@geektoolkit]

Cool! For me it's like a huge toybox of cool stuff I can had, which makes it as much of a fun hobby as a useful tool. Sometimes I just browser the integration list and look things up to see what I can add...it gives me inspirations and ideas. Not all of them good ones though :)

[@CMDRSloma]

Thanks, this is exactly what I was looking for. Having DIY Solar weather station is super handy. If only native weather cards in Lovelace had support for custom sensors.

[@geektoolkit]

Cool glad it helps!

[@nigelholland24]

Great video thank you

[@geektoolkit]

Glad it helped! I want to revisit this when in my new house with an even better one!

[@johnbrindisi4249]

Thank you for the great work!

[@arnoldbencz6886]

Super video! 👍

[@BBalasa]

Great place to start …

[@geektoolkit]

Thanks! Yeah it’s a bit of a rabbit hole after that :)

[@MatthewN8OHU]

I suppose this can be applied to any brand of weather station, not just the Ambient Weather Station you use.

[@geektoolkit]

Only if the weather station has a way home assistant can talk to it. That’s the key. But yes! Of the weather station has an api or an integration then you’re good to go!

[@MatthewN8OHU]

@@geektoolkit I'm looking at the Wittboy from Ecowitt, which does have such an option.

[@simonminnican]

Great tutorial but unfortunately it seems that compass is no longer supported in the current version of HA...

[@epotnwarlock]

Is the weather station data only available from the website with an api token? Can you get the data directly from the weather station?

[@geektoolkit]

If you’re tricky with an SDR you can intercept and decode it. Here’s a video that explains it..kzbin.info/www/bejne/rIOyaq2wp9GVhqssi=DJWNQCfJy2PJ5VA2

[@Airsailor1972]

Great Work. Thanks. Do you know if it is possible get entities to home assistant from the public dashboard? I would like make some automations with the public weather dashboard data but I don´t know if it is possible. It looks like I only can see the information but can not use for automations. Thanks for your great video.

[@geektoolkit]

Glad you liked the video! Sadly there is no supported way to access the data from the public dashboards. It’s all API key based. Home assistant as a design rule frowns on web scraping and won’t allow integrations that use it so it seems pretty locked down.

[@nathanielgillespie2627]

Is it possible to get a daily light sum report?

[@geektoolkit]

It would depend on the features of the weather station, or you’d have to gather the data and generate the report. I image there’s a path to get there but I don’t know if offhand

[@steveshingledecker7551]

Geez, great for geek-to-geek ....would the mechanic down the street be able to follow you? Or the 75-year-old lady across the way?

[@geektoolkit]

I honestly wouldn’t recommend home assistant to anyone that can’t follow this…I don’t consider it a user friendly or beginner system. The system gets better every year, but the minute something goes sideways and you have to edit yaml after ssh to a pi to be able to turn control the house…

[@ronchalfant6394]

👍🧙🏼‍♂️

[@mrxmry3264]

4:10 i see a UPnP thingy there. are you using UPnP??? BAAAAAD idea!

[@geektoolkit]

Ugh...thankyou. I hadn't thought about that, did some research thanks to your mention and realized..yikes...putting cheap IOT stuff on my network that could open ports is not good. I didn't know what you meant, did some quick research and realize now how bad that is. And frustratingly I think I have to update the TP link deco firmware to have the option to even turn it off...sigh. I should have that resolved tonight, huge thanks for the catch!

[@mrxmry3264]

@@geektoolkit yeah, turn it off if you can. also, if you have a firewall, you should block the UPnP port, which AFAIK is 5900, both inbound AND outbound you should watch security now, especially episode 389 (8 years ago!) kzbin.info/www/bejne/rXbEZWangpl9oLM i would put a pfsense firewall between your modem and your first networking device, that gives you lots of control over what comes in from the internet and what goes out to the internet. it's a steep learning curve, but i think it's worth it. besides, if you're smart enough to build your own home automation system, you should also be smart enough to learn how to use pfsense. me, i should have bought a pfsense firewall instead of the unifi security gateway.

[@arnoldbencz6886]

Please , give me a config for a rain status...

[@NickBair316]

If I don't have a station and have to use the data from another device in the area, I cannot set up the custom dash right? I just have to use the Panel page? Can I do any automation off of the data on just the panel page?

[@geektoolkit]

Just the panel page sadly. You have to have the api keys to do any more

[@NickBair316]

@@geektoolkit I did set up the API keys but noticed without my own device it didn't do much. I may have to look into a device then. I'm just getting into HA so have a lot to figure out. I've been wanting to automate my Ecobee based on external temp and home occupancy so thought I might be able to do that with HA.

[@geektoolkit]

Oh! Please check my videos I have an ecobee one

[@NickBair316]

@@geektoolkit I have a dash set up for it. I just haven't ventured into the automation yet.

[@geektoolkit]

Ah well that’s where the fun is!

[@drtruax]

Too crazy for the average joe

[@wartlme]

This seems horrible to me. You have to use their API, logon to their website to view your own data.

[@geektoolkit]

It's not ideal for sure, but I've not found a solution where I can access the data locally from a device unless I build it myself. To be fair to them, they are very open to letting people use the API, and they're doing a ton of work charting and collecting historical data (there's no local storage needed for the device, so it's basically streaming to the cloud and they're storing it for you at no cost). I would love if they provided a device to store and server the data locally, but I have a feeling the market for that wouldn't be enough to sustain it. That all being said, there are videos out there of people capturing the data locally using SDR systems and then building out a way to store the data and keep it local (it's an RF transmission from the sensor setup to a readout currently). If you find any solutions please share them with me I'd be interested in investigating them and maybe reviewing them

[@wartlme]

@@geektoolkit I have a Software Defined Radio(SDR) usb dongle. Purchased a cheap weather station from Menards. Installed RTL_433, found my station and 3 others near by. Guess I didn't need to buy one. Found an article by AgriVision about RTL-SDR based weather stations. Fallowed that and modified it for Ubuntu. Not sure how easy this will be form the normal person, I have a computer programming degree, easy for me. Now I have a graphing weather station app that runs locally. This only took me about 3 hours to setup. Need to modify this for to run on my Home Assistant VM. This seems like a better solution over sending this over the internet just to view my own data. I am sort of a crazy about IoT devices. I also like Z-wave products.

[@geektoolkit]

@@wartlme Sounds like an awesome DIY solution, and yes if someone is a programmer then there's some great options (could do an ESPhome and add the sensors and get the home assistant integration almost for free). I love the idea of using RTL_433 to scan the neighborhood..thats...interesting :D