Access data from a weather station with the Raspberry Pi

Weather Watch

Article from Issue 152/2013
Author(s):

If you have a weather station that allows you to access data via a USB port, you can use your Raspberry Pi to analyze the data and publish the results via a web application.

My new weather station [1] has several sensors for wind, rain, and temperature, as well as a USB cable and evaluation software (Figure 1), albeit a desktop-only Windows application. However, I wanted to record the measured data and, if possible, access it on my cell phone while I was on the move.

Figure 1: The electronic TFA Nexus weather station records wind, rain, and outdoor temperature and outputs the data via USB. (Image: TFA Dostmann)

Positioning a Windows PC running 24/7 next to my weather station was not an option; instead, I set my sights on the Raspberry Pi. Thus far, I had used it as a tiny media center with an equally tiny speaker, but by using its USB connection, my Pi could read the data output from the weather station. The power requirement is negligible compared with that of a full-size PC, and the Pi is silent. The question then arose: How can I acquire the data via USB if the station only comes with a Windows program?

[...]

Use Express-Checkout link below to read the full article (PDF).

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

  • Weather Station

    A DVB-T stick retrieves information from a professional weather station and stores it in a database for downstream processing.

  • Charly's Column: Weather Page

    To find out what the weather is like, sys admin columnist Charly Kühnast no longer needs to go outdoors get wet, blown away, frozen to death, or sunburned.

  • Software-Defined Radio

    Armed with a US$ 20 hunk of hardware and a free software-defined radio tool, Konstantin starts the hunt for radio-transmitted data from a weather station.

  • Mastodon

    Get started with free microblogging, interact with others who share you interests, and even help expand the Fediverse with your own Mastodon instance.

  • Security Lessons – Ruby Tools

    Great tools and resources are available to help you write secure Ruby on Rails code. Kurt examines some tools and offers some tips.

comments powered by Disqus
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters

Support Our Work

Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

Learn More

News