Source for weather illuminance as trigger?

I'm trying to set a variable for it being dark out even though it "isdaylight." But I can't find an exposed value in the NOAA Weather plugin for illuminance. Is there a better plugin? An option in that plugin I'm missing?

I don't know of one that has that reading...since light an vary a lot in a short distance depending on cloud cover. Neither NOAA or WU that I have set up contain any variables for light.

I'm going to put together an Arduino unit and place it in a waterproof enclosure on the back porch, then run sensor wires out to a temp/humidity sensor, a rainfall sensor, a light sensor and possible a barometric pressure sensor.

That way I can create logic around "Is it raining?" and "How dark is it outside?" and so on.

The Arduino has a lot of pins usable, so might add a high-temp probe for the gas grill, a natural-gas sensor to detect leaks/burner out, maybe a meat temp probe...etc. Lots of ideas.

UV level is available in the WUnderground plugin

Thanks for that tip!

Especially handy since I've come to realize that my Lux sensor is oversensitive.

UV level is available in the WUnderground plugin

A note about using the UV level as a measure of illumination. The WUnderground API describes UV as:

About the UV Index
The UV Index is a forecast of the probable intensity of skin damaging ultraviolet radiation reaching the surface during the solar noon hour: 11:30-12:30 Local Standard Time, or 12:30-13:30 Local Daylight Time. The greater the UV Index is the greater the amount of skin damaging UV radiation. How much UV radiation is needed to actually damage one's skin is dependent on several factors. In general, the darker one's skin is — that is, the more melanin one has in his/her skin — the longer (or the more UV radiation) it takes to cause erythema (skin reddening).

So maybe a proxy for how clear the sky is predicted to be at Noon local, but not a good proxy for how sunny it is right now (unless now is Noon.)

Dave

Yeah, it's a bit of a blunt measurement. I imagine it sits at a "1" from sunset to dawn.

The Wunderground app shows me the lux level from the local weather station two roads away, but it doesnt appear in the plugin - now that would be useful!

The Wunderground app shows me the lux level from the local weather station two roads away, but it doesnt appear in the plugin - now that would be useful!

I had to look that one up.

It seems that WUnderground does expose solar radiation in its API, reported as Watts per square meter (W/m^2) which isn't lux, but based on some cursory research it seems that it might be possible to convert it (but apparently not recommended).

What I can do, however, is expose the solar radiation variable in the plugin and folks could use that as their blunt instrument. This would be provided in a caveat emptor manner and would likely not be widely available.

I'll add that to the list for future updates.

Cheers,
Dave

Please!

Thanks Dave. Interesting, as the app is reporting it as lux

Of course if you've got a Z-stick on the system that's reasonably close to an an outside wall, you could spend the 50 bucks for one of the Aeon 4 in 1s that Indigo supports and ignore the motion while monitoring temperature and humidity as well as lux right in your own yard.

You could also look at Cynical Weather that calculates the orientation of the sun on any part of your house, pretty cool plugin. Not sure if it will help but I use it a little and it's a nice piece of code.

Thanks Dave. Interesting, as the app is reporting it as lux

It may be lux that they're reporting; WUnderground probably has people who are better at math than me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Of course if you've got a Z-stick on the system that's reasonably close to an an outside wall, you could spend the 50 bucks for one of the Aeon 4 in 1s that Indigo supports and ignore the motion while monitoring temperature and humidity as well as lux right in your own yard.

I use an Everspring light sensor that was probably about US$50, too. It's stable, but in my experience a bear to include (and resync when changing batteries.)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk