SkyWeather - A Raspberry Pi Weather Project for the Cloud

The Raspberry Pi is a fabulous little computer.   Inexpensive and easy to use and build projects with.    What is one of the things that has been missing from the Raspberry Pi?   The ability to easily build (no soldering!) a weather station using this fine computer.  This Kickstarter is a perfect technology project to learn all about the weather and how to sense the environment around you.  Including Air Quality and Lightning.  Right here.  Right in your neighborhood.  

This Kickstarter allows you to build your own weather station with a Sky Cam to take pictures of your Sky and display them the cloud on WeatherSTEM.  You might even make it to the WeatherChannel!

The magic of this Kickstarter is that it provides all the needed interfaces and plugs to convert your Raspberry Pi into a real Weather Station.  You build.  You Learn.

What about the Cloud?

SwitchDoc Labs is proud to announce our partnership with WeatherSTEM.com for taking SkyWeather to the cloud.  

That's right.  Your weather station and sky pictures will be visible to everyone on the Internet and you will be sharing your local weather with locations all  over the globe!

WeatherSTEM is an innovative cloud-based weather education platform for people of all ages and professions.   Our innovative curriculum is designed to help you and your students understand the myriad ways weather impacts just about everything in our lives.  SkyWeather is a great way to become part of the WeatherSTEM community.

Note to Educators:  WeatherSTEM has a full set of experiments and curriculum for your class to use SkyWeather and WeatherSTEM in the classroom.

What can you Measure with SkyWeather?

• Barometric Pressure
• LIGHTNING!
• Outside Temperature 
• Outside Humidity 
• Altitude 
• Inside Temperature
• Inside Humidity 
• Air Quality - AQI (your own local Air Quality Sensor)
• Sunlight
• Wind Speed
• Wind Direction 
• Rain 
• All your weather information on the Cloud including history

This project, being open source, is expandable - there are hundreds of Grove modules available!

SkyWeather Software

SkyWeather is written in the easy to understand and modify Python, the language of choice on the Raspberry Pi.   Following is a video that shows you the basic flow of data through the SkyWeather software.

Easy to Build

We specifically built our SkyWeather kit so it requires no soldering.  We use Grove connectors to make assembly easy and safe to build. You can't plug a Grove cable in backwards. If you put the connector in the wrong plug it just doesn't work. No smoke.

For more information, check out our full Grove Tutorial here.

The Heart of SkyWeather - the new PiWeather Board

The SkyWeather  kickstarter is designed to bring the ability to actually construct a working weather station within the reach of people of all ages and abilities.    The key to this is the new PiWeather board that is designed to require no soldering to connect up (by using Grove Connectors) the unit and comes with Python software to make it work out of the box.   And what else about this software is special?   It is open source.   We give you the source code.  This is not a closed system.

The magic of this board is that it provides all the needed interfaces and plugs to convert your Raspberry Pi into a real Weather Station and share it with the world!  And it is highly expandable by adding more sensors.

Go Solar!

You can also add solar power so you can run it remotely without a power supply.

Have your SkyWeather Station on your Phone with Blynk

Blynk is a great app that runs on your iPhone, Android and soon a version on a browser.  It gives you current status of your station including solar power status, thermal status and current conditions.

Here are some of the SkyWeather Blynk App screenshots.

Putting it All Together! The Rewards!

All the rewards are selected to provide you, the backer with just the right amount of weather that you want to back. From the single board to the full Weather Kit with a Raspberry Pi 3 - your choice!  All rewards include a Sky Camera for the Pi and the WeatherSTEM Cloud.

We are offering a number of levels of rewards.  The basic, to the all options project kit  

SkyWeather Lite

• The basic SkyWeather system without the Wind/Rain and Lightning Sensors

This kit is for those whom are most interested in the Sky Camera, temperature, humidity and air quality measurements.

The basic SkyWeather system without the Wind/Rain and Lightning Sensors.

SkyWeather

• All the software, electronics and cables to build your SkyWeather Kit (not including the Raspberry Pi)

The full SkyWeather kit including the Lightning and Wind Direction, Speed and Rain sensors. Includes: Rain, Wind Speed / Direction, Lighting Detection, Outside Temperature and Humidity, Barometric Pressure, Internal Temperature/Humidity, Sunlight Strength, and Outside Air Quality.

SkyWeather Solar

• The SkyWeather Kit plus the solar panels and solar controller SunControl (not including the Raspberry Pi)

SkyWeather Solar is designed for off-the-grid usage where bringing power is tough. The kit including the Lightning and Wind Direction, Speed and Rain sensors.

Solar Power Your SkyWeather Kit. The Solar SkyWeather kit includes a SunControl based solar power system, the Lightning and Wind Direction, Speed and Rain sensors. Includes: Rain, Wind Speed / Direction, Lighting Detection, Outside Temperature and Humidity, Barometric Pressure, Internal Temperature/Humidity, Sunlight Strength, and Outside Air Quality.

Supplies excellent and complete information about the solar power performance and charging status. Really understand solar power.

SkyWeather with Solar WXLink

• The SkyWeather Kit plus the hardware to move your WeatherRack (Wind Direction, Speed, Rain and Outside Temperature/Humidity) away from your base SkyWeather unit. (not including the Raspberry Pi)

SkyWeather with Solar WXLink is designed for those who would like their base weather station in one place and the temperature/humidity/wind/Rain in another place connected wirelessly and the sensors are solar powered.

The SkyWeather Plus Solar WXLink Remote kit includes remote wireless solar power sensor kit for the WeatherRack and Outside Temperature/Humidity Sensor. It also includes the Full SkyWeather Kit with Lightning and Wind Direction, Speed and Rain sensors, Lighting Detection, Outside Temperature and Humidity, Barometric Pressure, Internal Temperature/Humidity, Sunlight Strength, and Outside Air Quality. Supplies excellent and complete information about the solar WXLink Remote Sensing power performance and charging status. 

Really understand solar power.

And other things we might think are fun!

3D Printed Files Available for SkyWeather

We have all these files for you available in STL form and also the source files in OpenSCAD, TinkerCad, etc.

What Else is Coming During this Kickstarter?

We will be releasing the following during the Kickstarter.

• Assembly Manual with Pictures for the Weather Kit
• Adding the Box and Weatherproofing your SkyWeather Kit
• Full list of parts needed for Weatherproofing the SkyWeather Kit
• Guide to Hooking SkyWeather up to WeatherStem
• Guide to Hooking SkyWeather up to Blynk
• Pure Python Open Source Software
• Assembly Manual with Pictures for the Advanced Weather Kit
• Full Specification for the PiWeather

A Little Theory about SkyWeather for the Raspberry Pi

We are fortunate (well most of the time) to have a PhD in Electrical Engineering / Computer Science as our Chief Technology Officer.   He insists that we put a block diagram of the whole SkyWeather Kit for the Raspberry Pi in the right up and that he writes a couple paragraphs talking about the technology.   OK, we give in.  Take it away, Dr. John!

SkyWeather designed to be the hub to which you connect everything to turn your Raspberry Pi into a complete Weather Station that talks to the Cloud.   Just ready to be customized to your project and usage.   It is designed to be a great way of learning to hook up hardware to the Raspberry Pi.  And you have all the source code to modify to work the way you want it to do.

Our partnership with WeatherSTEM brings this kickstarter into the realm of cloud based data mining, great graphics displays and even time lapse photography.    SkyWeather and WeatherSTEM together rock.

This is a great kit in which to learn about weather sensing, data sharing in the cloud and the Raspberry Pi.