One of the most common requests we receive is for a ThorntonWeather.com app for mobile devices. Unfortunately, short of a lot of donations to fund it, development of one is prohibitively expensive. However, there are third party programs that will allow you to get Thornton’s weather with data from our station.
The choices range from the basic to major name apps that display ThorntonWeather.com data. This article will detail the simpler ones that do little more than display weather conditions from our site as an app and as a widget. While basic, they all do a good job and keep it simple.
Weather Station for Cumulus
Download on Google Play (free)
This app and widget are very nice and probably our favorite due to the simplicity of the display.
Once downloaded, start up the app and choose “Set Location URL.” On the next screen you will enter the location of a file on our server that is constantly updated with current conditions. In the URL box enter:
http://www.thorntonweather.com/cumulus/realtime.xml
Note that the entry is case-sensitive so be sure to enter it in all lowercase.
Once done, click Save. You then will shown the current conditions from our station. Scrolling down displays more information such as today’s and yesterday’s highs and lows and more.
Using the setting menu, you will want to update the ‘Widget refresh time interval’. This determines how often the widget polls our site for the latest conditions. We ask that you please select 30 minutes or longer so as to not cause an undue burden to our site server.
Adding the widget to one of your devices screens is done in the Apps menu. Select Widgets, then scroll to the right to find “Weather Station.” Two sizes are available.
Note that the weather icon displayed is the forecast as generated by our Davis Instruments weather station. Unfortunately this is not a particularly accurate forecast so it should largely be disregarded.
Weather Station by Draco Systems
Download on Google Play ($3.07)
We have a lot of hope for Weather Station and think that someday it will improve and be one of the better ones. The developer is active and issues regular updates however the displays are a bit ‘off’ with some versions of the program due to odd font sizes and layouts (particularly with the widgets).
For tablet devices, this does have one of the nicest and full featured displays of any and is probably the best choice for those.
Once downloaded, the program tries to pick the closest station using stations that upload to Weather Underground. However it likely will not choose ThorntonWeather.com’s station as there are many others in the area (most far less accurate).
Click the wrench at the top to open the settings menu. Start by choosing Select Display Units. You will want to change them all to their English / Imperial settings. For temperature choose F, Pressure inHG, rain inch, and wind mph.
Then select Weather Station List. Scroll down under the PWS heading, select KCOTHORN6. That is our station’s identifier on Weather Underground. When you touch it, you will receive confirmation it is activated.
Use the back button to return to the main screen and the conditions should update with data from ThorntonWeather.com. As for widgets, the program has four of them available to choose from.
Pocket PWS
Download on Google Play (free)
This is the newest app that we have found and while it is a bit Spartan, it is functional and free.
Once downloaded you will be prompted to set the URL for the file with the current conditions. Go into the settings and select XML file url. In the entry box, enter:
http://www.thorntonweather.com/weatherdisplay.xml
Note that the entry is case-sensitive so be sure to enter it in all lowercase.
Click OK and the app will start displaying current conditions from our station. There is also a Pocket PWS widget you can add to one of your Android device’s home screens.
Conclusion
In a future story we will detail the more extensive Android weather apps that can be used to display ThorntonWeather.com data. Should you have any problems getting any of the above listed apps configured, do let us know and we will try to help you.
If you have an Apple device, well, we can’t help you much as we only own Android devices. However if you find an app in the Apple app store that can read data from a Personal Weather Station (PWS), let us know and we will take a look and see if we can help you configure it.
Remember that we do have a mobile web site optimized for all smartphones that has live conditions, forecasts and more. Check it out and bookmark it here: http://m.thorntonweather.com