We have had a weather info screen at our home in Chandler and we brought it here to Idaho when we moved. It showed the basics of inside and outside temperature, humidity, data and time. Well, it had been on the fritz for a while, and not giving reliable data. I decided to look into other options. I have always wanted an actual at home weather station to tell me more than just the temperature and humidity, and so I started looking at options. Well, I knew they were expensive, and sure enough the ones that made the most sense for what I wanted were expensive. Then I did more deep diving on my neighborhood, and I found out that someone in my very near neighborhood (within a couple streets, maybe less) had a weather station and was broadcasting their information to the internet.
And I knew that Home Assistant (my home automation software I use) could display that fairly easily. So, I started building a weather dashboard in home assistant to see if I could create something that was similar to what we had that could be displayed on a tablet of some kind.
Well, the journey took me longer than I was hoping. I was able to get the info displayed but initially it was all very small and not worth trying to read on a display unless you were right up near it, or reading it on your phone. That wasn’t going to work. Then I learned about creating customized cards in Home Assistant and then I was able to create the right sizing and setup I wanted. So, the next step was completed.
The next step was a tablet to use. I have a REALLY old Ipad 2 that I thought would work, but nope. Even with the internet running it wouldn’t access the Home Assistant site to display anything. Next I decided to look into other tablets. We have a number of Fire tablets in our house since they are cheap and reliable. I decided to purchase “G” a new tablet since hers was the oldest of a decent size and take hers to use for this. But then I had to get it somewhere to display it.
That was where having access to the 3D printers at BSU came in handy. I found a wall mount template online for the tablet and I printed it at BSU. The person I have been working with there, “C”, advised me to not use PLA and to use PETG instead for strength since I was going to mount it on a wall.
Here is the result:
And here it is with the tablet in it with the weather display showing:
I added in rooms around the house that have temperature sensors as well and I put in wind speed instead of humidity since the wind is a bigger deal for my wife when she gets up in the morning and wants to think about running (or if I head out on a bike ride someday outside again).
I like it. It is working great. The screen dims after 30 minutes, and I can’t stop it from doing that. I did get it to stop totally turning off so that is cool.
And for an added bonus you get “The Lord’s Prayer”.