ideasasylum / DarkPi

An ambient weather display for Raspberry Pi Zero, Pimoroni Blinkt, and Dark Sky api

DarkPi

An ambient weather display for Raspberry Pi Zero W, Pimoroni Blinkt, and Dark Sky API

I thought this would be a useful way to gauge whether the kids needed to bring a jumper or coat to school each day. It uses the Dark Sky api to pull down the forecasts for the next 8 hours, and display some vaguely appropriate colours. The lights are dimmer at night.

Requirements

• python-forecast.io
• Raspberry Pi Zero W and Blinkt LEDs
• Blinkt libraries
• You'll need an api key for Dark Sky api

Installation

Install the Blinkt libraries: https://github.com/pimoroni/blinkt sudo pip install python-forecastio

Put the darkypi.py script somewhere

Set the environment variables (I put them in ~/.bash_profile)

DARKSKY_API="somethingsomething"; export DARKSKY_API
LAT="50.7"; export LAT
LON="-10.5"; export LON

Run

python darkpi.py

Scheduling

We want the display to update every hour, and when we power on the device.

I wrote a little shell script called run.sh to hold the environment variables because cron is... awkward

DARKSKY_API="something"; export DARKSKY_API
LAT="50.5"; export LAT
LON="-8.5"; export LON

python ~/darkpi/darkpi.py

Run crontab -e and add these entries to the crontab

0 * * * * /darkpi/run.sh
@reboot   /darkpi/run.sh

Examples