My METARMap has gone blank

[toto]

Seems to have happened within the last week or so. I’ve tried powering down and powering back up, to no avail. All of the LEDs cycle through on startup and they all stay white.

 

I suspect this is related to the aviationweather.gov migration, but I have no idea.

 

Has anyone else encountered this?

 

I did send a support request to METARMaps, so I’ll report back here with info. Hoping this is a simple fix.

[chriscalandro]

The API appears to be working normally. 

https://aviationweather.gov/api/data/metar?ids=KPOC

 

 

[toto]

Heard back from METARMaps. The aviationweather.gov migration was the cause, and maps built before 2022 are not capable of remote software updates.

There are a bunch of updates on the MM public Facebook page here:

https://m.facebook.com/metarmaps

Looks like there are some hacky workarounds brewing.

[toto]

Details here:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02u5tBv5TQ7KDyfqtPKhkmwGddjB4DUNymYcY9Kvzacm1YPUH35d5eEjNyHy8Cvb1sl&id=100057498007091

(This is a public post, so those of us who don’t use Facebook should be able to access.)

[dzeleski]

The fact that they hardcoded a url with no means of updating the code on a product that costs several hundred dollars is wild.

The fact that they are going to charge for the “hardware” upgrade due to that is even more insane.

The fact they aren’t willing to support DIY changes to the old raspi hardware is gross.

Their comments that their software has gotten so complicated that it now requires a subscription is pure madness, it’s a few API calls and setting RGB color states for a few addressable LEDs.

Im glad I decided to build my own map with my own software instead of getting stuck with this crap.

If anyone needs help updating their SD card feel free to DM me I’d be happy to have a brief convo with you to apply the fix they half ass posted.

[toto]

Mine is an Arduino model with a D1 mini board.

[dzeleski]

I’d recommend avoiding the company at all costs if you are looking for one of these. Absolutely disgusting behavior at a ridiculous price.

This whole comment is basically a lie. Performance is more than fine on a raspi for this, and a typical pi boots in 10 seconds or so.

[toto]

The fact that they hardcoded a url with no means of updating the code on a product that costs several hundred dollars is wild.

Agreed. It’s not like the federal government updates weather sites very often, but never is a long time, and there needs to be an upgrade path short of bricking hundreds of expensive devices.

[dzeleski]

16 minutes ago, toto said:

Mine is an Arduino model with a D1 mini board.

That’s really unfortunate. If you feel like grabbing the Arduino dev tools you can most likely open the software and fix it yourself still. But it’s probably running C rather than python which is more obtuse.

https://averagemaker.com/2018/03/wemos-d1-mini-setup.html

Edit: don’t upload that test code you want to download the stored code.

13 minutes ago, toto said:

 

Agreed. It’s not like the federal government updates weather sites very often, but never is a long time, and there needs to be an upgrade path short of bricking hundreds of expensive devices.

 

Agreed, the fact that they are only providing a paid upgrade for their stupid design is not a good look.

Edited October 23, 2023 by dzeleski

[dzeleski]

Actually this is so much harder and this company did this on purpose to make your lives harder.

https://arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/179/is-there-any-way-to-download-a-sketch-from-an-arduino
 

They probably set the security bit for one. But if they didn’t you will only get hex back which will need to be dumped to assembly and then manually converted back to C.

Sorry it’s been a long time since I worked with arduinos.

[chriscalandro]

That’s insane. It should be about a 15 second fix plus the documentation to teach the purchasers how to update. 
 

if you have the raspberry pie version I’m sure the file that has the function for getting the data is plain text and you can probably edit it yourself. 

Edited October 23, 2023 by chriscalandro

[toto]

I bought a pack of three D1 boards for about six bucks, but as suspected I don't have a source for the image.  I'm not willing to pay $45 for a $2 board on principle, so I'm hoping that someone else has a solution..

Does anyone know if there's a community solution to drive a METARMap (i.e., the commercial product) with an open source script?  I really don't want to do this from scratch, so if someone has the LEDs already mapped and can drive it from a Pi, I would 100% rather invest the $45 in a Pi and some elbow grease.  Anyone know of a github project that covers this?

(Unfortunately, when you search for "metarmap" in github, you get 22 results that all call themselves "metarmap" - but it looks like they're all custom DIY hardware, none of them are using the commercial map afaict.)