Adding Weather Underground Personal Weather Station (PWS) (v2.60+)
- Set-up and register your supported PWS with Weather Underground (WU).
- Log into WU and generate an API Key (My Profile > API KEYS tab).
- Check the MY DEVICES tab and ensure your device is listed: note your device ID.
- Open Au Weather> open the side menu > add a new station (+) > select Weather Underground PWS
- Enter the Station WU ID (from step 3)*
- Enter your WU API key (from step 2)*
- Give your station a name to display.
- Click CHECK to confirm the details are correct. This will also show the nearest BOM station that will be used for forecast info. Make sure there are no added spaces at the end of your ID/API KEY if pasting values.
- Once the check is successful, the ADD button will become available. Click ADD to add the station.
* The device ID and API key are stored locally on your device only. It is only used to connect to WU for retrieving the PWS data. It is not shared or saved in the cloud. This means that you will have to repeat the steps above for each device where you want to add the PWS to.
Paid version End-of-Life
After 8+ years Au Weather (paid version) will reach end-of-life at 31 March 2021. At this time this app will become unsupported and *may* continue to function after this time. However, planned future server/service updates will break app functionality.
The free ad-supported version of Au Weather Free will still be supported. For those that prefer an ad-free experience (and to make it sustainable), it now includes the option to subscribe to an ad-free experience (for half the price of a coffee annually). The free version will also be renamed to just Au Weather in due course.
Can’t find paid version in Google Play Store
The paid version is not available for sale any more. That said, users that have it installed, will continue to receive updates when they’re released.
If you purchased the app previously, you can install it by opening the Google Play app, selecting My apps & games from the menu, then selecting the All tab. Scroll down until you find the Au Weather paid version and install it from there.
Note that you have to use the original purchasing Google account to install. If you want to purchase the app for a different account, that is not possible any more.
The free app will change in future to allow an in-app purchase to allow ad removal. If you have trouble installing, please contact support [at] tomfusion.com
Status bar temperature is white only
(Lollipop+ devices)
From Lollipop Google is not allowing colour in status bar icons. The best alternative it to display the white temperature icon against a coloured background, but only in the notification area. This will be included in an upcoming update. However, it seems it’s the end of coloured status bar temperature notifications 🙁
Side-note: On a Nexus 5 with the latest Marshmallow update, enabling “Android Wear notification” (In-App Preferences>Widget Preferences) colour seem to be restored to the status bar icon. O_o
Exclude a nearby station
Some stations are updated infrequently or may have become obsolete. In these cases when you still want to be able to use the “nearest station” (follow-me) option, you may want exclude these stations from being used (ie you want to see the second or even third etc. closest station’s weather instead). To exclude a station from being used as nearest:
- Long-press the station name on the Favourites list
- Select the “Exclude as nearest” option from the pop-up menu
- The station will be ignored as nearest from the next refresh
To include a previously excluded station again as a nearest location:
- Add the station to the Favourites list (manually)
- Long-press the station name on the Favourites list
- Select “Include as nearest station” option from the pop-up menu
- The station will now be used again as a nearest station from the next refresh
“Use nearest” disappeared in latest release
The feature has not been removed, however the app now checks if the device’s location is enabled. This has been done to prevent the “Sydney shown as nearest location” issue (listed further down).
Au Weather relies on location to be enabled in order to support the nearest station (follow-me) option.
Status bar notification missing on 4.3+
From Android 4.3 application notifications can be manually turned off. If your device was upgraded from a previous Android version app notification may have been disabled by default. Even some new device may disable notifications by default upon installation. This means the status bar temperature will not be displayed.
To check if the app notifications are turned on:
1. Go to Android Settings>Apps and select Au Weather (Free)
2. Ensure that “Show notifications” (below the Force Stop button) is checked. If not, check it.
3. Open Au Weather and do a manual refresh – this should make the status bar notification display.
If the notification is still not being displaying – also check the Temperature is not displayed in the status bar question below.
The Au Weather widget stopped working after updating to version 1.40+!
The 1.40 update requires that you remove any existing Au Weather widgets from the home screen and then add them again. Old widgets will just display “Loading…” after updating. This is due to the update that now allows multiple location widgets to be added.
What is the difference between the paid and free versions of Au Weather?
- The free version is ad supported and will display ads at the bottom of the screen (when the application is open).
NOTICE: The paid version was removed from Google Play (see Can’t find paid version… question above). the paid version will reach end-of-life on 31 March 2021.
Why is Sydney displayed when I select the “Use nearest” option?
Au Weather relies on the mobile location for the “use nearest” (follow-me) functionality to work. If no location is available the last available location will be used. If the app is run the first time without location enabled the may default to Sydney.
Should you enable location on your device, you may have to restart your device to ensure the location update takes effect if it was unchecked
How does the Au Weather widget updates work?
BOM weather station data is updated at different intervals, it may be every 30 minutes, hourly, daily etc. depending on the station. The app widget can update the data at best every 30 minutes (it’s an Android widget restriction to save processing & battery life), which means the displayed data could potentially be almost an hour holder than the current BOM reading. A theoretical example for a station that gets updated every hour: the widget updates at 10:59AM and gets the station reading from 10:00AM (the latest station reading), this means that the widget will display the reading from 10:00AM until 11:29AM before updating to the 11:00AM reading. You can, however, manually update from within the app that any time to get the latest retrieved reading. Also keep in mind that there is a lag between the actual reading, the time it gets updated on the BOM site, and the time the Au Weather server polls the data.
TL;DR: widgets may be an hour or so out of date depending on refresh cycle
Why do some stations not have forecast information?
The BOM forecast data used by Au Weather does not include forecast for all the 750+ observation stations. Where no forecast exists for a station, the nearest forecast will be used if it is deemed close enough; else no forecast data is displayed.
The widget doesn’t update
This is usually an indication that the background service may have been killed. Check the following:
- Check that you’re not running an automatic task killer application.
- Try to remove the widget and re-add it. The widget drives the updates and it may have stopped working.
- Try setting the update interval to 60 minutes for a few hours to see if that works. If it starts updating, then try setting the update frequency back to 30 minutes.
- The temperature is only displayed in the status bar when a widget is added to one of the home pages and the “Widget temperature in status bar” option is checked in the Widget Settings page.
- Also ensure the status bar temperature text is set to white (“Status bar text colour”) in the applications preferences: if your status bar is black (and vice versa). The app default is black, so it won’t be visible on the Gingerbread black status bar by default (for example).
Temperature is not displayed in the status bar
- The temperature is only displayed in the status bar when a widget is added to one of the home pages and the “Widget temperature in status bar” option is checked in the Widget Settings page.
- Also ensure the status bar temperature text is set to white (“Status bar text colour”) in the applications preferences: if your status bar is black (and vice versa). The app default is black, so it won’t be visible on the Gingerbread black status bar by default (for example).
Sometimes, late at night, the next day’s forecast disappears?
The forecast information is updated when BOM updates their forecast information. It’s been observed that BOM’s forecast is updated anytime from 10PM onwards at night. Once the update takes place the next day’s forecast will “disappear”. In fact at that point the min/max values displayed will be those for the next day.
Au Weather FCs (force close) on my Android when I use a custom ROM
Au Weather is not supported on custom ROMs. You can send an email to support@tomfusion.com if you have a problem with a specific ROM, no promises though!
Can I have multiple widgets to monitor different locations?
Yes! However, you can only have one widget’s temperature displayed in the status bar.
Can the status bar temperature be displayed without adding a widget?
Currently no. You must add at least one widget the get the temperature in the status bar. This is due to the widget update cycle being used to update the status bar temperature. The widget can be on any of the home pages i.e. you can put it on the far left/right home page out of the way if you do not want tit to clutter your main home page.
