NimbusPi is a Raspberry Pi based weather station. It is intended to be modular and extensible, working with custom components as well as more-popular weather systems.

NimbusPI comes with a Makefile for convenience. NimbusPI was built on Python 2.7 and is the recommended version for your platform. You can check your python version by entering the following in the terminal:

$ python --version

If Python is not installed on your system, you can find instructions for installing it on the Python website. You will also need to install pip:

$ sudo easy_install pip

Once installed, the Makefile will install all required dependencies for you:

$ sudo make install

You can ensure your NimbusPI is installed correctly by running the provided test scripts:

$ make test

Once installed, running your NimbusPI is as simple as running the provided executable:

$ ./nimbus

You can find more options for running the NimbusPI service by using the -h argument:

$ ./nimbus -h

NimbusPI can run without a configuration file, but it will not do much on its own. NimbusPI is made to be configurable! By default, NimbusPI will look for a nimbus.cfg file in your running folder, but you can also specify a different configuration file by using the -c option:

./nimbus -c /path/to/my/nimbus.cfg

The configuration file follows a standard INI format with three sections:

[station]
name      = My NimbusPI Weather Station
location  = 1234 Test Location, Chicago, IL 60606
latitude  = 1.111111
longitude = -2.222222
altitude  = 8000  # In Feet


[sensors]
mysensor1
mysensor2


[broadcasters]
mybroadcaster1
mybroadcaster2

The station section is used to describe details about your station. Some sensors you install can override these settings, but the config provides a fallback in case the sensors are not available, or do not function.

The sensors and broadcasters sections contain lists of plugins to activate when the NimbusPI weather station is started.

Sensor and Broadcaster plugins may also have configuration settings that should also be included in your root configuration file. Please refer to your plugin's instructions for what configuration options are available for each module you wish to install.

There are many ways to contribute to NimbusPI! If you have an idea, or have discovered a bug, please open an issue so it can be addressed.

If you are interested in contributing to the project through design or development, please read our Contribution Guidelines.

Releases of NimbusPi follow Semantic Versioning standards in a MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH versioning scheme of the following format:

• MAJOR - modified when major, incompatible changes are made to the application,
• MINOR - modified when functionality is added in a backwards-compatible manner, and
• PATCH - patches to existing functionality, such as documentation and bug fixes.

Copyright 2016 Andrew Vaughan

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

  http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.