Saltar al contenido principal

Integración domótica Blitzortung lightning, gratuita y de código abierto

Integración Blitzortung lightning para Gladys Assistant

Unofficial connector: lightning strikes near your home, distance, direction and storm alerts.

info

La documentación de esta integración la escribe su autor y, por ahora, solo está disponible en inglés.

Unofficial connector, not affiliated with Blitzortung.org. It brings the lightning strikes detected by the Blitzortung.org community network into Gladys: the strikes near your house, the distance and direction of the nearest one, scene triggers and a storm widget.

Not a safety system. The detection depends on volunteer detectors and on an internet feed that can stop at any time; strikes can be missed or placed a few kilometres off. Never rely on this integration to protect people or equipment: when thunder roars, go indoors.

The data: private, non-commercial use​

The strikes are computed by Blitzortung.org from detectors that volunteers build, host and pay for. Their data is provided for private, non-commercial use only. This integration therefore:

  • keeps one connection to the live feed (the one of the map), and opens it only while at least one lightning device exists in Gladys;
  • never stores, resells or forwards the data: it only counts the strikes near your houses, in memory;
  • credits Blitzortung.org on the widget.

Do not use it in a commercial product. If you like it, consider hosting a detector to improve the coverage near you.

What you get​

SurfaceContent
One device per located housestrikes within the radius in the last minutes, distance (km) and bearing (degrees) of the nearest one, its direction (N, NE...), time of the last
Scene triggerslightning within a distance (5 to 200 km, once per storm), storm over (quiet for the chosen time), storm approaching
Scene actionlightning status: count, nearest distance, direction, minutes since the last strike, storm in progress
Dashboard widgetLightning: calm, or storm at X km in a direction, with the count, the nearest and the last strike

Setup​

Bandwidth: about 1 GB a day. Blitzortung.org sends the strikes of the whole world to every client: the feed cannot be narrowed to your region. As long as a lightning device exists, the integration downloads all of them (about 9 KB per second, more during the northern summer) and keeps only those near your house. On a metered link (4G box, data cap) or a small box, check that this suits you before adding the device; deleting the device closes the feed.

  1. Set the location of your house in Gladys (Settings → Houses) and accept the location access when installing the integration.
  2. Open Discovery and add the "Lightning near …" device of your house. The feed opens as soon as a device exists.
  3. Optional: change the radius (30 km by default, up to 200 km), the counting window (15 minutes) and the quiet period before "storm over" (30 minutes).
  4. Put the Lightning widget on a dashboard and pick the house.

The Test the feed button shows the server in use, the number of strikes per minute worldwide and the situation around each house.

The states​

  • Nearby strikes: the strikes within the radius during the window.
  • Nearest strike (km): the closest one of the window. With no strike in the window it is the radius itself, so a condition "below 10 km" never holds a stale value.
  • Bearing (degrees from north) and direction (N, NE, E... in French N, NE, E, SE, S, SO, O, NO): where the nearest strike was; "—" when calm.
  • Last nearby strike: its time in UTC (ISO 8601).

The states are published every 15 seconds at most.

Scenes​

  • Lightning within a distance: pick the house and the distance. The scene runs at the first strike closer than that distance, once per storm: it can run again only after the quiet period without any strike at that distance. The integration only sees the strikes inside the radius of the configuration: a distance larger than the radius acts as the radius. Variables: the distance of the nearest strike, its bearing and direction, the count, the time of the strike.
  • Storm over: no strike within the chosen distance for the quiet period, after a "lightning within" of the same distance (unplug, close, notify).
  • Storm approaching: the window is cut in three thirds; when the nearest strike of each third is closer than in the previous one, the storm is coming towards the house. Once per storm, with a rough approach speed.

The action lightning status gives {{count}}, {{nearest_km}}, {{direction}}, {{minutes_since_last}} and {{storm}} for a message or a condition.

How it works​

The integration reads the worldwide live feed of Blitzortung.org, the one of the live map: several strikes per second, each decoded, then dropped unless it falls within the radius of one of your houses. The feed is worldwide and cannot be narrowed to a region: it weighs about 1 GB a day (more during the northern summer), which matters on a metered connection.

One connection at a time, to ws1, ws7 or ws8.blitzortung.org. The servers close every connection after about 6 minutes: the integration then moves to the next server after 1 second. When a server fails, the next one is tried after 5 seconds, then 10, 20... up to 5 minutes. Without any message for 2 minutes, the connection is considered dead and replaced.

Troubleshooting​

  • "No located house": set the location of the house in Gladys, then open Discovery again.
  • "The Blitzortung feed is unreachable": the servers are run by volunteers; the integration retries by itself. The list of servers is in the advanced section of the configuration, in case Blitzortung.org changes it.
  • No strike although the map shows a storm: check the radius, and that the storm is within it from your house; the coverage of the network varies by region.
  • Logs: the integration's log level is set with the LOG_LEVEL variable.

Privacy​

The location of your houses is used inside the integration to measure the distance of the strikes and never leaves it: the feed is the same for everyone, nothing is sent to Blitzortung.org but the subscription message.

Parámetros de configuración​

Estos son los parámetros que Blitzortung lightning te pide en su pantalla de configuración en Gladys.

ParámetroTipoObligatorioDescripción
Lightning around your housesectionNoUnofficial connector, not affiliated with Blitzortung.org. It reads the live feed of the Blitzortung.org community network: one device per located house with the strikes of the last minutes within the radius, the nearest one (distance, direction) and the time of the last one, scene triggers "lightning within X km", "storm over" and "storm approaching", and a storm widget. Bandwidth: the feed is the whole world's, about 1 GB of download a day while a device exists. The data is provided by volunteers who run the detectors, for private, non-commercial use only: never resell it, and credit Blitzortung.org. Lightning detection here is informative, NOT a safety system: never rely on it to protect people or equipment.
Radius around the house (km)numberNoOnly the strikes closer than this count. The "lightning within X km" trigger cannot see beyond it.
Counting window (minutes)numberNoThe device counts the strikes of the last minutes, and gives the nearest one of that window.
Quiet period before "storm over" (minutes)numberNoNo strike within the distance for this long: the storm is over, and "lightning within X km" can fire again.
Language of the directionsselectNoThe direction of the nearest strike in the states and scenes: N, NE, E... (English: W for west).
AdvancedsectionNoThe integration keeps ONE connection to one of these servers, and moves to the next one when it fails. The feed is worldwide (about 1 GB a day, more in the northern summer). Change the list only if Blitzortung.org changes its servers.
Feed serversstringNoShort names (ws1 stands for wss://ws1.blitzortung.org/) or wss:// addresses, separated by commas.

Cómo instalar Blitzortung lightning en Gladys​

  1. En Gladys, abre Integraciones: Blitzortung lightning aparece en el catálogo junto a las integraciones nativas, con una insignia de comunidad.
  2. Haz clic en Instalar. Gladys descarga la imagen Docker (ghcr.io/lm1lc3n7/gladys-blitzortung:0.1.1), la ejecuta en un entorno aislado del núcleo y genera la interfaz de la integración (dispositivos, descubrimiento y configuración).
  3. Abre la pantalla de Configuración de la integración, rellena los parámetros y guarda.
  4. También puedes instalarla directamente desde la URL de su repositorio: https://github.com/LM1LC3N7/gladys-blitzortung.

Blitzortung lightning requiere Gladys >=5.1.0. El catálogo de Gladys se actualiza cada hora, así que una nueva versión está disponible como máximo una hora después de publicarse.

¿Todavía no usas Gladys? Es gratuito y de código abierto: sigue la guía de instalación para empezar.

Sobre las integraciones externas​

Blitzortung lightning es una integración externa: una integración comunitaria empaquetada como contenedor Docker y publicada en GitHub. Gladys la instala con un clic y la ejecuta en un entorno aislado del núcleo. La publica y mantiene LM1LC3N7, no el equipo principal de Gladys.

Suscríbete a la newsletter de Gladys Assistant

Unos pocos correos al mes sobre nuevas versiones y novedades del proyecto. Enviados por Pierre-Gilles Leymarie, fundador del proyecto. Puedes darte de baja cuando quieras 🙂