Akita WeatherBot

A weather bot with alerts and forecasts for Canadian Meshtastic users, licensed under the GPLv3. Designed to run on a Raspberry Pi or any computer with a connected Meshtastic device.

Our Mission

• To provide accurate Canadian weather forecasts via the mesh.
• To provide ECCC Public Weather Alerts anywhere, including locations that don't receive Weatheradio Canada broadcasts.
• To allow simple customization to better suit your deployment.
• To be lightweight, efficient, and open-source.

Features

• Utilizes Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), the official source for Canadian weather data and alerts.
• Automatically broadcasts new, severe weather alerts to the mesh network.
• Weather Forecasts: A selection of multi-day and hourly forecasts available on demand.
• Network Diagnostics: Get details on your connection to the bot.
• Auto-Reboot: Optional daily reboot function to improve node stability.
• Configurable single-message or multi-message replies to suit network traffic.

Bot Interaction

Direct Message (DM) your bot's node with any of the following commands:

• ? : Receive a menu of all available weather commands.
• hourly : 24-hour hourly forecast with temp, POP, and conditions. (Multi-message)
• 5day : 5-day detailed forecast. (Multi-message)
• 7day : 7-day forecast in emoji form. (Multi-message)
• 4day : 4-day simple forecast in emoji form. (Single message)
• 2day : Today and tomorrow's detailed forecast. (Single message)
• rain : Chance of precipitation every hour for the next 24 hours. (Single message)
• temp : Predicted temperature every hour for the next 24 hours. (Single message)
• alert-status : Runs a check on the ECCC alert system.
• test : Bot will return a simple acknowledgement.
• tst-detail : Returns an acknowledgement with connection details (RSSI, SNR).
• advertise : Bot sends its menu on the public channel.

Screenshot

Requirements

• Python 3.11 or above
• Access to a Meshtastic device
• Serial Drivers for your Meshtastic device
• An internet connection for the bot

Installation

Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/AkitaEngineering/Akita_WeatherBot.git

Navigate into the folder:

cd Akita_WeatherBot

Setup and activate a virtual environment:

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

Install the required dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Connect your Meshtastic device to your computer via USB. Crucially, edit the settings_canada.yaml file to configure your location.

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How to Run

• On Linux:

  python akitabot.py --port /dev/ttyUSB0

• On macOS:

  python akitabot.py --port /dev/cu.usbserial-0001

• On Windows:

  python akitabot.py --port COM7

• Using TCP (if your node is on your network):

  python akitabot.py --host meshtastic.local

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Configuration (settings_canada.yaml)

This file is the heart of your bot's configuration.

• ECCC_LOCATION_CODE: The site code for your specific forecast location.
• ALERT_PROVINCE_CODE: The two-letter code for your province (e.g., ON, BC, QC).
• MYNODES: A list of Node IDs (e.g., ['!c4b787a0', '!a1b2c3d4']) that are allowed to use the bot when the FIREWALL is enabled.
• USER_AGENT_APP / USER_AGENT_EMAIL: Highly recommended you set these to unique values. This identifies your bot to ECCC and is good practice.

How to get your ECCC_LOCATION_CODE:

1. Go to https://weather.gc.ca/.
2. Search for your city or town (e.g., "Welland").
3. On the city's forecast page, look at the URL. It will be something like: .../city/pages/on-81_metric_e.html
4. Now, construct a new URL to find the official site code: https://dd.weather.gc.ca/citypage_weather/xml/ON/ (replace ON with your province code).
5. Browse this directory for the file corresponding to your city. For Welland, it is s0000670_e.xml.
6. Your ECCC_LOCATION_CODE is the part before _e.xml, so for Welland, it is s0000670. Enter this into the settings file.

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License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.