aculog

Log weather data from AcuRite Internet Bridge

Introduction

The AcuRite Internet Bridge (http://www.acurite.com/aculink-internet-bridge-for-acurite-weather-sensors-09150trx.html) allows one to build an at-home sensor network / weather station. It continuously monitors the state of the sensors, and forwards the data to AcuRite.com. Unfortunately, the bridge comes with NO SUPPORT to get the data yourself, without first going through their servers; and the on-line user experience is terrible.

The solution is to log the data yourself on your PC / Rasberry Pi. The software presented here is thanks to George Nincehelser (http://nincehelser.com/ipwx/). It is a "robustified" version of the software presneted in that location.

Instructions

1. Use Ubuntu 14.04LTS, or some other Linux system. If you don't have an always-on server, set up a Rasberry Pi for this purpose (http://nincehelser.com/ipwx).

2. Install a second Ethernet card. I used a TP_Link TG-3468, and it was plug-and-play with my Ubuntu 14.04 (http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TG-3468-1000Mbps-Gigabit-Express/dp/B003CFATNI).

3. , Bridge the new Ethernet card to your main network (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NetworkConnectionBridge). For Ubuntu 14.04, this just consists of the following in /etc/nework/interfaces and then rebooting:

    auto lo
    iface lo inet loopback
    
    iface eth0 inet manual
    
    iface eth1 inet manual
    
    auto br0
    iface br0 inet dhcp
      bridge_ports eth0 eth1
   

4. Test the bridge network by plugging a laptop into your second Ethernet card and trying to get to the Internet.

5. Put batteries in your sensors, and set their internal switches to A, B and C so that each one is set differently. See AcuRite instructions for further details.

6. Note the MAC ADDRESS on the bottom of the bridge. This will be used below in CMake.

7. Power on the Internet Bridge and plug it into your new network card. Look at AcuRite instructions to ensure the bridge is in NORMAL OPERATION mode (both lights blinking). Every 15 seconds or so, you should see a light blink on your sensor.

8. Use tcpdump to manually check that data are coming over your new Ethernet card from the Internet Bridge. You should see something as follows. Note the "id=" lines, which are keyed on your Mac Address and contain your data!

    sudo apt-get install tcpdump
    > sudo /usr/sbin/tcpdump -tttt -A -n -p -U -i eth1 -s0 tcp dst port 80
    
    tcpdump: WARNING: eth1: no IPv4 address assigned
    tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol decode
    listening on eth1, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 65535 bytes
    2015-12-27 15:03:28.901903 IP 192.168.1.251.1571 > 174.143.48.162.80: Flags [S], seq 1718479044, win 400, options [mss 536], length 0
    E..,.U..d.........0..#.Pfm......`.............
    2015-12-27 15:03:28.975841 IP 192.168.1.251.1571 > 174.143.48.162.80: Flags [.], ack 3422502709, win 400, length 0
    E..(.V..d.........0..#.Pfm....?5P.............
    2015-12-27 15:03:28.979221 IP 192.168.1.251.1571 > 174.143.48.162.80: Flags [P.], seq 0:75, ack 1, win 400, length 75
    E..s.W..d..Y......0..#.Pfm....?5P.......POST /messages/ HTTP/1.1
    Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
    
    2015-12-27 15:03:28.979535 IP 192.168.1.251.1571 > 174.143.48.162.80: Flags [P.], seq 75:115, ack 1, win 400, length 40
    E..P.X..d..{......0..#.Pfm....?5P...uZ..Host: www.acu-link.com
    Content-Length: 
    2015-12-27 15:03:28.980409 IP 192.168.1.251.1571 > 174.143.48.162.80: Flags [P.], seq 115:140, ack 1, win 400, length 25
    E..A.Y..d.........0..#.Pfm.8..?5P.......97
    Connection: close
    
    
    2015-12-27 15:03:29.051719 IP 192.168.1.251.1571 > 174.143.48.162.80: Flags [P.], seq 140:237, ack 1, win 400, length 97
    E....Z..d..@......0..#.Pfm.Q..?5P....-..id=6BA62486EA42&sensor=01651&mt=tower&humidity=A0560&temperature=A021300000&battery=normal&rssi=3
    2015-12-27 15:03:29.153191 IP 192.168.1.251.1571 > 174.143.48.162.80: Flags [.], ack 293, win 108, length 0
    E..(.[..d.........0..#.Pfm....@YP..l..........
    2015-12-27 15:03:29.153726 IP 192.168.1.251.1571 > 174.143.48.162.80: Flags [.], ack 294, win 108, length 0
    E..(.\..d.........0..#.Pfm....@ZP..l..........
    2015-12-27 15:03:29.156313 IP 192.168.1.251.1571 > 174.143.48.162.80: Flags [F.], seq 237, ack 294, win 400, length 0
    E..(.]..d.........0..#.Pfm....@ZP.............
    2015-12-27 15:03:29.156842 IP 192.168.1.251.1571 > 174.143.48.162.80: Flags [R.], seq 237, ack 294, win 400, length 0
    E..(.^..
   

9. Install prerequisites

    sudo apt-get install tcpdump cmake
   

10. Create new user for this program

     sudo adduser --disabled-login acurite
    

11. Edit / create a new file in configme, after configme/ubuntu-14.04. Make sure to set ACURITE_INTERNET_BRIDGE_ID to the Mac Address you noted above.

12. Configure CMake

     mkdir build
     cd build
     ../configme/ubuntu-14.04 ..
    

13. Build:

     make
    

14. Install:

     sudo make install
    

15. Start it going, now and on startup

     sudo update-rc.d aculog defaults
     sudo /etc/init.d/aculog start
    

16. Verify that it's running:

     acurite@anke:~$ ps aux | grep aculog
     root     27207  0.0  0.0  74948  3924 pts/24   S    14:44   0:00 su acurite -c /export/home/acurite/bin/aculog
     acurite  27215  0.0  0.0   4336  1408 ?        Ss   14:44   0:00 /export/home/acurite/bin/aculog
     acurite  27273  0.0  0.0  15944  2272 pts/5    S+   14:45   0:00 grep --color=auto aculog
    

17. Watch output appear

     ls ~acurite/data
     tail -f ~acurite/data/acurite-20151227.text
    

Sample output:

    ts=2015-12-27 14:47:06.579203&utc=01151227-19:47:06.579203&id=24C86E064A98&sensor=01948&mt=tower&humidity=A0560&temperature=A021200000&battery=normal&rssi=3
    ts=2015-12-27 14:47:08.048149&utc=01151227-19:47:08.048149&id=24C86E064A98&sensor=13427&mt=tower&humidity=A0870&temperature=A014300000&battery=normal&rssi=1
    ts=2015-12-27 14:47:09.828367&utc=01151227-19:47:09.828367&id=24C86E064A98&mt=pressure&C1=3FDB&C2=0D70&C3=00D0&C4=01B5&C5=81C4&C6=1873&C7=09C4&A=07&B=19&C=06&D=0B&PR=A8CA&TR=8621
    ts=2015-12-27 14:47:16.480396&utc=01151227-19:47:16.480396&id=24C86E064A98&sensor=03203&mt=tower&humidity=A0600&temperature=A019100000&battery=normal&rssi=3
    ts=2015-12-27 14:47:22.957555&utc=01151227-19:47:22.957555&id=24C86E064A98&sensor=01948&mt=tower&humidity=A0560&temperature=A021200000&battery=normal&rssi=3
    ts=2015-12-27 14:47:33.361315&utc=01151227-19:47:33.361315&id=24C86E064A98&sensor=03203&mt=tower&humidity=A0600&temperature=A019100000&battery=normal&rssi=3

Note the rssi field at the end of the line. This is apparently an indicator of the signal strenght, with 4 being the strongest. Use this line to help with placement of your sensors and Internet Bridge.

1. Reboot, and verify that data collection continues without intervention upon start-up.

2. Go to http://github.com/citibob/acuparse to parse and use the data you're now receiving!