Widget - Weather Radar Widget

Note: WUradar Widget is now known as Weather Radar Widget!

I got approval for a widget to display a Weather Radar image based on the device GPS coordinates.  Use the following link to download the widget.

https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/9c692f27-57d6-4488-91ae-5dd846a4ad26

Sep 27, 2021 - Added Weather Radar App to the store

https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/bddf48af-bbdb-425c-bc7f-34309e529a2e

The Weather Radar App is essentially version 4.33 of the widget released as a full device app.  This version allows for full screen images on all supported devices.  Enables animations on a few additional devices than supported by the widget.  Lastly, the radar image will auto update every 5 minutes and will not time out and return to the watch face.  Both the widget and the app share a common registration, so if you subscribe to either the widget or the app, you get access to unlock both versions.

App Setup:
Version 4.0 represents a major overhaul in the Weather Radar Widget.  It no longer requires any configuration and should work from initial download.  The radar data being used does cost each month, so this widget has switched to a trial/subscription model.  To start out every new device gets a 21 day free trial that is fully functional.  After the trial is over, you need to sign up for a nominal annual subscription.  After completing your subscription, go into the settings and and your email address used for from the PayPal transaction.  The next time the widget is run, the widget will remain unlocked for 1 year.  After which, you will need to renew again.

Follow these step in order to enter your email address into the settings.  https://ciq.sabeard.net/wrw4/registered.php

Using the widget:
This widget will show up in the widget loop on the device.  How you access that loop will depend on the device.
Button Watches - Press the up or down buttons on the watch until you see the Weather Radar Widget
Touchscreen Watches - Swipe up or down until you see the Weather Radar Widget
Edge devices with Buttons - Use up or down button until you see the Weather Radar Widget
Touchscreen Handheld and Edge devices - Swipe down from the top of the screen to show status page, then swipe right or left until you see the Weather Radar Widget

Acknowledgements:
I decided to write this widget because I recently upgraded my edge 810 to an edge 1000. After setting it up, I noticed the accuweather widget could tell me if it was expected to rain, but there was no way to view the radar map without pulling over to take out the phone. I keep my phone in the saddle bag while riding, so not really convenient. I was surprised that there was not already a radar app in the store. Last week I decided to download eclipse and the SDK plugin and try to write my own app. Armed with the ConnectIQ programming guide and SDK samples, PETERDECKER's tutorials and links to source code examples, and jim_m_58?s tutorials and ideas based on WU Weather Widget, I came up with WUradar. Thanks guys for the inspiration.

The original plan was to release this only for the edge family of devices, however after playing with the configurations I was able to determine fairly simple method to scale the images to work on all the watches also. While the edge devices are better suited for this type of widget due to the always on GPS, there is no harm in including the watches too.

Let the questions and feedback begin.

Starting with version 4.9 the following devices support radar animation:
D2 Charlie, D2 Delta Series, Decent MK1, Edge 520 Plus, Edge 530, Edge 820, Edge830, Edge 1000, Edge 1030, Edge Explorer, Fenix 5X, Fenix 5Plus Series, Fenix 6 Pro Series, FR245m, FR645m, FR945, GPSMap66/86, Captain Marvel, First Avenger, Darth Vader, Rey, Marq Series, Oregon 7xx, Rino 7xx, Vivoactive 3 Music, Vivoactive 4, Vivoactive 4s

Any device not listed does not have enough available memory to display more than a single image.


REQUESTED FEATURES:
Option to zoom map size +/- scale - implemented - Added the ability to change the default zoom level in settings in 1.4, changes on device in 2.4
Option to display rain speed and direction - Direction can now be determined when using animated images on supported devices with version 4.8.
Set color of position dot based on GPS status (Last, Poor, Good) - implemented in version 1.14
Ability to save location for future use - implemented in version 4.17 for watch devices
Ability to load radar current radar image first in animations - Updated in Version 4.33
Add on screen button to enable animations - Added in version 4.33 for Edge and touchscreen handheld devices.

Change Log

4.33 - Officially added support for new devices released in 2021. Animation now download current radar image before starting into the image rotation, this has been requested a few times, finally figured out how to do it efficiently. On touchscreen Edge and handheld devices added an on-screen button to enable/disable animations. Under the hood optimizations to be more efficient with memory.
4.32 - Added support for Venu 2 series
4.31 - Added animation support for Descent MK2
4.30 - Officially added support for Enduro and VenuSq/SqMusic
4.29 - Fixed out of memory crashes on VA3 and FR23x devices
4.28 - Added a credits page to the about screen to acknowledge the active map and radar source being used. Added option on watch devices to hide zoom label and radar source from the radar screen. Fixed crash on CIQ1.x devices when viewing about screen.

4.27 - Added support for fr745 and fixed expiration date on about page to match the timezone set on the server.
4.26 - Optimized memory to reduce crashed on low memory devices while increasing the the viewable size on the image. Removed support for personal developer keys as AerisWeather has chanced their renewal policy.
4.25 - Added support for the newest devices Edge 1030 plus, Marq Golfer, and Mercedes Venu.
4.24 - More memory optimizations to prevent out of memory crashes on low memory devices while trying to access the menu.
4.23 - Fixed an out of memory error on Vivoactive 3 and a menu initialization bug which caused a crash on certain devices.
4.22 - Fixed an out of memory error on the Vivoactive watches.
4.21- Fixed a bug which could sometimes cause the widget to crash on startup on newer devices.
4.20 - Bug Fix
4.19 - Added RainViewer as a second radar data source. This will dramatically increase radar coverage options for all users. To use RainViewer, open the menu then choose Select Radar Source to choose between AerisWeather and RainViewer. AerisWeather provides a higher definition radar image, but RainViewer provides more coverage.
4.18 - Added support for new devices.
4.17 - Fix issue causing black image download on Venu devices. New feature on watches to save and use a previous location. If using a saved location, you can manually refresh to your current position.
4.16 - Fix for another cause of crashes after saving the registration email with the ConnectIQ app.
4.15 - Fixed a bug causing a crash for users trying to save registration after the trial or registration had expired. Until now the work around has been to reinstall the widget and save the registration email address prior to running the widget.
4.14 - Fixed an issue causing error -300 message on F3 devices. Fixed an issue causing some devices to crash after entering registration email in settings.
4.13 - Implemented fix for some devices which would always report phone not connected when it really was. i.e. Edge Explorer 1000.
4.11 - Fixed a bug causing radar images to be displayed in the reverse order.
4.9 - Fixed crash on VAHR and Epix.  Added support for all devices with enough memory to show radar loop.
4.8 - Added option on Map enabled devices to animate image loop. When enabled, the widget will show image loop of the past 30 minutes, 15 minutes, and current. If your device is supported, the option to "Enable animation" will appear in the menu. Supported devices for Animation include Edge devices (except Edge520), F5X, F5plus series, F6pro series, Marq Series, FR945. Still investigating how to support FR645m, FR245m, VA3M, VA4S, and VA4. All other devices I am at the memory limits for widgets and will not get support for animation.
4.7 - fixed more glance view implementation issues on the F6 and Marq
4.5 - Fixed a crash in Widget Glances on F6 and Marq devices. Customized Widget from system defaults.
4.4 - Released to fix bug in Garmin SDK affecting Fenix 6 devices.
4.3 - Added support for Fenix 6 Series, Venu, and Vivoactive 4 Series, fixed some bugs with entering Registration email in settings, and added vibration and background light notification on watch devices. Now you get alerted once the image has downloaded.
4.2 - Fixed some more crashes.
4.1 - Fixed some bugs causing crashes on some devices
4.0 - Major overhaul to the app.  Added registration checking and moved other options from settings to on device menu.  Added about screen to show version and registration status.
3.10 - Added support for new Forerunner and Edge devices.
3.9 - Decreased memory usage on high memory devices, i.e. F5+ series. Hopefully this will help improve image download time.
3.8 - Added support for MARQ and other new devices.
3.7 - Removed support for Weather Underground as the service finally shutdown all support for API keys. Aeris Weather is the only option now!
3.6 - Added support for GPSMAP® 66s / 66st
3.5 - Added support for the new D2 Delta series. Changed Global Satellite to use dark background and added option for color IR satellite view.
3.4 - Added support for Edge Explore, Set Aeris Weather as the default for new installs, Developed new method to use last known GPS position on watch devices based on Garmin fixing in new device FW that I was exploiting.
3.3 - Added support for new devices, VA3M, and F5 plus series.
3.2 - Improved key checking to ensure the key entered is the correct length. Fixed broken error reporting, app will once again report if the download failed, instead of hanging on "retrieving image". Enter key will now open menu on watch devices.
3.1 - Added zoom buttons to touchscreen handheld and Edge devices. Adjusted zoom level designation to match buttons, L5 is most zoomed in, L1 is most zoomed out.
3.0 - Complete rewrite of the code structure. Streamlined image retrieval and display update processes.

  • Ed,

    Thanks for the suggestions. I will do some investigation to see if item 1 is feasible and if I can work out a logic flow that makes sense. Right now on the watch, the only way to refresh the image is to cycle to another widget then come back. At the time this made sense because of the relatively short time frame the widget is displayed on the screen before returning to the watch face.

    On item 3, if i can figure out how to reliability detect that GPS is not available, what type of default location are you thinking of? Would it be ok just to enter a GPS coordinate in the widget settings? Right now I leverage the watches ability to cache the GPS position based on the last good fix, and although not perfect, it is available when GPS is not and keeps things simple.

    On the VA3, the side scroll feature works the same as a swipe up or swipe down, which is not available for widgets because those are reserved for loading the next or previous widget. So that will not be an option for this widget.
  • Hello seaboard,
    the widget doesn't work on my edge. Im installed version 3.1 running garmin connect on an iPhone 6 with IOS11.2.5. I get after the message "retrieving images" a symbol like IQ with ! in a yellow point.
    On my Fenix3 everything is ok with the same smartphone.
  • Laengin,

    Which Edge device do you have? Also which weather service are you using, WU or Aeris? I suspect that there is either something going on with the way the key is entered, or the way the service is sending the image back. Let me know and I will see if I can replicate what you are seeing.

    One more thing to try is to copy the API key from the F3 that is working into the settings for the edge making sure that there is no extra space or characters when entering the key. If there are then that could cause what you are experiencing.

    Let me know if any of this helps.
  • sabeard,

    sorry I'm using the edge 1000 and WU.
    I will try your hints.
  • sabeard,

    I reinstalled the widget on the edge 1000 and now it works. Perfect.
  • Cool. Glad to know you got it working. I will remember to suggest to reinstall as another option.
  • Version 3.2 has been released.

    Fixes:
    • I improved the checking for the key in an effort to catch and warn about keys which may be to short or to long. Fixed the displaying error messages if download fails.
    • I broke that when I restructured the app a couple builds ago, causing the app to just hang on the "retrieving image" screen if the download failed. The error message will now show up again.
    Improvements:
    • Watches can now pull up the menu with either the menu or enter key.
  • As of today Weather Underground has suspended signup for new free developer keys. New users will be required to use the Aeris Weather to set up the application. I will be leaving the settings for Weather Underground for existing users who already have a key.

    Sorry for the inconvenience. I will be starting a search for another radar source.
  • Hi Sabeard,
    First, Thanks for your Widget.
    Second, It didn't work on my watch (Epix). My radar is always clear on my position. I try to change with "satellite mode" and it's the same issue.
    :(




  • Alexepix,

    Where in the world are you? Aeris Weather only has radar details in US, Canada, Caribbean, and Australia. The Satellite is supposed to be global, but seems a bit less clear as to what is being displayed and seems to work better when zoomed out.