66i weather information

Would it be possible to customize weather information to display information from different websites. I want to use the 66i in Nepal.

  • I retrieve the weather status from Darksky API which is the same as what garmin does. I haven't seen a garmin weather report, as the update took to long to be released. So I just pipe down the JSON elements which are interesting to me. From what I gather from the documentation Garmin are only providing some symbols on what the forecast looks like. I've built something a little more dynamic in the sense I can get the values of interest (https://darksky.net/dev/docs) however this is limited to 160 characters per message so there is some selection that needs to be done. 

  • Curious as to how you get the data back to the 66i. There is no way to address the device directly (except from another iR device). Replying to an email message that originated on the device does not work. You can reply to an SMS, but if you had cell service this would not be an issue.

    The cost of a basic 3-day forecast is 1 message against your plan. The cost of a premium 7-day forecast is 1 USD. A marine forecast is also 1 USD. Note that the marine forecast is not sourced from darksky.

    A basic forecast includes data at 2-hour intervals for 24 hours, plus a daily forecast for the next 2 days. The 2-hour data points include temperature, "feels like" temp, precipitation amount and probability, cloud coverage percentage, wind, wind gusts, humidity, and barometric pressure. The daily data points include only high/low temps, icon for cloud cover, and precip amount.

  • Thanks for the info. I had no idea what exactly it provided, documentation suggested it was merely an image for beginning/afternoon of the day. I haven't tried orchestration as yet, merely the push-pull outside of the device. Ill write some code against an SMS service to handover the message to email etc, not major.

    I think there is a wider application at hand, querying API's for data whilst in the bush, with the return of data.

    I am curious around the mechanisms Garmin utilize to deliver images, birds eye etc and how I might tap that into the likes of google maps etc. I do wonder if an image can be delivered via sat... hmmm. 

  • Ummm, nope. The BirdsEye delivery is via WiFi. All map updates are via wired USB connection and Garmin Express. You can, of course, deliver maps, pictures, etc. via direct USB access to the device file system.

    I forget the proper term, but all iR satellilte communication is via the Iridium "short message" mechanism. Best thought of as satellite SMS with the ability to send binary data.

    You may find it more difficult than you anticipate to send an SMS to device. The Garmin servers will only deliver an SMS reply from an SMS number which has "recently" received a message from the iR device. Like the inability to reply to an email which originated on an iR device, this is an attempt to eliminate spam directed to iR devices. Users would scream if they had to pay message charges for spam.

  • My curiosity stemmed from the delivery of weather icons. At a low level that isn't really applicable. 

    I'm planning to execute the script from an AWS nano which will poll the inbox, so response would be instantaneous. API requests are simultaneous, perhaps Node.js is more extensible. thoughts.

  • The real issue isn't the overall orchestration. It's the way Garmin handles SMS, particularly SMS replies. An iR device does not have a dedicated phone number (any more than it has an email address). When the iR device sends a message to a phone number, Garmin records a triple consisting of the iR device ID, the target phone number, and the phone number used by the third-party SMS gateway to send the SMS to the phone. When a reply SMS comes in, it originates from the phone and is sent to the gateway SMS number. Garmin uses the phone number and the gateway SMS number to map to the iR device ID - and then delivers the reply.

    This works well for a real phone, which always has the same number. The stored triple has a limited lifetime (unknown, probably a couple of weeks?). Which is why we recommend that iR users "prime the pump" by sending an SMS to their "important" contacts at the start of every trip.

    I don't know much about commodity SMS gateways. But unless you can guarantee use of the same number to receive the original "prime the pump" message from the iR AND to send every one of your forecast messages, the forecasts won't make it back to the device.

    Aside: I doubt that the icons are ever sent via satellite. I would guess that they are part of the 66i UI.

  • Well, I just got home and can confirm that the latest update (software version 5.40) now has weather working over Iridium network. I'm glad it finally works, but really bummed it took them this long when it was supposed to be there at launch.