I am a newbie to weather stations and to Weather Display.
When I bought my first weather station (La Crosse WS 2300) two weeks ago I got a tip about Virtual Weather Station software (VWS) so I downloaded it and have tried that software for like 12 days. A company that import both Davis and La Crosse WS in Norway gave me a tip yesterday about Weather Display (WD) so I guess I have to try this one out too. At least I have found one weekness (by my opinion) with VWS, it only supports JPG for weather graphics and not GIF,
I haven’t used VWS so I cannot give an objective view, however I think the answer is simple, Brian the developer of WD could not be beaten for responsiveness and support, maybe matched but I would be amazed if that was to happen.
I have both programs. I had an Orgeon Scientific and had WD for it. When I got my davis VP pro it came with VWS. I tried it for a while and went back to WD.
I belive it will do more, and I know that Brian must live on this forum, as when someone wants something new he will almost always write a program for it.
The support for WD is unmatched in both this forum and by Brian by anyother program. I belive that you will by happier with WD.
Chuck
When I got my station a year ago I tried VWS, WeatherLink (Davis stations only) and WD and ended up with WD because it had the most flexibility and best support, both from Brian (who seems remarkably resiliant to people like me pestering him with bugs no one else seems to have) and the other folks on the forum who are always ready to asssist anyone anytime. Support counts for a great deal when starting out with weather stations as there is so much to learn…
So if you bought everything VWS has Total = $244.80
Everything for WD = $140.00 AND you get more for the less amount…
Now that I have debunked the cost issue I will ask is the Author of the VWS software an active participant in the VWS Forums?
Can you ask for an addition to the VWS Software and see it added and an updated version released that day or even within a few days?
Here is a post i wrote in regards to the two options being discussed here, and basically I still feel that it holds true… WD will take more time and effort to master however if you take the time and work at it a bit WD will give you far more for your money, even if the cost was even… http://actionstep.com/WeatherBlog/index.php?entry=entry050114-010813
Prices understood, JaxWeather. I compared the price of WD form the Norwegian importer of Davis and La Crosse WS to the price I found for VWS. They charges approx 100 USD for WD (650 NOK). But of coarse internet prices should be compared! Webcam solution prices do not interest me since I already had 2 webcams up running for months and have programmed my own html page where I put both webcams and weather data.
I have yet not used both forums enough to know about support - have to take your word for it
In terms of weather graphics to put on a web page I so far seem to like the VWS look very good. Both what I have managed to make myself and the little I have seen on other web pages with WD and VWS. But… it might be unfair of me to compair theese yet since I have not had much time to play araund with WD and several days to play with VWS. I guess I need to play more with WD to be able to make a fair comparison.
Hi
yeah, people get drawn to the flashy graphics of VWS had then stay becuase of that.
But flashy graphics is not going to give you lots of ways to view and cut and dice and display your data.
thats just my opinion
Note that WD is very customisbale, especialy when you get into using custom tags
and all the internet screens are colour customisble too.
Alos with your weather station type, you dont need to use heavy weather, and so WD will give you every 6 seconds updates instead of every 1 minute.
Support is very important, Windy is the author of Weather-Display, it’s 6:00 AM in New Zealand where he lives, and you can see you already have gotten a response from him to a posting on this forum.
I’m glad this was asked. I have used VWS for a couple of years now. What started me looking for other weather software was when I questioned on the VWS forum why it took so long for some issues with VWS to get fixed. I was told it was still in beta. My comment that it’s been in beta for over 2 years was met with a “the author is busy filling orders and answering email so I don’t have the right to question it” from the person that runs those forums. The author of VWS very seldom visits the forums and never reads the suggestions or help forums (by there own admission) so the only contact is via email. While the users of VWS are great in answering questions, I finally got tired of no offical support and then being dissed when I questioned it.
I most likely will be downloading and trying WD. While VWS is super easy to get on-line and WD may be a little harder, I don’t mind getting my hands dirty to get things the way I want. I look forward to trying out WD and really like the one-on-one support that WD offers!
Hi
good stuff hobby talk
note though the right information provided,and I do try my best to give as good as support as I can
if i can duplicate problems here myself, then its easy enough to fix etc…but sometimes i just cant duplicate the problems, on this PC…thats the thing…there are that many PC’s out there with different configurations and software running etc its not going to be 100% smooth sailing for 100% of users
anyway, get your feet wet, customise, and see how you you like it , and ask for help etc when needed.
note that the vws is run by a individual and is nothing to do with the author of VWS so that person is entitled to say and do what he likes (which he sure does, I know, he said some rather rude things about me at times, wether i deserved it or not)
…the same applies to this forum, re it being run by an individual, but the owner of this forum is a very nice guy who my wife and I have met and we stayed at his place for a couple of days (shame it was not longer…mayb eone day Chris and Julian will visit NZ)
I picked WD over VWS because of support. IIRC when viewing a VWS thread the comment was made that Ed Edelman (author(?) of VWS) “does not frequent these forums”. It seems to me that an author who does not keep track of what his customers experiences, issues and wants are is missing out. Maybe Ed has a large/fine support staff but I chose to go with the software that had “visible” support from the author.
Brian mentioned fancy graphics. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I personally prefer some of the dials in WeatherView 32 (now that’s a pricey product) :).
Living in a cold climate I have discovered, to my detriment, that more important than the software is the hardware that collects the data. It seems that not all hardware is created equal and that if you are likely to be serious about this you had better start with the best as you will be disappointed otherwise. IMO.
With all of this talk on VWS I have just downloaded a copy and had an hours play. Not impressed.
I seemed to have it set up and running in about 10 minutes, great. But then all it really gave me was the same as my VP console with a bit better graphing. Graphically OK, and a lot less cluttered, but there doesn’t appear to be a lot to it.
One big problem I had with VWS was that it takes much of it’s data directly from the console and not from it’s own database. Trying to correct rainfall was a nightmare (at least for me) as total yearly rain is read from the console. In the O.S. stations you can not change the total rain so VWS always matched what the console said. Just got WD running and was able to easily update the yearly rainfall.
I also see I gotta do some web page work to get things there where I would like them to be. So many settings… so little time
One thing I do notice, WD seems to be more processor intensive the VWS. I am using an old 300Mhz Thinkpad laptop dedicated to the station and it seems to be maxed out most of the time.
Now just wish there was a way to import all of the old data that VWS had stored.
Just a short note as a follow up. I posted a response to a thread in the VWS forum where we were told the author of that software is just too busy to answer forum questions. I explained that the lack of support had caused me to switch software. I didn’t rant, just calmly exlpained that the lack of “offical” support on the forums was the main reason for the switch. They banned me from the forum with the reason being I don’t use the software any more so I am forbidden to view the forums. Guess they figure that is a good way to treat a customer that is not happy with their product.
Funny thing is, I just purchased a new station for me (was just going to get another console for my system but the cost of the full system is only a few bucks more then the console alone) and 3 less expensive stations as Christmas gifts… guess where I didn’t buy them from? Not only did they lose a software customer, but they have lost over $400 in sales.
You guys have made this weather station stuff fun again. I just purchased a 2nd console and plan on using that with an extra computer so I can take my laptop (currently in use) out of the livingroom and setup a dedicated computer for the station. I like having a console in the living room so I can have it close by for quick looks at what it is doing outside. Now just looking to add a web cam (gotta love the full day movie feature), a one-wire solar sensor and WDL to round everything out.
no one has ever been banned from this forum that I know of
Although the occasional person does deserve to be sent out of the room to cool down. (or like me at school, standing in the corner with my nose on a chalk mark !) :lol:
That’s not quite right. There have been four people banned, although I have since dropped the ban on one of them after some background info was provided.
I won’t go into the details of each ban, but I would happily justify each one if necessary. None of the four were regular users and three were banned within 12-24 hours of joining. Let just say these three hadn’t joined the forum to participate in sensible weather and WD related discussions. No-one has been banned for posting an opinion that wasn’t in line with the opinions of TPTB. We all enjoy discussions too much to ban someone just for arguing a point!
I have to laugh here, as I do not own this software yet Hobby Talk, but am in the process of choosing a software option. I thought the graphics with the wvs looked cool as well, but I decided to log onto this site first to see what the support is like before I spent my Museums money on hard and software. To be honest, I will not have the money until the new tax year, as we spent too much on the recent renovation :oops: - but of the two systems, I am impressed with the rapid response’s that occur on this site. And they even tolerate my sense of humour and silly posts whilst I surf around.
