Davis WeatherLink

Read live weather from Davis Instruments stations — Vantage Pro2, Vantage Vue, and WeatherLink Live gateways — through the WeatherLink v2 cloud REST API. One GEM device represents a WeatherLink account (an API Key + Secret pair); each station on the account becomes a zone whose observation fields are published as attributes.

Davis is the premium choice for agriculture, vineyards, facilities, and high-end residential, so this driver is aimed at installs that already run a Vantage station and want wind, rain, and temperature to drive automations — close shades on high wind, skip irrigation after rain, log conditions to History.

Driver name

davis_weatherlink — set this as the device driver when adding the account in Devices.

Read-only

Davis stations report; they do not accept control commands. This driver's command surface is discovery + status reads only. There is no on/off/setpoint here.

Prerequisites

• A Davis WeatherLink account with the station already commissioned and uploading. Confirm live data appears at weatherlink.com.
• A WeatherLink v2 API Key + API Secret pair. Generate them at weatherlink.com → Account → API (the v2 / developer section). Use a per-deployment pair so it can be revoked without disturbing other integrations.
• Outbound HTTPS from the GEM controller to api.weatherlink.com.

Setup steps

1. Sign in at weatherlink.com and confirm the station is online and reporting.
2. Go to Account → API and generate a v2 API Key and API Secret. Copy both — the Secret is shown once.
3. In GEM open Devices → Add Device and choose the Davis WeatherLink driver.
4. Enter the API Key (api_key) and API Secret (api_secret). Both are stored encrypted.
5. Save. Within ~10 seconds the device should show connected.
6. Run get_stations to list every station on the account with its numeric station_id.
7. Create one zone per station; set the zone address to that station_id.

Authentication

WeatherLink v2 authenticates with the API Key as a query parameter and the API Secret in an X-Api-Secret header — the driver handles both. The Secret is never placed in the URL. (The older HMAC api-signature scheme is deprecated by Davis and is not implemented here.)

Attribute reference

Device attributes

Attribute	Required	Type	Purpose
api_key	yes	string (secure)	v2 API Key. Sent as ?api-key=.
api_secret	yes	string (secure)	v2 API Secret. Sent in X-Api-Secret.
api_base	no	string	Override the cloud root. Default https://api.weatherlink.com/v2.
units_system	no	enum	imperial, metric, or both (default). Which unit copies to publish.
status_interval	no	int	Observation poll interval in ms. Default 60000.
request_timeout	no	int	HTTP timeout in ms. Default 15000.

Zone attributes (published by the poll loop)

Attribute	Type	Units
temperature_f / temperature_c	float	°F / °C
humidity	float	%
dew_point_f / heat_index_f / wind_chill_f	float	°F
wind_speed_mph / wind_speed_kph	float	mph / kph
wind_direction_deg	int	degrees
wind_gust_mph	float	mph (10-min high)
rain_rate_in_hr	float	in/hr
rain_day_in / rain_day_mm	float	inches / mm today
pressure_in_hg / pressure_mb	float	inHg / mb (sea level)
pressure_absolute_in_hg	float	inHg (station pressure)
solar_radiation_wm2	int	W/m²
uv_index	float	UV index
observation_timestamp	int	unix seconds of the newest sensor reading

The metric copies are only published when units_system is metric or both.

Zone address format

zone.address is the numeric station_id from get_stations. Most accounts have one station; its id is the integer at the top of the response.

Commands

Command	Args	Notes
get_stations / get_devices	—	Discovery: list stations + ids.
get_status / get_observation	address	Read current conditions and refresh the zone.
refresh	address (optional)	Force an immediate poll for one station, or all zones if omitted.

Known limitations / what we don't yet support

• Read-only. No control — Davis stations don't take commands.
• Historic and archive endpoints are not wired. Only /current is polled. The v2 /historic/{station-id} endpoint (for backfilling History) is a future add.
• Rainfall is model-dependent. When the payload exposes inch fields the driver uses them directly; when it only exposes rain "counts" plus a rain_size code it converts counts → inches (0.01 in / 0.2 mm / 0.1 mm / 0.001 in per tip). Verify rain totals against the WeatherLink dashboard on first install — collector size varies by region and this conversion should be confirmed on real hardware.
• Field availability varies by station model. The current payload is a heterogeneous sensors[] array (ISS block, barometer block, sometimes leaf/soil or extra-temp). The driver merges every block and reads well-known Davis keys; a field a given station doesn't have simply won't appear.
• Extra/auxiliary sensors (soil moisture, leaf wetness, additional temp/hum transmitters) are not individually mapped yet — only the headline ISS + barometer fields are surfaced.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause / fix
Connect error: login HTTP 401 / 403	API Key or Secret wrong. Regenerate the pair at weatherlink.com → Account → API and update both attributes. Don't paste the Secret into the key field — the driver puts it in the header for you.
get_stations returns empty	The key pair belongs to a different account, or the station isn't on this account. Confirm it appears on your weatherlink.com dashboard.
observation_timestamp far behind now	The station stopped uploading (power/Wi-Fi/gateway down). Check station status in the WeatherLink app; the driver holds the last observation until the cloud catches up.
Rain totals look wrong	See the rainfall limitation above — compare against the dashboard and note the station model for a follow-up mapping.
Occasional HTTP 429	The free tier rate-limits to about one request per station per minute. Raise status_interval to 60 s or more.