weewx-ecowitt_console_emulator — an Ecowitt console emulator skin for WeeWX 5 using Belchertown MQTT

A full-screen, landscape dashboard for a wall or desk tablet, laid out like the Ecowitt WH2560 / HP2560 console, in a navy-blue palette: outdoor temperature ring, wind dial, selectable temperature/humidity channel, soil moisture / leaf wetness and lightning line, leak indicators, PM2.5 and CO₂, sun arc and moon phase, rain (traditional or piezo), and barometer with 3-hour trend and a pressure-tendency forecast (a moon replaces the sun between sunset and sunrise). The sky panel has a sun arc and, inside it, a moon track with moonrise/moonset times; the moon is worked out in the browser for the station's position, so WeeWX doesn't need the ephem package. The readings row includes VPD, always in kPa. Like the console, signal bars sit next to each reading and a battery icon only appears when a battery is low.

It works with any WeeWX 5 station fed by an Ecowitt gateway or console, whatever driver brings the data in. It needs no other extension: the skin has its own database, its own live-data service and its own chart data.

If the weewx-EcowittGateway driver/service happens to be installed, the skin also makes use of what it provides: its ecwLoop.json live file, its rain_source setting, and the extra fields it adds (10-minute wind direction, max daily gust, feels-like, the second rain gauge in p_rain, sensor batteries and signal). Without it the skin uses its own live file and works the extras out itself (see Fields). Only the sensors you actually have are shown.

Layouts

The page picks a layout from the shape of the screen and switches when the device is rotated:

Layout	Used when	Design size	Arrangement
Landscape	wider than tall	1280 × 800, fitted to the screen	the console layout
Portrait	tablet held upright (600 px wide or more)	800 × 1518, fitted to the screen, no scrolling	outdoor and wind gauges side by side, readings, sun/moon, channel rings, rain, barometer
Phone	narrow screens (under 600 px)	540 wide, fitted to the width, scrolls	one column; readings in 3 × 2; header on two rows; a narrower sun/moon drawing with larger text

Settings → Layout can force one of them (Auto, Landscape, Portrait, Phone); the choice is kept in the browser. "Add to Home screen" apps can rotate freely.

About this fork / AI assistance

EcoMQ is a fork of Millardiang/weewx-ecowitt_console_emulator (GPL-3.0; original copyright preserved, see "Licence" above). The changes in this fork were developed with AI assistance using Claude (Claude.ai and Claude Code, by Anthropic), directed, reviewed and tested by the maintainer. Commits made with Claude carry a Co-Authored-By trailer.

What's in the package

Part	What it does
skins/EcowittConsoleEmulator	The skin: the dashboard page, chart data (day/week/month/year), CSS/JS, translations (lang/), manifest for "Add to home screen"
Its own database	ecowitt_console_emulator.sdb (binding ecce_binding), kept by the EcowittConsoleEmulatorArchive service: the same schema as the station's main database plus extra fields for Ecowitt sensors. See The skin's database
bin/user/ecowitt_console_emulator.py	Search-list extension that builds the dashboard data (today's highs/lows, rain totals for hour/day/week/month/year/event, 10-min average wind, 3 h pressure trend, feels-like, lightning summary) and the live service that writes live.json
install.py	Installer for weectl extension install

Two data feeds

• ecowitt.json – written by WeeWX every archive interval (and embedded in index.html). Highs/lows, rain totals, trends, almanac.
• Live data, every few seconds – the skin's EcowittConsoleEmulatorLive service writes each loop packet to live.json, whatever the driver. If weewx-EcowittGateway is installed, the installer offers its ecwLoop.json (its [[loop_json]] option) instead, and the skin's service is switched off. Either way the browser converts the units. Live data is the only source of battery and signal levels, since those aren't archived.

The page uses live values while they are fresh and falls back to the archive otherwise. The Wi-Fi icon in the header shows which: green = live, yellow = archive only, red = stale.

Requirements

• WeeWX 5.4 or later, with any driver for an Ecowitt gateway or console
• Nothing else. weewx-EcowittGateway is optional: if it is already installed, the installer reads its settings and can use its live file.
• For live updates the tablet must load the page from a web server that serves WeeWX's public_html directly (e.g. nginx/Apache on the WeeWX machine).

Fields the dashboard uses

The standard WeeWX fields (outTemp, outHumidity, dewpoint, windSpeed, windDir, windGust, rain, rainRate, barometer, pressure, inTemp, inHumidity, radiation, UV, extraTemp1–8, extraHumid1–8, soilMoist1–4, leafWet1–2, pm2_5, co2, lightning_strike_count, hail) are enough for the dashboard. The names below are the ones weewx-EcowittGateway uses; another driver may use other names, which [[FieldMap]] in skin.conf maps. When a field is missing the dashboard works it out or leaves it out:

• feels like – worked out from temperature, humidity and wind
• 10-minute wind direction – the vector average of the last 10 minutes of the archive
• max daily gust – the highest gust in today's archive
• VPD – worked out from temperature and humidity
• period rain totals – summed from the archive
• piezo gauge – hail when p_rain isn't there
• battery and signal – shown only for sensors whose fields are found

Dashboard	Fields (weewx-EcowittGateway names)
Outdoor / feels like / dew point	outTemp, outHumidity, feelslike, dewpoint
Wind, 10-min direction, max daily gust	windSpeed, windDir, windGust, windDir10, maxdailygust
Channel rings	inTemp/inHumidity (WH25), extraTemp1–8/extraHumid1–8 (WN31)
Soil / leaf	soilMoist1–16 (WH51), leafWet1–8 (WN35)
Leak, PM2.5, CO₂	leak_1–4 (WH55), pm25_1–4 (WH41/43), pm2_5 and co2 (WH45)
Lightning	lightning_dist, lightning_disturber_count (last strike time), lightningcount (today); archive lightning_strike_count
Tipping gauge	rain, rainRate, eventRain, hourRain, dayRain, weekRain, monthRain, yearRain
Piezo gauge	p_rain (or hail, which the standard database archives), p_rainrate, erain_piezo, hrain_piezo, drain_piezo, wrain_piezo, mrain_piezo, yrain_piezo
Batteries / signal	weewx-EcowittGateway's names (other drivers: list yours in [[Sensors]]), e.g. ws90_batt, wh40_batt, batteryStatus1, soilMoistBatt1, leafWetBatt1, lightning_Batt, co2_Batt, leak_Batt1, pm25_Batt1, with <sensor>_sig / <sensor>_ch<n>_sig

When weewx-EcowittGateway is set to rain_source = piezo, rain/rainRate hold the piezo gauge, and the dashboard treats them that way.

Install

weectl extension install weewx-ecowitt_console_emulator.zip
sudo systemctl restart weewx

The installer asks which rain sensor(s) the station has:

Which rain sensor does this station have?
  tipping - traditional tipping-bucket gauge (WH40, WS69, WN20 ...)
  piezo   - piezoelectric haptic gauge (WS90, WS85 ...)
  both    - both; the rain section shows a column for each
Rain sensor (tipping/piezo/both) [tipping]:

The first letter is enough. With both, the rain section becomes a table with a Tipping and a Piezo column (Daily, Rate, Event, Hourly, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly), and the rain chart shows a column for each.

Live data then comes from the skin's own live.json; no question is asked.

If weewx-EcowittGateway is installed (an [EcowittGateway] section in weewx.conf), the rain question defaults to the driver's rain_source, and a second question is asked:

Where should the tablet get live (every few seconds) data from?
  driver - the driver's ecwLoop.json (its loop_json option, already on)
  skin   - this skin's own live.json
Live data source (driver/skin) [driver]:

With driver, the skin reads the driver's ecwLoop.json and its own live service is switched off. If the driver's loop_json is off, the installer turns it on in the web folder (METRICWX units). If it's written somewhere the web server can't reach (the data, tmp or a custom folder), the installer uses the skin's own live.json instead. If you answer both to the rain question but the driver only records one gauge, the installer says so.

For unattended installs, answer on the command line (--live only matters when weewx-EcowittGateway is installed):

weectl extension install weewx-ecowitt_console_emulator.zip --yes --rain=both
weectl extension install weewx-ecowitt_console_emulator.zip --yes --rain=both --live=driver

The answers are stored in weewx.conf under [StdReport][[EcowittConsoleEmulatorReport]][[[Extras]]] (rain_sensors, live_url). Reinstalling offers your current answers as the defaults.

This adds (shown without weewx-EcowittGateway; with its ecwLoop.json, live_url = ../ecwLoop.json and enable = false):

[StdReport]
    [[EcowittConsoleEmulatorReport]]
        skin = EcowittConsoleEmulator
        HTML_ROOT = public_html/console
        enable = true
        [[[Extras]]]
            rain_sensors = both
            live_url = live.json

[EcowittConsoleEmulator]                # the skin's own live service
    enable = true              # false when weewx-EcowittGateway's ecwLoop.json is used instead
    report = EcowittConsoleEmulatorReport
    interval = 5
    filename = live.json

[Engine]
    [[Services]]
        report_services = ..., user.ecowitt_console_emulator.EcowittConsoleEmulatorLive

Then open http://<your-weewx-host>/weewx/console/ (or wherever your public_html is served) on the tablet.

Full screen

Every panel (Charts, Radar, Sensors, Settings) opens over the whole screen inside the dashboard, so the page never leaves full screen. Browsers only allow full screen after a tap, so the first touch anywhere switches it on, and again if the browser leaves it (Settings → "Full screen on touch" turns this off). Escape or × closes a panel. On an iPhone, which has no full-screen mode for web pages, use Share → "Add to Home Screen".

Tablet tips

• Android: Chrome → ⋮ → Add to Home screen opens it full screen. For a permanent wall display, a kiosk browser (e.g. Fully Kiosk Browser) works well.
• iPad: Safari → Share → Add to Home Screen.
• Settings (⚙) → Keep screen awake stops the screen dimming (Wake Lock API; needs HTTPS or localhost on most browsers).

Using the dashboard

Toolbar button	Action
Charts	Full-screen charts with Day, Week, Month and Year tabs. The Year tab has a list: the last 12 months, or any calendar year in the skin's database (1 January to 31 December). Charts: temperature, humidity, VPD (kPa), wind, wind direction (day), rain, barometer, solar radiation, UV. Rain is one chart with a separate column for the tipping gauge (blue) and the piezo sensor (violet) in each hour, day or month and the difference in the tooltip. The legend gives each gauge's total for today, this week, this month or this year (by tab): the same figures as the rain table. The bars cover the chart's whole span (27 hours, 7 days, 31 days, 12 months). Every chart has a tooltip: hover with a mouse, or tap/drag on a touch screen. Drawn in the current theme and display units
Theme	Navy (console) → Black (OLED / night) → Light
CH	Switches the second pair of rings between the temperature/humidity channels that are reporting: Indoor, then each WN31 (CH1–CH8). Greyed out when only one channel reports
Battery	Battery and signal of every sensor that reports them
Refresh	Reload data now
Settings	Language, units, layout, theme, 12/24 h clock, seconds, keep awake, full screen on touch, data status

Tapping works too: the channel gauges cycle channels, the soil/leaf line cycles through every soil-moisture and leaf-wetness channel, the PM2.5 readout cycles PM sensors, the barometer reading switches between REL and ABS, with rain_sensors = auto and both gauges reporting, the tag under the rain icon switches between them, and the red battery icon in the header opens the sensor list.

On the wind gauge, the blue arrow is the current direction and the small grey arrow is the 10-minute average direction.

All times (clock, date, sunrise/sunset, moonrise/moonset, chart axes) are shown in the station's time zone, whatever the time zone of the tablet or phone viewing the page.

Configuration (skins/EcowittConsoleEmulator/skin.conf, [Extras])

• title – the name at the top of the dashboard; empty = the station name (location in [Station] of weewx.conf)
• language – the default language (see Languages)
• theme, clock_24h
• timezone – the station's time zone is read from the WeeWX machine; set it here (e.g. timezone = Europe/Paris) only if that comes out wrong
• windy_radar, windy_mode, windy_zoom – the Radar button at the top left shows Windy's radar centred on the station's [Station] latitude/longitude, with a marker on the station. windy_mode = panel (default) opens the map in a panel over the dashboard, so a full-screen tablet never leaves the page; the map's wind and temperature units follow the dashboard's unit preset, and the panel has an "Open in Windy" link. windy_mode = link opens windy.com instead. windy_embed_url / windy_url can be changed ({lat}, {lon}, {zoom}, {wind}, {temp} are filled in). The tablet needs internet access for this.
• rain_sensors – tipping, piezo, both or auto (set by the installer); baro_mode – REL or ABS
• [[Links]] – chips at the top left, e.g. Windy = https://www.windy.com/station/…
• [[FieldMap]] – only needed if your driver names a field differently (or you've remapped it)
• [[Channels]] – which T&H channels the CH button cycles through, their names and sensor ids, e.g. Greenhouse = extraTemp1, extraHumid1, wn31_ch1
• [[SoilChannels]], [[LeafChannels]], [[LeakChannels]], [[PMChannels]] – custom labels/fields
• [[Sensors]] – battery/signal list; kind is binary (0 = OK), level (0–5, 6 = DC) or volt:<low volts>

Languages (same as weewx-divumwx)

Everything on the dashboard can be shown in any of the 30 languages weewx-divumwx has: labels, tooltips, messages, panels, charts, compass points, Beaufort names, moon phases, and day and month names.

Code	Language	Code	Language	Code	Language
ar	العربية (Arabic)	eu	Euskara (Basque)	nl	Nederlands (Dutch)
br	Brezhoneg (Breton)	fi	Suomi (Finnish)	no	Norsk (Norwegian)
ca	Català (Catalan)	fr	Français (French)	pl	Polski (Polish)
cn	中文 (Chinese, simplified)	gr	Ελληνικά (Greek)	pt	Português (Portuguese)
cy	Cymraeg (Welsh)	hi	हिन्दी (Hindi)	sv	Svenska (Swedish)
cz	Čeština (Czech)	hu	Magyar (Hungarian)	ta	தமிழ் (Tamil)
da	Dansk (Danish)	is	Íslenska (Icelandic)	th	ไทย (Thai)
de	Deutsch (German)	it	Italiano (Italian)	tr	Türkçe (Turkish)
en	English	ja	日本語 (Japanese)	uk	Українська (Ukrainian)
en_US	English (US)	es	Español (Spanish)	ur	اردو (Urdu)

Pick one on the tablet under Settings → Language. Like the unit choice, it is stored in the browser under DivumWX's key, dashboardLanguage, so if this skin and DivumWX are served from the same web server they share one language. language in skin.conf [Extras] sets the default for browsers that haven't chosen yet.

The translations are in skins/EcowittConsoleEmulator/lang/<code>.json, keyed by the English text; English is built into the page. Where DivumWX already translates the same text, its wording is used, so the two skins read alike. Names you set yourself in skin.conf (channels, sensors, links) are shown as you wrote them. In Arabic and Urdu the console layout stays the same, and each label, row and message reads right to left. Labels that are longer in some languages are made a little smaller, or put on two lines, so they fit their place on the console.

Units (same model as weewx-divumwx)

Like weewx-divumwx, the data feeds are always written in METRICWX (°C, m/s, mm, hPa, km), whatever unit_system your station or weewx.conf uses. The browser converts them to the same display presets DivumWX offers (Beaufort is shown as its own reading on the dashboard instead of as a unit choice; a DivumWX beaufort choice shows metric units here):

Preset	Temp	Wind	Pressure	Rain	Distance
uk (default)	°C	mph	hPa	mm	km
us	°F	mph	inHg	in	mi
metric	°C	km/h	hPa	mm	km
scandi	°C	m/s	hPa	mm	km
canada	°C	km/h	kPa	mm	km
icao	°C	kt	hPa	mm	NM

Pick one on the tablet under Settings → Units. The choice is stored in the browser under DivumWX's key, dashboardUnitSystem, and announced with the same unitsystemchange event. If this skin and DivumWX are served from the same web server, they share one unit choice. unit_system in skin.conf [Extras] sets the default for browsers that haven't chosen yet.

The charts are drawn in the browser too, so they follow the unit preset and the theme.

The skin's database

The skin keeps its own database, so it never changes the station's main one.

Created only if it doesn't exist. The installer checks for the [[ecce_binding]] binding, its [Databases] entry and the database itself, and leaves anything it finds untouched (it reports what it found). At each start, EcowittConsoleEmulatorArchive checks again: an existing database is used as it is; only a missing one is created.

Same schema. A new database gets the same columns and daily summaries as the station's main database (wx_binding), read from that database itself, so columns you've added are included. Added to that are the extra fields the dashboard can use that the standard schema doesn't have (they stay empty if your driver doesn't supply them): feelslike, windDir10, maxdailygust, p_rain, p_rainrate, lightning_dist, lightningcount, soilMoist5–16, leafWet3–8, pm25_1–4 and leak_1–4. Set driver_fields = false for an exact copy of the main schema. The database type (SQLite or MySQL) also follows the main database.

History. A new database is filled from the main one, the last 400 days by default (backfill_days, or all), with a bulk SQL copy: a year takes about a second, plus a one-time daily-summary rebuild. On every later start, any gap since its last record is filled the same way. From then on each archive record is written to it as it arrives, extra fields included.

The charts' Year tab lists the calendar years this database holds. To chart every year your station has recorded, set backfill_days = all before the skin's first start (or delete ecowitt_console_emulator.sdb with WeeWX stopped, so it is built again with all history).

[EcowittConsoleEmulator]
    data_binding = ecce_binding    # the skin's database
    source_binding = wx_binding     # the station's main database
    backfill_days = 400             # history copied into a new database ('all' for everything)
    driver_fields = true            # add the extra fields to a new database

The dashboard and the charts both read this database (data_binding = ecce_binding in the report section). Uninstalling the skin removes these settings but keeps the database file; reinstalling picks it up again.

Troubleshooting

• Something new after an update doesn't appear (e.g. the year list on the charts' Year tab) – restart WeeWX (sudo systemctl restart weewx): until then it keeps running the previous version of the skin's code, and the page's data (ecowitt.json) is still the old kind. The page's script, styles and translations are linked with a fingerprint of their contents, so browsers load the new copies as soon as WeeWX has rewritten the page.
• Wi-Fi icon yellow – live data isn't arriving. With the skin's own live.json, check that [EcowittConsoleEmulator] enable = true and look for ecowitt_console_emulator: ... writing live data to ... in the log. With weewx-EcowittGateway's ecwLoop.json, check that the file exists and that live_url in weewx.conf points to it (relative to the dashboard page, e.g. ../ecwLoop.json).
• No batteries in Sensors – battery fields only come from live data, and only under the names listed in [[Sensors]]. Add your driver's names there. With weewx-EcowittGateway, its show_all_batt option may help.
• A sensor is missing – it is hidden until it has a value. Check what your driver calls the field and add it to [[FieldMap]] or the relevant channel section.
• Turn on debug = 1 in weewx.conf to see how long the data build takes.

Changes and versions

See CHANGELOG.md for what changed in each release, and VERSIONING.md for how version numbers are chosen.

Licence

Copyright (c) Ian Millard 2026

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. It is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; see the GNU General Public License for details.

The translations reuse wording from weewx-divumwx, also GPLv3.

Ecowitt is a trademark of its owner; this project is not affiliated with Ecowitt. All icons are original SVG drawings.