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Ask HN: DarkSky Alternatives?

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Re: Ask HN: DarkSky Alternatives?

#31

Post by TLLtchvL8KZ »

clnq wrote: post #16

I always wondered why DarkSky was so popular. Was it the design? It was known to be generally inaccurate among meteorologists, while other apps (METAR+TAF especially) would be remarkably accurate. I don't intend this to be a jab at anyone's app preferences, but I'm very interested in the value proposition that hooked people.

At least for me here in the UK the live-updated rain was very accurate, you could watch it come and go in pretty much real time combined with looking out the window.

I'm struggling to find anything like it now, it was incredibly useful since I go out a lot to do little jobs and if its a crappy weather day (pretty much every day this time of year) it was nice to check to see if I had enough time to do something or if I'd need to go out and cover some things up.

I've never used the app, only the website.

Re: Ask HN: DarkSky Alternatives?

#33

Post by coriny »

TLLtchvL8KZ wrote: post #31
clnq wrote: post #16

I always wondered why DarkSky was so popular. Was it the design? It was known to be generally inaccurate among meteorologists, while other apps (METAR+TAF especially) would be remarkably accurate. I don't intend this to be a jab at anyone's app preferences, but I'm very interested in the value proposition that hooked people.

At least for me here in the UK the live-updated rain was very accurate, you could watch it come and go in pretty much real time combined with looking out the window. I'm struggling to find anything like it now, it was incredibly useful since I go out a lot to do little jobs and if its a crappy weather day (pretty much every day this time of year) it was nice to check to see if I had enough time to do something or if…

I find rain alarm good enough for this.

Re: Ask HN: DarkSky Alternatives?

#34

Post by Terretta »

jnthn wrote: post #27

https://www.rainviewer.com/ Has been mostly good, where DarkSky never really worked in Europe.

Strange comment. As it was originally mostly ECMWF and a few other EU centric models that supported near term precip better than US models, it seemed better in EU to me. It got worse after it took off in US though, I'd agree. Meanwhile climacell worked better in US.

Consider checking out windy.app to compare models easily for one or a mix of several that work best where you are:

https://windy.app/support/windy-app-weather-forecast-models....

I'd moved from DarkSky to this years back, thanks to frequent travel to weird weather areas where I needed locally accurate microclimate handling.

Re: Ask HN: DarkSky Alternatives?

#35

Post by walthamstow »

adrinux wrote: post #29
drfuzzyness wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In rainy parts of the US such as the Pacific North West coast, having a thirty minute warning that it's about to rain is really handy. It can make the difference between biking home sopping wet or squeezing in between two downbursts of rain. The rest of the app was fine, but not great. It demanded constant attention as its "predictions" changed constantly.

This! It was that combination of rain radar and really obvious app specific audio alarms that no other weather app seems to understand. I live in Scotland, a famously rainy country. We line dry our laundry outside and dark sky alerted me take it indoors before rain for years . Then Apple took it away and my laundry regularly gets rained on. The closest I've found for this functionality on Android is Rain Alarm. It ha…

I've had decent luck with the Met Office app for Android

The weather is only at 1hr intervals but the rain radar maps are at 15min and you get the last 6 hours and the next 24, so you can see where patches of rain are coming from and where they're going to be at which time

Re: Ask HN: DarkSky Alternatives?

#36

Post by colanderman »

Apreche wrote: post #20

https://www.weather.gov/ NOAA is where most of the other US-based weather services are getting their data from anyway. Why go to a secondary source when the primary source is free?

DarkSky was one of the few exceptions here. My understanding is they performed their own modeling and forecasting.

Re: Ask HN: DarkSky Alternatives?

#37

Post by jghn »

clnq wrote: post #16

I always wondered why DarkSky was so popular. Was it the design? It was known to be generally inaccurate among meteorologists, while other apps (METAR+TAF especially) would be remarkably accurate. I don't intend this to be a jab at anyone's app preferences, but I'm very interested in the value proposition that hooked people.

I always found that for very near term forecasts it was better than alternatives. But the further out my time horizon the less good it was.

“What’s this weeks weather going to be” I’d use another source.

“Will I get rained in if I leave the house now, or should I wait 30 mins?” I’d use dark sky

I’ve switched to Apple Weather which has been a reasonable replacement but I don’t like it as much

Re: Ask HN: DarkSky Alternatives?

#38

Post by jnthn »

Terretta wrote: post #34
jnthn wrote: post #27

https://www.rainviewer.com/ Has been mostly good, where DarkSky never really worked in Europe.

Strange comment. As it was originally mostly ECMWF and a few other EU centric models that supported near term precip better than US models, it seemed better in EU to me. It got worse after it took off in US though, I'd agree. Meanwhile climacell worked better in US. Consider checking out windy.app to compare models easily for one or a mix of several that work best where you are: https://windy.app/support/windy-app-we…

Windy is great as well and I have been using that as well for forecasting, but one thing that’s missing compared to the Rainviewer/DarkSky seems to be the “real time” alerts. Thats what I believe DarkSky never supported outside US/UK - doppler radar or whatnot based notifications that seemed to be its main selling point. Apple Weather doesn’t support next hour precipitation notifications either outside UK/Ireland and US: > Next-hour precipitation forecasts and precipitation notifications are available for Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Re: Ask HN: DarkSky Alternatives?

#39

Post by bobbylarrybobby »

sashk wrote: post #11

Carrot Weather: https://www.meetcarrot.com/weather/

To expand on this:

Carrot weather is a somewhat silly weather app. It is serious in that it aims to provide a very solid outlook on the weather with a highly customizable UI -- in fact you can even recreate the dark sky app’s UI if you'd like. However it is silly in that it comes with an “AI” “assistant” who spawns challenges and achievements.

I don't mind much but it can be a bit distracting in a weather app for the assistant to talk about our relationship.

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