N4 w/ Barometer... What App(s) Leverage This???

[RumoredNow]

OK so the Nexus 4 has a barometer. Cool.

But what App or Apps take advantage of the hardware? I'd like some recommendations rather than just wading into Play with a search. That way lies mucho install/uninstall as I filter out all the bad/cheesy/broken/just an advert depot wanna be's.

Is anybody using a good forecast App that leverages the barometer on the phone? Anything cool or must have out there to take advantage of?

 

[CoMoNexus]

There are several apps in the Play Store that use the barometer, but I haven't gotten around to trying any of them. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who has.

 

[anon(847090)]

did you try searching playstore https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...tore/search?q=barometer&c=apps&token=XaRBF1GO

 

[RumoredNow]

did you try searching playstore https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...tore/search?q=barometer&c=apps&token=-RZA-zEz

...I'd like some recommendations rather than just wading into Play with a search. That way lies mucho install/uninstall as I filter out all the bad/cheesy/broken/just an advert depot wanna be's....

Guess I didn't make that part clear: ".I'd like some recommendations rather than just wading into Play with a search. That way lies mucho install/uninstall as I filter out all the bad/cheesy/broken/just an advert depot wanna be's"

 

[Bob Coxner]

Read the user reviews for each app carefully. Many people complain of excessive battery drain with these apps.

 

[Bob Coxner]

Guess I didn't make that part clear: ".I'd like some recommendations rather than just wading into Play with a search. That way lies mucho install/uninstall as I filter out all the bad/cheesy/broken/just an advert depot wanna be's"

Why would one or two people commenting here be better than the hundreds or thousands of user reviews for an app on Play? Filter by the overall rating and then read the user reviews for the highest rated apps.

 

[RumoredNow]

Right... but if some here - in a trusted community - can recommend a few ideas it narrows thing down. I'll still research, but why not start someplace?

Have ya searched Google Play? It's a morass...

Isn't the point of being part of this community that you help others and receive help in return? Am I wrong in this?

I can just report the thread and have it closed if it will only yield the unhelpful advice of "search Google Play." Please, can we avoid the obvious, entry level advice?

 

[mr_nobody]

Have ya searched Google Play? It's a morass...

I don't have any advice for you and I AM interested in any useful responses also...but yeah, comments in google play are pretty much on the level of comments on youtube...

 

[RumoredNow]

Since it became apparent that there would be no useful advice/recommendations coming quickly I decided I have to wade into the morass.

Thing is, I live in Tornado Alley and this is a real world need for me, I'm not just looking for a toy. A precipitous drop in barometric pressure can be an early alert for a tornado. In a similar vein, I just ditched AOKP Milestone as they dropped Cell Broadcast out of the settings... And CB is definitely a valuable tool.

So last night I downloaded/installed Barometer Prime by H.Y.F.Y as a first test. It's just out of Beta, it's a free App with good ratings and I liked the screen shots. In a search for barometer on Google Play it isn't too far down the list at entry #18. 10,000+ downloads with 147 Google + adds and an average rating of 4.1 after 87 users ranked the App. Of those 52 gave 5 stars and another 13 gave 4 stars...

There is a lot to this App. It's richly complex in the settings it both needs to function and allows for customization. It appears functional and pleasing to the eye.

Right away I had problems with it. I was running AOKP M1 + franko.Kernel M2. After setting up the App, I could not get the widget to persist on the home screen where I'd placed it. Maybe it was because it was late and I wasn't paying enough attention to what I was doing??? I put the App on disable.

Today I reset my phone to stock, re-rooted and restored everything. Now I'm on Google 4.2.2 with franco.Kernel M2. Note that as soon as I got the phone set up I received a Cell Broadcast monthly test message!!! YAYz!!!

I got Barometer Prime out and set it up again. This time the widget stayed on the home page after placing it there. There was an instruction box advising me to push the home button. IDK if it is the difference in the ROM or if I just missed the extra step last night.

Now that it's up and running, now that it is configured... I like it well enough for a first trial. It seems pretty accurate. Weatherbug states the pressure is 29.94 inHg holding steady and it is partly cloudy. Barometer Prime indicates 28.52 inHg and I've watched it trending gradually downward. It matches my observations that it is now overcast and clouds have been increasing steadily throughout the day. The App is polling the hardware every two minutes for readings...

I'll keep an eye on battery drain (so far so good). I wish the App itself would have alerts, it does not. It does show in notifications that it s running which is nice if you only want to enable it at certain times. In addition to Barometric Pressure it also tracks Altitude. There are tons of customizations for reporting formats and it does help to have some basic understanding of Barometric Pressure in order to set the App up. More research/knowledge will yield higher functionality from this type of App. At a minimum you should know your approximate altitude and temperature just to set the App in motion.

For a first trial the App seems serviceable. It is free and without ads. There is a donate button in the App itself and if I decide to keep it I will donate to the dev. I'll also be trying out a few more Apps over time in case I might find one that suits me better

 

[CoMoNexus]

As someone who lives on the fringe of Tornado Alley, I say thanks for the insights.

 

[Bob Coxner]

As someone who lives inside Tornado Alley I would be much less worried about a barometer app and would be spending my money to buy a proper weather radio, one with S.A.M.E. technology. Like this excellent one that I use: Amazon.com: MIDLAND WR300 Weather Radio: Electronics

There are also many weather apps that will alert you to severe weather in your area. AccuWeather, Weather Channel, Weather Underground, Intellicast and many others will push alerts to you. These are good if you're mobile. If you're at home the best choice is a quality weather radio. It should have a battery backup (for when the power goes out), a siren that will wake the dead and S.A.M.E. technology so that you can choose which alerts to sound the siren (tornado only, or severe weather alert, hurricane, whatever) and you can choose to limit the alarm to alerts in specific counties. Mine is set to only go off for a tornado or severe weather alert in my county. I don't care about the multitude of other alerts that are broadcast and I don't worry about weather in counties other than my own (my county is reasonably large). A cheap weather radio will go off constantly with alarms and quickly become a nuisance, so people turn them off.

 

[RumoredNow]

As someone who lives inside Tornado Alley I would be much less worried about a barometer app and would be spending my money to buy a proper weather radio, one with S.A.M.E. technology. Like this excellent one that I use: Amazon.com: MIDLAND WR300 Weather Radio: Electronics

There are also many weather apps that will alert you to severe weather in your area. AccuWeather, Weather Channel, Weather Underground, Intellicast and many others will push alerts to you. These are good if you're mobile. If you're at home the best choice is a quality weather radio. It should have a battery backup (for when the power goes out), a siren that will wake the dead and S.A.M.E. technology so that you can choose which alerts to sound the siren (tornado only, or severe weather alert, hurricane, whatever) and you can choose to limit the alarm to alerts in specific counties. Mine is set to only go off for a tornado or severe weather alert in my county. I don't care about the multitude of other alerts that are broadcast and I don't worry about weather in counties other than my own (my county is reasonably large). A cheap weather radio will go off constantly with alarms and quickly become a nuisance, so people turn them off.

I've got a great weather alert radio and it is all set up including a battery backup...

I get weather alerts on my mobile via App. I made sure my Cell Broadcast is in order to get localized hot spot info...

What's wrong with having one more individual tool to work with? I don't think you really appreciate how negative and unhelpful your comments are. I'm sure you truly believe you are being helpful, but you have yet to deliver one comment which is on point to the purpose of this thread.

Do you have any first hand knowledge of a very useful App that uses the Barometer hardware built into the Nexus 4? That is the question. Not where to find them or what is a better substitute for safety in your opinion....


<edit> And also I have a marine handheld tuned to local NOAA which I keep charged and I've got TuneIn Radio on my phone with local NOAA set up as well. I'm trying to advance preparedness from the general area down to the most local level available.

 

[willdogs]

I just downloaded pressurenet to try. Seems to get great reviews and is a crowdsourcing app

https://forums.androidcentral.com/e....cumulonimbus.barometernetwork&token=kzcC6ob7

 

[RumoredNow]

Thanks... I'll give that one a try next.

Barometer Prime is still proving to be very fussy. The widget stops reporting on the desktop even though it reports the service is running in notifications.

 

[RumoredNow]

Thanks... I'll give that one a try next.

Barometer Prime is still proving to be very fussy. The widget stops reporting on the desktop even though it reports the service is running in notifications.

Barometer Prime seems a bust. It has lots of in depth set up and featuring, but doesn't really want to run as a widget very well. Maybe it needs to get Beta status back.

I installed PressureNet. Now we are at the other extreme. There are almost no settings and no set up. The widget runs well. Notifications happen, but they don't trigger the sound or LED and Light Flow does not support it. It's senseless the way it notifies as well. One one hundredth change in inHg has it sending a notification that pressure is on the increase/decrease. There is no tuning it to alert at a specific level of change nor tie it into how you want alerts to get your attention.

The crowd sourcing aspect is kind of interesting - I can see a lot of results near me on a graph. Throw out the anomalies and it shows trending. The widget itself is very bare bones and there is no individual trending graph for my personal readings.

Having gone from highly complex (perhaps so complex it takes a meteorology and systems admin dual degree to operate/set up properly) to basic, bare bones - I'll keep looking.

I'm also hoping for more suggestions here.

 

[RumoredNow]

PressureNet has been dropped.

I'm now trying out Barometer Monitor. It too is kind of bare bones. No notification, but no poorly thought out notification either.

At least it has a personal trending graph. I'll probably use this only as a stop-gap while I search for something more feature rich.

I'm still hoping for informed suggestions...

 

[RumoredNow]

So far so good with Barometer Monitor.

At least the widget seems to be reporting well:

And the graph is nice. Note that you can scroll through the x and y axis independently

I wish the polling would scale for tighter increments. 10 minutes is the shortest time between queries of the hardware.

 

[RumoredNow]

A quick recap... Note that this is after only a 24 hour evaluation (approximate) of each App. Take with a grain of salt as YMMV.

Barometer Prime: Displays Barometric Pressure and Altitude via widget and reports. Complex and feature rich, but still missing some key elements. No notification and a fussy widget that does not seem to want to run consistently. This App is free, has no ads and some slight battery drain I found acceptable given the quick polling and features I had set up. This App can compensate for your altitude rather than just reading the pressure which is a plus for forecasting observations. I may come back to study this one again - but that's part of the problem, it requires study to set up and perhaps to get it running correctly. I have to give the developer credit for knowing the proper and advanced uses of a built in barometer, then take points away for not making it easier to run for lay persons.

pressureNET: Displays Barometric Pressure via widget and crowd sharing report. A free App with no ads. This one has alerts, but they are nonsensical. Any change of one one-hundredth of an inch of mercury sends a notification. If it could be customized that would be great, but it can't. There are no personal reports. A desktop widget that works and a crowdsourcing aggregate are all it has. Polling was fairly rapid, but so was battery drain as it sends your info to the crowd/cloud. Almost no set up. No compensation for altitude. Give this one a pass unless you are that into social media.

Barometer Monitor: Displays Barometric Pressure via widget and personal reports. Another free App with no ads. The widget runs fine on the desktop even though there is no customization of look to make it blend. I'll take functionality, thank you very much. Some basic set up, including adding or subtracting a constant. I spot checked NOAA for my local reading and adjusted my readout accordingly. The polling could be faster - the minimum amount is 10 minutes... I'd like something around 2 minutes. No notifications or alerts. The widget seems to function/report very well and has an easy to read face with trending arrow. There is a personal report function. A graph which can be scrolled and also accepts pinch to zoom gestures. There is also a table of text entries. Battery drain has not been noticeable thus far. I would pick this for a very good basic App.


I'm still hoping to get an informed opinion here...

Some criteria I'm looking for:

• Display Pressure and Altitude
• Settings to compensate for altitude
• Customizable widget look/size
• Programable alerts (i.e.: Notify when pressure drops more than 0.1 inHg in a short polling time of 2 minutes or less)
• Scalable polling time with reduced interval

 

[RumoredNow]

3 days on Barometer Monitor now. It seems to track very well. After making the adjustment in the settings, it is spot on with what NOAA reports at my local airport (about 10 miles away) every time I check in.

Weather has been unsettled here for the last few days and continues to be so. I'll try looking for a more advanced App when things settle down.