Beautiful Widgets Home problems

[azjerry]

I'm not sure I buy the geolocation excuse as the Weather Channel widget seems to do a good job.

I currently have both the BWH and WC widgets on my screen. WC thoughtfully shows the zip code it thinks I'm in. When I'm in a stationary location the zip code is correct and never changes. BWH, at least until this last update, the location would drift around while at work (drift between two different cities). While at home it shows just Phoenix (but I'm well away from the city border). And at home BW/Accuweather is always 5-10 degrees warmer than the WC and my own home weather station. I haven't had the latest version (3.072) long enough to have an opinion yet.

I'm a bit of a weather wonk with my own station, official rain gauge, web site and reporting of data to various sites. So I'm particularly picky about the accuracy.

If I could get a widget that could that could get data from my site I'd be a happy camper.

 

[TechNut79]

BWH does the same thing with me. The location will drift to several different cities/towns near me. I have had times where it will be correct and then all of a sudden it will change and then later it may change back. I thought it sounded weird too to say it was geolocation, but since he is the developer, I thought he must know better than me. Maybe not.

 

[nox]

BWH does the same thing with me. The location will drift to several different cities/towns near me. I have had times where it will be correct and then all of a sudden it will change and then later it may change back. I thought it sounded weird too to say it was geolocation, but since he is the developer, I thought he must know better than me. Maybe not.

I'm going to point Tama to this thread. So hopefully he can see if there is more than just a geolocation limit going on.

 

[TechNut79]

Thank You Jorge!

 

[jlw0211]

where do you get the BWH?

 

[kicko]

where do you get the BWH?

In thE Android Market, its all part of BW

 

[tech42er#AC]

I doubt a solution can be found as the developer told me himself that it's a limitation of geolocation. Guess I'm stuck right now. Have to just find a new clock/weather widget.

*Now that I say this it will change, but I've had my current location showing for the past couple hours with no change. I'm crossing my fingers.*

Are you using GPS for geolocation? If not, then it's the limit of cell-tower based geolocation. If you want it to use GPS, you have to keep the GPS on (which will murder your battery) and check the "Force GPS" checkbox in the BW settings. To get to the BW settings, click the weather icon, then the menu button, then "Configure". If you're forcing it to use GPS, keeping GPS on, and it's still bouncing around your location, then I don't know what to tell you.

 

[azjerry]

Are you using GPS for geolocation? If not, then it's the limit of cell-tower based geolocation. If you want it to use GPS, you have to keep the GPS on (which will murder your battery) and check the "Force GPS" checkbox in the BW settings. To get to the BW settings, click the weather icon, then the menu button, then "Configure". If you're forcing it to use GPS, keeping GPS on, and it's still bouncing around your location, then I don't know what to tell you.

I have my GPS always on but BW is using geolocation but not GPS. As I said the weather channel widget gives me a more accurate location and doesn't AFAIK use GPS either. At least the GPS icon doesn't appear when I force WC to get my location.

Just now I checked again:
- WC tells me 96 F in my zip code
- My weather station tells me 95 F in my back yard
- BWH (geolocate, no GPS) says 103 F
- Accuweather.com for my zip code 96F
- Accuweather.com for the NWS station at the airport 15 miles away is 103 F
- NWS for my area is 96 F
- NWS for the airport is 103 F
- WeatherBug for my location is 97 F
- Weatherbug.com is 97F

Not once during this did the GPS icon show. In fact no app that might use GPS even shows under my battery usage.

So is BWH just not geolocating as well as the others? Is it taking the easy way and once it figures out I'm somewhere in Phoenix that's all it asks for?

 

[kicko]

@azjerry do you get better results if you let BW use the GPS? Why do you always have the GPS on anyways? its a battery drainer.

 

[azjerry]

Funny, I was just thinking that I should try to use GPS and see what happens: No change in reported location or temperature after enabling GPS in BW.

I leave GPS on all the time to avoid situations where I go to use an app and have to do the song and dance acknowledging GPS isn't on, go somewhere to turn GPS on, run app again and remember to turn GPS off when done with the app.

I've read a number of things that say leaving GPS on is a battery waster and a number of others that say it uses little or no battery except when an app actually needs to use it to get a fix. From what I've seen I tend to believe the latter.

Looking at my battery usage since unplugging 3 1/2 hours ago:
-Display 42%
-Cell standby 15%
-MailDroid 9%
-Android System 8%
-Phone idle 8%
-Android OS 3%
-Gmail 3%
-Gesture Search 2%
-Beautiful Widgets 2%
-LauncherPro 2%
-AppUsage Monitor 2%

Neither the Weather Channel or digital clock widgets I have running show up in this list yet BW does. I also just added a WeatherBug widget to see if it shows up.

I haven't run any apps that use GPS today. I don't see any indication of GPS using battery unless it's lumped in with Android System or OS.

I'll check later today and report back.

 

[FD2]

I'm going to point Tama to this thread. So hopefully he can see if there is more than just a geolocation limit going on.

I sent him cordinates and locations. I can walk from my office to the bathroom and the location changes (to the wrong location nontheless) .
I think he needs to redo the geolocations.

 

[azjerry]

Updated battery usage since unplugging almost 9 hours ago:
-Display 28%
-Cell standby 13%
-MailDroid 10%
-Android System 10%
-Phone idle 7%
-Beautiful Widgets 6%
-Maps 5%
-Gmail 4%
-Android OS 3%
-LauncherPro 3%
-Voice calls 5%

BW has gone from 2% to 6% of total usage. Weather Channel and WeatherBug are nowhere to be seen. The BW accuracy is a lot better since forcing GPS.

 

[wildman]

Updated battery usage since unplugging almost 9 hours ago:
-Display 28%
-Cell standby 13%
-MailDroid 10%
-Android System 10%
-Phone idle 7%
-Beautiful Widgets 6%
-Maps 5%
-Gmail 4%
-Android OS 3%
-LauncherPro 3%
-Voice calls 5%

BW has gone from 2% to 6% of total usage. Weather Channel and WeatherBug are nowhere to be seen. The BW accuracy is a lot better since forcing GPS.

That is strange, I have the original Sense BW installed and when I look under my Battery Use Manager I only show Display 50% (Set brightness half way and is on set to auto) and Call Standby 8%, it doesn't really show anything else making any real pull on battery.

 

[TechNut79]

For some reason BW was working fine for about two days and then today I noticed that the location started to jump around again. I powered the X off and then back on and refreshed the weather and all is well again. Not sure what caused it, but I did notice that at one time while the location was right, not right now though, there was a weather update program running that was labeled as a BW weather update service. It doesn't always seem to be running, so I think it may only run when the refresh is occuring and shortly after? Not sure. Fancy Widget was fine, but it was showing me in a location I wasn't in. Well I was almost in that location, but it was a little early.

 

[azjerry]

BW using GPS tracked WC and WB rather well at work today. Of course it's battery usage with GPS was much higher than either WC or WB without GPS.

When I first got home all three plus my home station reading were within a degree or two. As the evening wore on WC, WB and my station all gradually dropped and were within a degree or two. BW OTOH stayed pretty much the same till it was 9 or 10 degrees higher than the others. Just now when I started to write this I noticed that the BW temperature had dropped to 4-6 degress below the others. What the frack?

Edit: This morning BW's temperature had increased 2 degrees while the others had dropped to where they're ~13 degrees lower. Time to remove the widget again and wait for another update.

 

[azjerry]

Well the latest with the alternate geolocation for Accuweather is no better. Temperatures are still way off. OTOH Google seems to have fixed their weather so I'm using that as BW's source for now.

 

[robertbick]

My weather was wrong when I had BW use Google or Accuweather. I uninstalled it within the 24 hour period. I like BW except for the weather innacuracies.

 

[azjerry]

Google was off again. Using Fancy Widget now with much better results.

 

[kicko]

for me accuweater has been off for about a week and google is holding up ok.

 

[robertbick]

Does anyone know where the large HTC Incredible Clock/Weather widget gets its weather info from? For me it does not seem to match up with Accuweather, Google, The Weather Channel, etc.