New ASCOM driver for Ecowitt weather stations

[chris_g]

HI Ivo,

A quick note, the driver connected to the WS3901 console with no issues and returned normal test data when set to internal temp. However, the delivery didn't make it until late so I can't test the outdoor sensor yet. APT reported an awfully hot indoor temp and dew point, think I moved to Venus!

Temp Not Correct - Ecowitt 3901.jpg

More food for thought, store the weather telemetry in it's own table. Easier to do searches I would imagine

Clear Skies
Chris

[chris_g]

Hi Ivo,

Got the rain sensor configured, when I reconfiugred the driver to read the outdoor temp, it was good. It's only inflating the temperature if the indoor sensor is selected in the driver. Not a big deal, who wants to know what the temp is inside anyway!

Thank you for this.

Clear Skies,
Chris

[chris_g]

Hi Ivo,

Been playing with the sensor, I think there may be something wrong with the dew calculation. The console reports a dew point of 55.8 F but APT shows it at 85.3 F. I checked the test page and it's showing 29.6C from the sensor.

I did some digging on the API and the byte should be #define ITEM_DEWPOINT 0x03 // Dew point (℃) 2 bytes. I ran a python script to pull that byte with a GetLIveWeather call from the console and it returned what the console displayed. If I had to hazard a guess on what might be wrong, I think you're using the Wind Chill byte, #4

Hope this helps.

Clear Skies,
Chris

[Yoddha]

Hello Friends,

There is a new version - 1.2 which addresses all the problems (I hope). Also the setup screen is re-ordered

https://www.astrophotography.app/projects.php

Please test it with your stations

[JST200]

Hi Ivo,

I've tested v1.2 and it appears to be working, at least it does for the HP2564 configuratiom .

But there is a potential problem, I think.

When using a manual connect, both when setting up the initial connection and subsequently, the "Observing Conditions" window hangs until the first Upload from the weather station is received. This in turns hangs the whole of APT.

If using "Auto Connect" the APT Startup window hangs on "Connecting Observing Conditions" until the first Uplload.

If you use a very short Upload interval, this probably wouldn't be a problem. I have my polling interval set to 60 sec, which makes the hang very noticeable. If you used 600s it would be very uncomfortable!

When it first occurred I thought there was a more serious problem and got into knots trying to investigate it. In fact, at one point, when I tried to reload the driver it failed. It said files that needed to be accessed were in use. When I selected the option to "stop the Ecowitt Driver", the install just hung and I needed to log out and in again to clear it.

Hope this helps?

Cheers, Jim

[JST200]

Just a quick update...

I have just tried connecting through the ASCOM Observing Conditions Hub (and configuring it to only use the Wind conditions from Ecowitt Driver). It showed the same delay as connecting directly.

Does this suggest it is an Ecowitt driver delay, rather than the APT call to the driver?

If so, perhaps the driver needs to make an immediate return with a value of something like "Waiting...", rather than waiting for the Ecowitt HP2564 Upload. It can then provide the real figures when the Ecowitt HP2564 actually does an Upload?

This might help if the Ecowitt HP2564 actually doesn't ever do an upload for some reason, e.g. the HP2564 is turned off or my rig is being used away from home and the HP2564 isn't available?

Cheers, Jim

[chris_g]

Hi Ivo,

the outdoor sensor test and APT both show the same numbers, however the indoor temp test is way off. But I think I know why. The indoor temp is reporting Celsius incorrectly, you see on my display it shows 81.5 F and the driver test shows 81.1 C. Not that many folks would monitor the indoor temp unless they put the console with the telescopes because they only had the console with no weather sensor.

FYI, I figured out how to connect multiple devices from Jim's last post, the OCH.

Hope this helps.

Clear Skies,
Chris

[Yoddha]

Hi Jim and Chris,

Many thanks for the feedback! Will address as soon as possible

[chris_g]

Hi Ivo,

I stumbled on to another issue. When trying to launch config from OCH for the Ecowitt driver, OCH locks up . When I end task on OCH, the Ecowitt driver config page pops up and then I get the below pop up from Windows. OWM ascom configuration pops up fine when configuring it from the OCH interface.

Clear Skies,
Chris

[JST200]

Hi Chris,

I'm not sure quite at what stage of doing things you are at, when you get the lock up. I was wondering if it's another presentation of the problem I see. See my posts above
https://aptforum.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=49575#p49575
Also the follow on post which is about using the ASCOM Observation Conditions Hub (OCH).

If it is, then it is likely a timing problem within the Ecowitt driver and if you wait long enough the lockup may suddenly clear.

Could you describe your sequence of actions and events?

When I get the hang up and force the closing of the OCH, I get the same COMException error. I believe this particular error is from the ASCOM OCH driver. it is it just objecting to being forcibly closed, while it is waiting for the Ecowitt driver to respond.

Cheers, Jim

[chris_g]

Hi Jim,

The OCH locks up as soon as I click the gear icon to configure the ecowitt driver and never responds, I've let it set for several minutes.. As soon as the the OCH task is ended, the ecowitt driver config displays and I see the error posted. It's easy to work around, configure the ecowitt driver instead of OCH. Then change to the OCH and select the appropriate drivers, ignoring the gear icon completely since it's already been configured and it works.

Clear Skies,
Chris

[Yoddha]

Hi Jim, Chris,

Could you try this version - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OnuWzW ... sp=sharing

Jim, I'm sending an APT change which is needed for your device as PM

[chris_g]

Hi Ivo,

The OCH is working now when calling the ecowiit driver setup. The indoor temp test still does not convert the temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius correctly, definitely not a show stopper since all outdoor measurements work fine.

Thank you again for this, I was looking for a local weather device and this one is a whole lot of fun.

Clear Skies,
Chris

[JST200]

Hi Ivo and Maria,

As promised yesterday, I have done some testing today. As far as I can tell everything seems to be working!

However, I do have two small issues, so we are 99.9% of the way there.

Before describing the issues in case it helps track down Chris' indoor temperature conversion. I just wanted to note that I can confirm that, with the Ecowitt Sensor set to Celsius display, both "Observation Conditions > indoor" and "Outdoor" temperatures are displayed correctly in the "Observation Conditions" window.

Issue 1
======
The first small issue is that the new ""Observation Conditions > Waiting for weather station data..." text disappears if the mouse pointer moves within the area of the "Observation Conditions" window, before the weather station data arrives.

There are two ways to show this;

Test 1
---------

• Make sure the "Observation Conditions" window is somewhere off-center of the APT window
• Shift Click "Observation Conditions > Connect"
• Select "ASCOM Observation Conditions Chooser > APT Ecowitt Driver"
• Click "ASCOM Observation Conditions Chooser > Properties"
• Setup up "APT Ecowitt driver setup" as appropriate
• Click "APT Ecowitt driver setup > OK"
• Click "ASCOM Observation Conditions Chooser > OK"
• This should leave the mouse pointer hovering outside of the "Observation Conditions" window
• Wait for the "Observation Conditions > Connect" to change to "Disconnect"
• Move the mouse cursor over the "Observation Conditions" window
• The "Observation Conditions > Waiting for weather station data..." text disappears

Note: this also happens if you use the "ASCOM Observation Conditions Hub".

Test 2
______
Assuming you have done Test 1.

• Click "Observation Conditions > Disconnect"
• Wait for "Observation Conditions > Disconnect" to change to "Connect"
• Click "Observation Conditions > Connect"
• Wait for "Observation Conditions > Connect" to change to "Disconnect"
• This should leave the mouse cursor hovering over "Observation Conditions > Disconnect"
• Move the mouse cursor
• The "Observation Conditions > Waiting for weather station data..." text disappears

Issue 2
======
The second very, very, very small issue is that on first connect, after APT is run, the "ASCOM Observation Conditions Chooser" window is left on top of the "APT Ecowitt Driver setup" window.

Screenshot 2026-10-15 115339.png

Test
-------

• Close APT, if open (needed because this seems to happen only on the first time of running this process aft APT has been started).
• Start APT
• Shift Click "Observation Conditions > Connect"
• Select "ASCOM Observation Conditions Chooser > APT Ecowitt Driver"
• Click "ASCOM Observation Conditions Chooser > Properties"
• Note that the "ASCOM Observation Conditions Chooser" window is on top of the "APT Ecowitt Driver setup" window
• Note the "ASCOM Observation Conditions Chooser" window can't be moved out of the way (because the "APT Ecowitt Driver setup" window has focus)
• But, click anywhere on the "APT Ecowitt Driver setup" window and it brings the window to the front.

Cheers, Jim

[JST200]

Hi Ivo and Maria,

Just found something interesting (or not )...

I am not sure if this is an ObservationConditions Hub problem, an APT problem or an Ecowitt driver problem.

If I connect to the new Ecowitt driver, I get all the attributes I expect.

If I connect to my Pegasus Uranus, I get all the attributes I expect.

If I connect to the ObservationConditions Hub and set it to retrieve attributes from the Ecowitt Driver, I get all the attributes I set it to retrieve.

If I connect to the ObservationConditions Hub and set it to retrieve attributes from the Pegasus Uranus I get all the attributes I set it to retrieve.

So far so good

If I connect to the ObservationConditions Hub and set it to retrieve attributes from both the Pegasus Uranus AND the Ecowitt driver, I only get the attributes I set it to retrieve from the Pegasus Uranus. The Ecowitt attributes are ignored.

Possibly something to do with the Ecowitt driver waiting for the HP2564 to send it's data?

Which is a shame, because it means I can't get the extra attributes of Rain Fall, Wind Direction, Wind Speed and Wind Gust, from my Ecowitt.

Strange!

Cheers, Jim

[Yoddha]

Hi Jim, Chris,

Could you give a try of this version of the driver with your stations? I hope that all problems are addressed

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12KL6SL ... sp=sharing

I'm sending a test APT version as PM too.

[JST200]

Hi Ivo and Maria,

Everything works Except two conditions.

ObservingConditions works flawlessly under these conditions. When ObservingConditions is connected to:

• Ecowitt driver directly (the "Waiting for weather station..." text disappearing has been fixed. ).
• Pegasus Uranus directly
• OpenWeatherMap directly
• Ecowitt Driver only using ObservingConditions Hub (OCH)
• Pegasus Uranus only using OCH
• OpenWeatherMap only using OCH
• Pegasus Uranus and OpenWeatherMap using OCH with Uranus available - in which case both the Uranus and OpenWeatherMap data is shown (this proves the Hub supports two inputs sources)
• Pegasus Uranus and OpenWeatherMap using OCH, with Uranus unavailable - in which case only the OpenWeatherMap data is shown (this proves the Hub supports two inputs sources, even if one of them is unavailable)

However, it does not work properly when connected to:

• Pegasus Uranus and Ecowitt driver using OCH, with Uranus available - in which case only the Uranus data is shown:
  
  
  Screenshot 2026-10-22 155707.png
  
  
  Screenshot 2026-10-22 155904.png
• Pegasus Uranus and Ecowitt driver using OCH, with Uranus unavailable - in which case the "Waiting for weather station..." text is shown forever:
  
  
  Screenshot 2026-10-22 160151.png

One more oddity occurred when playing with the ObservationConditions options. It occasionally loses parts of the APT screen:

Screenshot 2026-10-22 155814.png

Weird.

Cheers, Jim