This posting is a "review" and sharing feedback regarding the Grafana 
experience. Not intended to be an "in-depth" discussion, neither great 
debate, just personal "pros and cons" for WeeWX.

For a start, to note that Grafana vs Highcharts might "bananas vs 
apples".... Grafana intended to IoT monitoring, while Highcharts for 
generic plotting.


A) Pros of Grafana

   - WeeWX/InfluxDB driver by Matthew Wall (thanks!); ALL variables 
   submitted with minimum config
   - enjoyed the experience and easy to play the Graphs (once you 
   figured-out; check my previous posting on this regard); but it does looks 
   great
   - do your own WX Dashboard... to your liking (or almost)


B) Cons of Grafana

   - does not read directly from SQlite DB, but requires InfluxDB; to be 
   impartial, not difficult to install InfluxDB, but sure an extra step and 
   another DB; there are posting mentioning Grafana development for direct 
   SQlite DB... but that has been more than 2yo, and not sure if will ever 
   come out
   - can not embed Grafana dashboard to webpage (no "iframe")... that's a 
   dagger if planning to embed to own WX webpage (unfortunately, it was one of 
   my latest findings...)
   - no spline line option in graph (!), and no other smothering for 
   plot... graphs looks "stiff"
   - Highcharts offers more options, and might be more up-to-date regarding 
   appearance and flexibility (that to say, Pat took the right path for Bskin)
   - besides research, could not make Node-Red or Telegraf (Influx plugin) 
   to properly MQTT; thus the dashboard is mostly static, with no real uptime 
   (I gave up)


C) Extra comments

My system is Rpi3 (for WeeWX) + QNAP (for web hosting). Thus, the "natural" 
path was to install InfluxDB/Grafana in the NAS system, which has more CPU 
power, letting Rpi3 just for WeeWX load. What I learned, is that QNAP does 
not directly support InfluxDB/Grafana, but through its own Container 
system/docker (ie, a virtual inner platform). This was easy and works fine 
for basic assessment. But as you dig further, it is much inconvenient.


Would I do it again (QNAP that is)? 

Maybe not, but InfluxDB/Grafana on Rpi; would save much troubles on the way.


To note, Grafana offers free hosting on their cloud service. I have not 
tried, but interesting to consider.



Bottom line, if interesting to learn further on IoT and monitoring... go 
ahead. Otherwise, till direct SQlite interface, dashboard website embed, 
and MQTT, may not be for general WX.

X 

 

 

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