Forecast Providers¶
Weather Station Core supports seven interchangeable forecast backends. Change provider at any time via Settings → Devices & Services → Weather Station Core → Configure → Forecast without reinstalling.
sensor.ws_forecast_provider shows the currently active provider.
Provider comparison¶
| Provider | Free | API key | Coverage | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open-Meteo (default) | Yes | No | Global | No registration required |
| Met.no | Yes | No | Global (excellent Europe) | Norwegian Meteorological Institute |
| NWS / NOAA | Yes | No | US only | Returns error outside continental US |
| OpenWeatherMap | Free tier | Yes | Global | One Call 3.0 API; free tier requires registration at openweathermap.org |
| Pirate Weather | Free tier | Yes | Global | Dark Sky-compatible API; free tier at pirateweather.net |
| Météo France | Free tier | Yes | Global | Météo Concept API; free tier at api.meteo-concept.com |
| HA weather entity | Yes | No | Depends on entity | Uses any existing weather.* entity in HA |
Open-Meteo (default)¶
Global hourly and daily forecast. No account, no API key. Updated every 15 minutes.
Supports the nowcast feature (sensor.ws_minutes_until_rain) — this is a separate
Open-Meteo endpoint that works regardless of which provider you choose for the 7-day
forecast.
Met.no¶
Norwegian Meteorological Institute's public API. Particularly accurate for Northern Europe, the Nordic region, and polar areas. No API key or registration required. Requires a valid contact email in the User-Agent header (automatically set by ws_core).
NWS / NOAA¶
US National Weather Service forecast API. No API key required. Returns an error if your coordinates are outside the continental United States.
OpenWeatherMap¶
Uses the One Call 3.0 API endpoint. A free tier is available but requires registration at openweathermap.org to obtain an API key. Enter the key in Configure → Forecast.
Pirate Weather¶
A Dark Sky-compatible API hosted at pirateweather.net. Free tier available; API key required. Suitable as a fallback for users who had Dark Sky access.
Météo France¶
Uses the Météo Concept API (api.meteo-concept.com). Free tier available; API key required. Contributed by @Benjamin45590.
Home Assistant weather entity¶
Uses any existing weather.* entity already integrated into Home Assistant. No
external network call is made — forecast data comes from the existing HA integration.
This is useful if you already have Met.no, OpenWeatherMap, or another HA weather integration set up and do not want ws_core to make its own API calls.
To configure: in Configure → Forecast, select "Home Assistant weather entity" as the provider, then pick the entity from the dropdown.
Uses the weather.get_forecasts service (HA 2024.2+) with fallback to the forecast
attribute on older installations.
Adding a new provider¶
See Contributing for the provider contribution path.
New providers require: a Python file in custom_components/ws_core/providers/, a
one-line registry entry in providers/__init__.py, and translation strings for the
provider name.