Quickstart¶

This page gets you from zero to a working installation in about 5 minutes.

Requirements¶

Home Assistant 2024.6 or newer
A personal weather station already integrated into HA, providing at minimum:

Measurement	Example entity
Outdoor temperature	`sensor.gw2000a_outdoor_temperature`
Outdoor relative humidity	`sensor.gw2000a_outdoor_humidity`
Atmospheric pressure	`sensor.gw2000a_absolute_pressure`
Wind speed	`sensor.gw2000a_wind_speed`
Wind gust	`sensor.gw2000a_wind_gust`
Wind direction (degrees)	`sensor.gw2000a_wind_direction`
Cumulative rainfall	`sensor.gw2000a_rain_total`

Any HA-integrated weather station brand works (Ecowitt, Davis, WeatherFlow, Shelly, Froggit, and others). The integration does not care which integration produced the entities — it reads whatever you map.

Optional sensors (improves derived metrics if present): illuminance (lux), UV index, dew point, battery level, solar radiation (W/m²).

Step 1: Install via HACS¶

Open HACS in your Home Assistant sidebar
Go to Integrations and click the three-dot menu in the top right
Choose Custom repositories
Paste https://github.com/kmich/ha_ws_core and select category Integration
Click Add, then close the dialog
Search for "Weather Station Core" and click Download
Restart Home Assistant

Manual installation (alternative)¶

Copy the custom_components/ws_core/ directory from the repository into your HA custom_components/ directory, then restart Home Assistant.

Step 2: Add the integration¶

Go to Settings → Devices & Services
Click + Add Integration
Search for "Weather Station Core" and select it

The setup wizard opens and guides you through 8 steps.

Step 3: Complete the setup wizard¶

Step 1 — Name and prefix¶

Give your station a name (e.g. "Back Garden") and an entity ID prefix (e.g. ws). All entities will use this prefix: sensor.ws_temperature, sensor.ws_humidity, etc.

Step 2 — Required sensors¶

Map the 7 mandatory sensor entities from your weather station.

Use the entity picker to find each one. You can type the entity ID directly or browse the picker. The integration accepts any sensor regardless of brand or integration source.

Step 3 — Optional sensors¶

Map illuminance, UV index, dew point, battery level, and solar radiation sensors if your station provides them. Leave any field blank to skip it.

Solar radiation (W/m²): enables Penman-Monteith ET₀ and THSW index
Illuminance (lx): enables cloud cover estimation and the 36-condition classifier

Step 4 — Location and climate¶

Enter your hemisphere, climate region, and elevation. Home Assistant coordinates are used to auto-detect your location if you have them set.

Climate region affects the Zambretti forecast's wind direction correction: - Atlantic Europe (default for most of Europe) - Mediterranean - Continental / Inland - Nordic / Scandinavia

Step 5 — Display units¶

Choose how sensor values are displayed. There is an overall units preset (Auto / Metric / Imperial) plus individual overrides for each measurement type:

Measurement	Options
Temperature	Auto, Celsius (°C), Fahrenheit (°F)
Wind speed	Auto, m/s, km/h, mph, kn
Pressure	Auto, hPa, inHg, mmHg
Rainfall	Auto, mm, in
Distance (e.g. lightning)	Auto, km, mi
Altitude (e.g. cloud base)	Auto, m, ft

All default to auto, which follows your Home Assistant unit system. Individual overrides take precedence over the preset. These control display only - underlying calculations always use SI units internally.

Step 6 — Forecast provider¶

Enable the 7-day forecast and choose a provider. Open-Meteo is the default (free, no API key, global coverage). See Forecast Providers for all options.

Step 7 — Features¶

Toggle optional feature groups on or off. You can change these later via Configure.

Feature	What it creates
Fire Risk	FWI, FFDI, FFWI, fire risk score
Fog	Fog probability
Thunderstorm Risk	Thunderstorm risk index
Sea Temperature	SST via Open-Meteo Marine API
Weather Underground	Upload to WU with credential validation
Air Quality	AQI, NO₂, ozone
Pollen	Grass, tree, weed pollen levels
Moon	Moon phase and illumination
Solar Forecast	PV generation forecast
Comfort Indices	Heat Index, UTCI, VPD, Delta-T, and more
Meteo Vigilance	France only — weather alert colour
Vigicrues	France only — river level
Station Diagnostics	Drift detection, data-quality score
FWI Components	Individual FWI moisture codes
Advanced Sensors	Zambretti number, hourly ET₀, smoothed wind direction
Precipitation Nowcast	Creates `sensor.ws_minutes_until_rain`, intensity, and 60-min total

Step 8 — Alerts¶

Set thresholds for wind gust, rain rate, and freeze warnings. These are configurable as number entities on the device page after setup.

Step 4: Verify the entities¶

After setup, go to Settings → Devices & Services → Weather Station Core and click the device to see all created entities.

binary_sensor.ws_package_ok is On when all required source sensors are available. If it shows Off, go to Configure and remap any missing source sensors.

If you want the rain countdown shown in the README, make sure Precipitation Nowcast is enabled under Configure → Features. The sensor.ws_minutes_until_rain entity is optional and is only created when that feature is enabled.

Next steps¶

Sensors Reference — complete list of all entities
Use Cases — rain alerts, irrigation, awnings, frost, and AQI
Dashboards — install the bundled dashboard in 2 minutes
Blueprints — automation blueprints for frost, storm, and irrigation alerts
Forecast Providers — change your NWP provider
Configure — all settings are changeable post-install via Configure

Reconfigure¶

Every setting from the wizard is changeable after installation without reinstalling.

Go to Settings → Devices & Services → Weather Station Core → Configure.

The options flow mirrors the full setup wizard. Changes take effect after saving.

To remap a required or optional sensor (e.g. after replacing your weather station hardware), use Configure → Required sensors or Configure → Optional sensors.