OpenWeatherMap

OpenWeatherMap

Powers the weather widget on the dashboard + the dedicated /weather modal/page.

What it does

• Current conditions, hourly forecast, 6-day forecast, sunrise/sunset
• City lookup by name (German + international cities) via OpenWeatherMap geocoding
• "Comfort" feels-like rating + clothing suggestion ("light jacket", "rain coat", etc.)

Setup

1. Free API key

Open https://openweathermap.org/api → sign up (free) → confirm email → grab the API key from the dashboard.

The free tier gives you 60 calls/min and 1M calls/month, more than enough.

2. Add to env

webapp/docker/.env:

OPENWEATHERMAP_API_KEY=<your key>

Restart:

cd webapp/docker
./start.sh restart

Note: This is a host-level env var, not per-family. If you self-host for multiple families, all families share the key.

3. Configure the location per family

1. Open Settings → Weather
2. Choose City name mode → start typing → pick a result from the autocomplete
3. OR Choose GPS coordinates mode → manually type lat/lon, or click Use current location to grab them from the browser

TODO: screenshot of /settings/weather

The location is stored in settings.weather_location. The widget on the dashboard immediately picks it up.

Disable the weather feature

If you don't want weather (or don't want to set up OpenWeatherMap), just leave OPENWEATHERMAP_API_KEY blank. The dashboard hides the weather widget when no key is present, and the /weather page shows a friendly "not configured" state.

You can also hide the widget per-family via Settings → Widgets → toggle off Weather.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause
Widget shows "—"	API key missing or invalid; check the webapp logs (./start.sh logs webapp) for OpenWeatherMap API not configured
City autocomplete empty	Search needs at least 2 characters; check API key
Forecast off by an hour	OpenWeatherMap returns UTC + city offset; Kinboard renders in browser local time. If your kiosk is misconfigured, fix TZ

Related

• Themes — weather strings live under weather.* in messages/{en,de}.json
• Pricing — the free tier is plenty for a single family