Ultra-Low-Power Weather Display

A power-optimized weather display solution for Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W with e-paper display, designed to achieve 60-90 days of battery life on a single charge.

Features

• Ultra-low power consumption - 60-90 days battery life
• E-paper display - Beautiful weather dashboard with current conditions and forecast
• Async architecture - Non-blocking I/O operations for improved efficiency
• Smart power management - Battery-aware scheduling and display updates
• Server-client design - Offloads processing to server for minimal client power usage
• Rich configuration - Highly customizable via YAML configuration
• Modern Python - Type-safe code with 94%+ test coverage

Hardware Requirements

Client:

• Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W
• PiJuice Zero HAT
• PiJuice 12,000 mAh LiPo battery
• Waveshare 10.3″ 1872 x 1404 E-paper IT8951 HAT

Server:

• Docker-capable Linux server (or Unraid)
• ~500MB RAM, minimal CPU

Quick Start

# Client setup (Raspberry Pi)
git clone https://github.com/sjnims/rpi-weather-display.git
cd rpi-weather-display
sudo bash deploy/scripts/install.sh
sudo cp config.example.yaml /etc/rpi-weather-display/config.yaml
sudo nano /etc/rpi-weather-display/config.yaml  # Add your API key

# Server setup (Docker)
docker build -t rpi-weather-display-server .
docker run -d --name rpi-weather-display -p 8000:8000 \
  -v /path/to/config.yaml:/etc/rpi-weather-display/config.yaml \
  rpi-weather-display-server

Architecture

graph TD
    A[Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W] -->|Requests Image| B[Docker Server]
    B -->|Weather Data| C[OpenWeather API]
    A -->|Displays| D[E-Ink Display]
    A -->|Power Management| E[PiJuice HAT]
    B -->|Renders| F[Weather Image]

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The server handles all computation-intensive tasks (API calls, rendering) while the client focuses on power-efficient display updates.

Configuration

Copy config.example.yaml to config.yaml and customize:

weather:
  api_key: "YOUR_OPENWEATHERMAP_API_KEY"  # Required
  city_name: "London"
  units: "metric"

display:
  refresh_interval_minutes: 30
  pressure_units: "hPa"  # or "mmHg", "inHg"

power:
  quiet_hours_start: "23:00"
  quiet_hours_end: "06:00"
  low_battery_threshold: 20

server:
  url: "http://your-server-ip"
  port: 8000

See config.example.yaml for all options.

Development

# Install Poetry
curl -sSL https://install.python-poetry.org | python3 -

# Install dependencies
poetry install --with dev --extras server

# Run server
poetry run server --config config.yaml

# Run client
poetry run client --config config.yaml

# Run tests
poetry run pytest

# Preview in browser
http://localhost:8000/preview

Documentation

• Changelog - Version history and recent updates
• Roadmap - Future development plans
• Contributing - How to contribute
• Operation Guide - Daily operation and updates
• Troubleshooting - Common issues and solutions
• Security - Security considerations
• Power Optimization - Battery life details

Project Structure

rpi-weather-display/
├── src/rpi_weather_display/
│   ├── client/        # Raspberry Pi client code
│   ├── server/        # FastAPI server code
│   ├── models/        # Pydantic data models
│   └── utils/         # Shared utilities
├── templates/         # Jinja2 HTML templates
├── static/           # CSS, fonts, icons
├── tests/            # Comprehensive test suite
└── deploy/           # Installation scripts

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please see our Contributing Guide for details.

Key requirements:

• Python 3.11+
• Type hints for all code
• Tests for new functionality (maintain 94%+ coverage)
• Follow existing code style

Acknowledgements

• Weather Icons - Beautiful weather icons
• Phosphor Icons - Battery status icons
• OpenWeatherMap - Weather data API
• Atkinson Hyperlegible - Readable font
• The Raspberry Pi and e-paper display communities for inspiration

Special thanks to:

• Kimmo Brunfeldt
• Faith Ak

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.