What is Reddit's opinion of PressureNet?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

Consider running my open source app for citizen science, PressureNet on Android. It uses the barometer in your smartphone to periodically measure the atmospheric pressure, and the data is sent to scientists for analysis.

We're specifically aiming to increase the accuracy and lead-time on severe weather alerts. We think that dense networks of barometers could make a dramatic improvement on forecast accuracy.

There was a recent scientific paper demonstrating our data being used in a forecast, and it seems to work a little bit! We need more data, however, so do you want to join? Cheers!

Surface Pressure Observations from Smartphones: A Potential Revolution for High-Resolution Weather Prediction?

I make crowdsourced sensor data apps for Android, and I wrote briefly about the earthquake idea in a blog post here: Open Source Software is Important for Modern Science: A call for open crowdsourcing platforms. My idea is more about the accelerometer, which you can monitor at high frequency when the device is plugged in and charging. Charging devices are also more likely to be static, which means the data will be good.

You might need about a million devices in a geography with earthquakes, as the noise will be a lot of work to remove otherwise.

I'm currently working on crowdsourced barometer data only, for PressureNet.

I've been running PressureNet for a while now on my android phone.

It's focused more on collecting data I feel like than giving your forecasts, but you can also get weather alerts and hourly weather from it.

>For example a lot of phones include barometers for the purpose of altitude but secondary purpose you can measure barometric pressure and there are scientific apps dedicated to lots of users recording their microclimate and reporting it for crowdsourced barometry data!

Till I installed this app, I was unaware my phone even had a barometer!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.cumulonimbus.barometernetwork

The pressure is dropping rapidly, here's a 24-hour graph: http://imgur.com/lTAOPtT

via PressureNet, which uses your phone's barometer to help scientists improve weather forecasting.

I also upgraded from Nexus 4 to the Zenfone 2 (4GB). It's an upgrade in every way basically. The battery life is not very good, but it's still better than what I had with the Nexus 4. It's bigger, faster, better screen, good loud sound (N4 was kinda quiet when ringing), MicroSD, dual sim etc.
Should be noted that the nexus was surprisingly snappy due to the pure android, so it was punching way above it's weight usability wise. Still, the Zenfone has much newer hardware and even with the added ASUS stuff, it's still faster. The only things missing are wireless charging, a barometer (was useful for PressureNet) and timely updates (we still don't have Android 5.1).
I have only used the ZE551ML (4GB), so I can't comment on the other versions.

I'm really interested in fast-changing conditions in patterns like this. I envision near-perfect predictions of when storms will arrive, when there will be sunshine, how intense the rain will be. I think we can make this happen because most smartphones have barometers in them! We could connect millions of weather stations together in a crowdsourced effort. I make an Android app, PressureNet that automatically records barometric pressure data and sends it to scientists for analysis. What do you think?

If you're in a bit storm like the ones that might be coming tonight, you can watch your own pressure graph fall rapidly as the storm approaches. It's pretty neat. Also, you can submit and receive manual weather reports if you like, it would be super cool to map all of the reports across different parts of the city.

Sincere question: why should people report their barometric readings to your app vs the more widely-used PressureNet? The latter lets you view other readings already and IIRC it's actively being used for research.

I don't know what I'm talking about at all, but is it possible that you're taking datapoints away from a more developed and useful project?

soo pressurenet but of IOS?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.cumulonimbus.barometernetwork&hl=en

edit have you thought about working with them on their "open" database to get a larger reading sample size? https://www.pressurenet.io/

If you happen to have an Android phone with a barometer (any recent Android phone likely does), install PressureNET. This app crowdsources pressure measurements, something that has been shown in research to improve weather forecasts.

It sounds like you're looking for something to program, but can't think of a good programming-related task, unfortunately. Most of the research-based programming that's done in meteorology is done as part of an individual's research or a larger collaborative project, both of which don't lend themselves to outside assistance very easily.

This is rooted in the fact that FOSS is not a term often seen in the field, though there has been some attempt to change that. A lot of the big research models (at least in the US) are now open source (though they're way too big for one person to just start digging into), and there is a push to do more work in freely available languages like Python instead of languages like FORTRAN and MATLAB. Git and other collaborative tools have barely made an appearance for most people.

Hopefully, someone else here has an idea though; the field could always use more code contributed by people who actually enjoy coding! A lot of code is developed by scientists that have little interest in coding and view it as a necessary obstacle to getting science done.

Temperature, barometer and humidity sensors allow for detailed weather details; additionally, I use PressureNet to submit my readings for use in scientific studies. These types of sensors are usually not included or are otherwise worthless on a waterproof device as to maintain water tightness it doesn't allow for readings to be taken accurately.

What the hell are you talking about? Every weather app I've come across has had a "What's the weather outside near you look like?" notification popup to crowdsource the weather.

The only unique one I've come across is PressureNet:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.cumulonimbus.barometernetwork&hl=en

It takes advantage of the barometer and GPS in everyone's smartphone to create a searchable database of extremely high resolution air pressure maps - scientists didn't have access to this kind of data before.

Hi DC, may I pop in and recommend my open source Android app that uses the barometer in your smartphone to crowdsource live atmospheric pressure data for research? Our academic partners are working on dramatically improving forecast accuracy for severe thunderstorms, and this app feeds live data to them for analysis.

Our aim is to detect these storms in their early-formation stages, so that we can produce alerts much earlier in advance and with much higher confidence.

My app is called PressureNet on Android, and it's open source and free to use. The data is primarily sent to Cliff Mass, a researcher at the University of Washington, who recently published this paper with our data: Surface Pressure Observations from Smartphones: A Potential Revolution for High-Resolution Weather Prediction?.

If you're an Android developer, you can check out the source code for our SDK and help us improve it, or even add it to your app so that you're contributing to our network as well.

Thanks!

There is PressureNet (Android app, I'm the dev) and also WeatherSignal (iOS and Android).

And you're probably referring to Cliff Mass, at the University of Washington? His blog is awesome: http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/

The data source is PressureNet (Android App), my open source app for crowdsourcing barometric pressure data from sensors in smartphones. The barometer data is sampled every 30 minutes on average, and you can see the low pressure cross NYC in this chart. The goal of the project is to dramatically improve weather forecast accuracy. This data is sent to scientists who are analyzing how to use it best in new weather models.

One recent paper is by Cliff Mass, a professor at the University of Washington: Surface Pressure Observations from Smartphones: A Potential Revolution for High-Resolution Weather Prediction?

The graphing tool is plot.ly, I used Excel at the beginning to process the data prior to plotly.

Is this better than the old PressureNet App?

PressureNet doing it: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.cumulonimbus.barometernetwork&hl=en

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.cumulonimbus.barometernetwork&hl=en

Probably because PressureNet already exists and works with most flagship Android phones.

Thank you for your kind words! Also I should mention the project is open source, so anyone who is an Android developer can also contribute by improving the code or even adding it to their own app to join the network! Our SDK source code is here on GitHub.

You can also just download the PressureNet app on Android if you haven't already :)

And for any atmospheric scientists here, you can access the live data feed by signing up for an API key on our site here.

Thanks again for your kind words!

PressureNET has been around for years, and they've been doing fantastic work partnering with researchers.

For Android use PressureNet: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.cumulonimbus.barometernetwork

Works quite well, has been around for years and is well established.

Pressurenet on Android (not for iPhone) is similar.

I have a Samsung phone so I use Pressurenet.

Back in the day I used the PressureNet's app on my phone for the purpose of crowd sourced barometer data.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.cumulonimbus.barometernetwork

It hasn't been updated in a while but they were giving the date to scientists and universities.