Hacker News Reader

Comment by bengale | Hacker News Reader

I’m always surprised how much people seem to want to constantly know the weather.

I'm in Scotland. Looking outside and seeing blue skies does not mean it's safe to leave without a rain jacket, or a thermal layer. Seeing fog in the morning doesn't mean you don't need shorts for the afternoon. It being 0 outside today doesn't mean it won't be 10 degrees tomorrow. Knowing it's going to rain between 10 and 2 is good motivation to take the dog out before 10. Knowing it's going to rain on Sunday but be clear on Saturday is a good reason to book outdoor activites (golf) on Saturday instead.

Yes, but it's the kind of information you need once a day on average and you are good to go.

Instead you find it placed on your smartphone homescreen, on the smartwatch, on the home dashboard, on a notification you receive every morning, on your car screen, on your computer, ... I don't need to see it constantly.

Personally I believe it is something that it is easy to integrate and that users don't perceive as useless, but 99% of the time doesn't add any value

This may due to geographical differences, not sure where you live versus OP but I have lived in at least 7 different cities throughout my life and in some of those I had to deal with really unpredictable weather whereas in others it was easier to just wing it and not regret leaving with a jacket or umbrella for example.

It could be that they live in an area with more variable or more unpredictable weather than you. Or that they are much more outdoorsy. Or something else altogether. I'm surprised by your surprise. People live wildly different lifes and have correspondingly wide-ranging needs and preferences.

I think with more outdoor activities, it's important to know what is waiting you in a few hour. For cycling example wind and rain information is rather good to know.

Yeah, I bike regularly on and off (season/mood/goals dependent, honestly), and knowing what I should expect on my commute to work /and/ back is important... and not something I can predict without looking at the weather in the morning.

Strong correlation with those who go outside.

HN users baffled then

Seems like if you were going outside often, you wouldn't need an e-ink display to tell you the weather because you'd be outside... experiencing it

There’s a lot of places where the weather can suddenly change. People want to know if it’s about to start pouring rain in a couple hours despite looking nice right now.

In Colorado the weather shifts are jarring and sudden.

Depending on where you live, if you're the type of person who spend most of the day away from home, having some understanding of the weather to expect throughout the day is very useful for not experiencing the weather too much.

Very useful to know if it's likely to rain or be windy, and the highs and lows. I might be leaving at noon when it's comfortable and warm outside, but I might be coming home needing a thick jacket and an umbrella. If I'm already outside experiencing the sudden rainstorm and my umbrella is at home, it doesn't really matter that it wasn't raining when I left home many hours ago.

Yes, but you need this information once, maybe twice a day, instead all smart devices tend to present it to you constantly.

I have a pixel device, and by default I have the weather on both lock screen and home screen. Every morning I receive a notification with the expected weather for the day, and it keeps suggesting me to enable the weather preview right after the morning alarm.

Garmin smartwatch? Same

Android car / Apple car? Same

MacOS has the weather as one of the most prominent widgets available, and I believe windows to be the same.

Do I really need to have weather info constantly available to me?

That's the weather right now. I want to know what the weather will be like through the day and across days. I'd rather do something else in the morning, however if it's ok now and going to rain in two hours, I'll get everyone outside now and do the inside job later. Is it going to clear up soon and I should wait 10 minutes or get worse and I should be getting out right now? Should we put off the march through the woods until tomorrow when it's nicer or do it today because this is the nicest day we'll have this week? Should my wife cycle to the gym? It's ok now but if it's going to be torrential in 15 minutes that'll suck.

The same reason you use a calendar, to plan for the future. I can see the weather right now, but to plan, I want to know the weather in an hour, this afternoon, tomorrow, this weekend. When I am getting ready at 5am, I want to know if I can bike to work, and bike home in the afternoon, without getting rained on. If I'm thinking about weekend plans, should it be kayaking or board games? The weather affects those choices and having an unobtrusive way to just be aware of the future weather is nice to have.

Australia is the skin cancer capital of the world, with 2 in 3 of us diagnosed by age 70. The most used complication on my Apple Watch is the UV index, beating out weather temp, battery etc.

Which is weird because it's pretty straightforward to work out if you need sunscreen or not:

  * Is it any month other than May-August?  
  
  * Is it after 10am or before 4pm?

Probably need some sun screen.

If you have very light skin you might want to increase the timeframe by an hour.

And if you really want to optimise your sunscreen usage and not use it if you don't have to, the real-time UV index from ARPANSA is the way to go (https://www.arpansa.gov.au/our-services/monitoring/ultraviol...).

All other apps simply display the expected UV index given the time of the day and the day of the year.

Sunscreen for the face should just be daily. My dermatologist recommends it even in Berlin in the Winter.

And then, this is most critical, use mineral or at least creamy sunscreen (sprays barely do anything) and put it on a few minutes before sun exposure - not when you start feeling it.

Agree that the UV index is not particularly useful - it's kind of obvious. Still good to know though.

Not constantly but instantly. And because you don’t when they want it you have to show it always. Just like clocks always show the time.

Here in Reno, especially at this time of year, constant knowledge of the weather = constant knowledge of whether to expect road closures / traffic delays from snow, or whether I need to add extra time before going somewhere to defrost the windshield and remove snow, or whether I should grab a jacket.

Do you own property? Does it flood? Do you live in a place where a rapidly forming storm may cause flooding?

I was weather-status neutral until I bought a house that has flooding challenges. Knowing that enough rain that could trigger flooding helps me avoid surprise cleanups and property damage.

So what do you do with the information that your house is about to flood? Do you have a special flood prevention technique that you can only put into action when you know the rain is coming?

> Does it flood? Do you live in a place where a rapidly forming storm may cause flooding?

Emphatically no, as someone who cares about avoiding chronic health problems for myself and my family.

Even water-damaged concrete is enough to drive CIRS. Been there, done that.

Agreed. Especially the current weather conditions. That's mostly useless info. Knowing the weather forecast for tomorrow or this weekend is actually useful.

It's strange that pretty much every weather widget assumes you want to know the current weather conditions and not the forecast.

Eh, depends. If you have a dog, and live in a place with actual seasons, February requires frequently checking the current conditions before you head out—at least where we live, it could be anywhere from -10°C to +12°C right now, raining, snowing—annoying to put on a light jacket because you let the sun fool you, and discover it's freezing and starting to rain once you're on the field.

That said: I seem to get by pretty well with a lowly smartphone so far.

Still, isn't the forecast for one hour from now more useful than literally now? You can see that through the window (and feel it on your face by opening the window).

About the only thing about the weather I can tell from my window is whether it is currently raining or not.

The temperature inside is not at all indicative of the temperature outside, the sun being out doesn't mean it is warm, and I don't really have any useful indicators of wind, unless the windows are rattling, but that doesn't let me know if there's a stiff breeze.

I could walk over and open up my balcony door and experience it all personally, but checking my phone or watch is faster and more accurate, and also gives me the forecast at the same time.

Not really - it might not be raining where I am but rain is in the area and it will cross where I walk.

Others have mentioned why. But I also want to add that feeling the temperature over the window might not tell an accurate picture of how cold/hot it could feel over time. I've had instances where I dressed for how cold it felt, only to find myself freezing because I didn't feel the breeze during that short moment I sticked my head out.

Raining outside my window and likely rain right now are different, also wind speed. Opening a window isn't very accurate for wind at all, and I feel like you're acknowledging there that knowing that part can be useful, why not just have it written down?

> Especially the current weather conditions. That's mostly useless info

Do you... not go outside? And not need to know if you need the heavy coat, light coat, light waterproof coat, and/or umbrella? Or pants vs shorts? And the answers are very different at 7am vs 11am vs 3pm?

I'm not trying to be sarcastic, I'm just genuinely baffled.

I watch through the window to see the current weather, except for the temperature, which I assume is more or less the same as yesterday. I know it’s colder at night, but that’s true every night. It’s all very approximative, but I just can’t be bothered to look up the weather. I like not thinking about it at the cost of sometimes being surprised.

> except for the temperature, which I assume is more or less the same as yesterday

I guess you live somewhere very, very different from me.

And I guess I just don't enjoy the surprise of shivering cold, or soaking sweat, when I choose the wrong jacket.

If you have to walk the dog and know in advance it will stop or start raining in 20 minutes....

No forecast is accurate to 20 minutes. You get x% of rain over the next hour or so at best.

Plenty have short term info about the current rain situation. You can check the radar too. Frankly just knowing that while it's clear here it's hammering it down not far away and it's been heading towards us this morning gives me a solid idea even if I'm not a meterologist.

Accuweather's Minutecast is usually accurate for rain to within 5 minutes and have used it to time my bike commute. It uses your specific location and if rain is passing over that specific spot, and when, over the next 4 hours.

I had Windows^(TM) installed in my house when it was built. We're on the top of a 700' hill, so The Weather is pretty accurate.

Ooh that reminds me of my weather rock.

If you put a roof overhead, it rains less.

I commute by bicycle so I choose my remote working times to avoid rain. So yes weather affects my day-to-day.

Same. You can always tell how is going to be the weather by yourself. Depending on how much time have you lived in the same place you can predict the weather for the day when you get up or, if you are a completely stranger to the environment, at least half an hour before.

Outside my house right now it’s a cold, still evening with a high overcast. My expectation based on my years of experience living here and having seen these conditions before would be that it would likely clear out overnight, freeze hard, and be a beautiful day tomorrow.

In fact, though, a massive bomb cyclone is forming a few hundred miles away and it’s likely to dump over a foot of snow on us in the next 24 hours, accompanied by 50mph winds.

Weather forecasts are, not surprisingly, actually useful.

While this is true in many places, i believe it is also quite untrue in many more. For example where I live, it was snowing last week. Quite cold but you can't tell csuse the snow already disappeared by the morning. And then suddenly it was sunny a few days after. Today, it was as sunny as the past few days, but the temperature was quite warm. Couldn't tell just by looking outside.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com