DIY Weather Enthusiasts Rejoice: The Live Regional Weather Clock Project

A fascinating new do-it-yourself project, the "Live Regional Weather Clock," has been making waves among the maker community, offering a clever way to bring real-time regional weather information right to your desk. Featured on Instructables, this project utilizes an ESP32 microcontroller and a trio of round QSPI color screens to create a dynamic, animated weather panel.

Created by maker 陳亮, the device gathers the latest weather imagery from regional observatory departments, such as radar, satellite, and live photo feeds. The core concept leverages the Wi-Fi capability of the ESP32 to fetch updated images from the internet at regular intervals (every 5, 6, or 10 minutes), saving them to a Micro-SD card. The downloaded images are then played back in sequence, creating a timelapse animation of recent weather patterns—a feature that develops over a few hours as more images are collected.

Key Components and Construction

The project requires a few main components:

• A Waveshare ESP32-S3-Zero development board.

• Three 1.5" round QSPI color screens.

• A Micro-SD card slot breakout board and an SD card.

• Standard electronic supplies like resistors, a breadboard, and connection wires.

The instructable provides a detailed, step-by-step guide covering software preparation (including setting up the Arduino IDE, Arduino-ESP32, and required libraries like Arduino_GFX and JPEGDEC), wiring connections, and sample code available on GitHub.

The author notes that while the sample code is configured to use the Hong Kong Observatory's imagery, the project is customizable. By updating the required web site root CA Certificate, users can easily modify the code to pull live weather images from their own regional weather service.

The end result is a polished and functional weather panel, moving beyond a simple temperature display to offer a real-time, animated visualization of local weather, cloud movements, and precipitation. It's an excellent project for those looking to combine electronics, programming, and a practical application of real-world data.