WeeWX released version 5 of its Weather Station software. While there were a lot of foundational improvements, as usually indicated by a major version change, there is little here in terms of showstopping features. Which is fine, this is a stable project, showstopping features are not what is expected. But a lot of essential updates and refactoring. A few highlights:
- Minimum Python version is now 3.6. Considering the previous minimum hit end of life in January of 2020, this is sort of a necessity. Python 3.6 hit end of life at the end of 2021. Python is currently at 3.12, which was released in October of 2023 and will not hit end of life until 2028. But in my experience, if you don’t have a reason to drop support for an older version, is there a reason just because it isn’t supported any longer? It can be a slow gradual process. For me, WeeWX supporting 3.0 meant I didn’t have to install multiple versions of Python.
- A new utility, weectl, replaces all the individual utilities.
- Package installs now use systemd…Systemd has been a staple on Linux systems for over a year.
- Several Enhancements for Derived Types, including a fix to an issue related to an Air Quality Index calculating extension
A worthy update which should improve the performance and stability of your weather tracking system. While an upgrade is not immediately necessary, it would be worthwhile to update your installation of WeeWX to version 5.0 in the next few months.