A Beautiful Wooden Weather Forecast Cloud Display

If you’d like to know the forecast, you likely check out a website or app on your phone, but how much better would it be if there was a…

Jeremy Cook
7 years agoWeather

If you’d like to know the forecast, you likely check out a website or app on your phone, but how much better would it be if there was a simple display on your wall at all times, telling you this information at a glance? Hacker, Kirby, of the Stuff with Kirby blog, made just such a device using a programmable LED strip, a Raspberry Pi Zero W, several layers of wood, and a diffuser to form a translucent wooden cloud model.

The design is inspired by a flame on top of the Wisconsin Gas Building that changes color depending on the forecast, but Kirby instead made his display in the form of a cloud that he thought would look nicer on the wall. The Pi Zero W pulls data off of the Yahoo Weather API, and causes the LED strip to change colors depending on the forecast for the next day. It also blinks if rain or snow is expected.

The wooden layers that form this cloud are CNC-cut and, were aligned with dowels and holes integrated into each layer, before gluing things into place. A cut USB cable is threaded through the bottom of the cloud to power the Pi.

Though cut out of wood, it’s noted that this gadget could be 3D-printed, and the necessary files are included in his instructables writeup linked above. The results are a quite pleasing, giving off a colored glow, depending on the upcoming forecast.

Jeremy Cook
Engineer, maker of random contraptions, love learning about tech. Write for various publications, including Hackster!
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