AcuRiteSniffer

Reads weather data packets sent by AcuRite SmartHUBs and makes the data accessible locally via a simple embedded web server that returns JSON.

For this to work, your network must be be configured to mirror packets from the SmartHUB to the computer running this service.

This service is designed for people who are very computer literate. If you don't know an IP address from a MAC address, you shouldn't waste your time with this project.

Prerequisites

You will need one AcuRite SmartHUB, some compatible sensors, and a Windows PC running this service. You will also need to set up your network such that packets sent from the SmartHUB to AcuRite's servers are mirrored to the PC running this service.

WinPcap must be installed on the PC.

Mirroring network traffic

In order for the weather data to be captured, the network packets must first be sent to your PC.

With a hub

The simplest way to mirror network the SmartHUB's traffic is to connect the SmartHUB and the PC both to a plain old ethernet hub (not a switch, but a hub). All traffic that enters a hub through any port gets duplicated and sent to all the hub's other ports, and this achieves our goal.

With a managed switch

Another way is to use a managed switch or router with port mirroring functionality.

With a linux router

If your router firmware (such as DD-WRT or Tomato) is based on Linux and allows you to run custom shell commands, you can selectively mirror the traffic using iptables.

iptables -A PREROUTING -t mangle -s ipSource -j ROUTE --gw ipSniffer --tee

This command says to duplicate all packets originating from IP Address ipSource and send a copy to the Address ipSniffer. It needs to be run every time your router boots up. There is typically more than one way to achieve this. In my router running Tomato firmware, I pasted this command into Administration > Scripts > WAN Up so the command would be executed whenever my internet connection comes online.

So if your SmartHUB's address is 192.168.0.135 and your PC's address is 192.168.0.100, then you would run this command:

iptables -A PREROUTING -t mangle -s 192.168.0.135 -j ROUTE --gw 192.168.0.100 --tee

You can remove the rule by changing the -A to -D:

iptables -D PREROUTING -t mangle -s ipSource -j ROUTE --gw ipThisPC --tee

You can list this and similar rules that have been configured using the command:

iptables -t mangle -L

Usage

1. Configure your network to mirror traffic from your SmartHUB to the PC you wish to run this service on. There is some guidance above, but otherwise you are on your own. Also, install WinPcap on the PC (this is used to sniff the SmartHUB's network traffic).
2. Download AcuRiteSniffer from the releases section and extract wherever you like.
3. Run the executable. It requires administrator permission in order to install itself as a service.
4. When the service manager window appears, click Edit Settings at the bottom of the window.
   • If desired, change the port number which the embedded web server listens on.
   • Enter the IP address of your SmartHUB. You'll want to create a DHCP reservation for it, in your router, if you have not already.
   • Select the network interface that will be receiving packets from the SmartHUB.
5. In the service manager window, click Install Service, then click Start Service.
6. Load AcuRiteSniffer's web interface (default: http://127.0.0.1:45411/)
   • The default page of the web interface is a list of links you can use to access sensor data. As sensors are detected, additional links are added to the page (though you must refresh the page to see them).
   • Sensor data is intended to be consumed in JSON format.

AcuRite Access

AcuRite Access is a device which replaced SmartHUBs in 2018. It uses https for data uploads, which means we can't passively sniff the traffic. Fortunately, it does not validate server certificates and it is possible to change the address of the server where the Access uploads data. To use this program with AcuRite Access, configure your DHCP server to always assign the same IP address to the AcuRite Access device(s) on your LAN. Then, in this program's service manager, add the IP addresses of the AcuRite Access device(s) and configure if necessary for https to listen on port 443 (it must be this port, and that port can't be used for anything else -- SKYPE has a bad habit of taking port 443!). In the web interface of the AcuRite Access, use your browser's developer tools to remove the 'disabled="disabled"' attribute from the Server Name text field. This will allow you to change the value in the text field, and when you save the settings it should actually take effect on the device, saving us the trouble of having to spoof the DNS records. The default value as of March 2018 is atlasapi.myacurite.com in case you need to restore it later. At this point, assuming no local firewalls are blocking the traffic, the Access device should now be communicating with this program, and this program should be proxying each web connection from the Access to the real atlasapi.myacurite.com service so your device remains fully operational.

File Templates

To facilitate integration with some 3rd-party software (notably, Blue Iris), the service is capable of writing sensor data to simple text files on disk.

Within the service settings, there is a button Edit text file definitions which allows you to teach the service how you would like these files to be written. Consider the example configuration:

[24C86E000000_12345678]Temperature: ##tempf##°\nHumidity: ##humidity##\nAt ##date## ##time##
[24C86E000000_00001234=myWindSpeed.txt]##windspeedmph## MPH
[24C86E000000_00001234=myWindDirection.txt]##winddir##

The first line specifies that data from the sensor with UniqueID 24C86E000000_12345678 should be output following this template: Temperature: ##tempf##°\nHumidity: ##humidity##\nAt ##date## ##time##

This would result in a text file named 24C86E000000_12345678.txt with content similar to the following:

Temperature: 40°
Humidity: 25
At 2017-11-20 10:00:00 PM

The second line of the example configuration specifies that the wind speed from sensor 24C86E000000_00001234 should be output to a file named myWindSpeed.txt.

The third line specifies that the wind direction from the same sensor 24C86E000000_00001234 should be output to a file named myWindDirection.txt.

Note 1: All such files are written using text encoding Windows-1252.

Note 2: Files are saved to the SensorData subdirectory next to the service executable.

Note 3: The /params page (hosted by the embedded web server) lists all the sensor UniqueIDs and the available parameters that you can use in a file template.

Version 2.0 Changes

SmartHUB compatibility has been removed.

AcuRite Access compatibility still works, but is now deprecated in favor of acquiring sensor data from an SDR radio.

Friendly names can be assigned to devices via the AcuRiteSniffer web interface.

SDR compatibility

The service can now handle AcuRite sensor data read by rtl_433 software (using an SDR radio such as RTL-SDR). However instead of interfacing with rtl_433 directly, it is required to have rtl_433 publish sensor data to an MQTT broker. Connect AcuRiteSniffer to the same MQTT broker in order to read the sensor data.

This functionality was developed using Home Assistant addons Mosquitto broker and rtl_433 (rtl_433 MQTT Auto Discovery is another nice addon which exposes your wireless sensors directly to Home Assistant).

Benefits of SDR radio:

• Everything runs locally, no cloud-connected device that the manufacturer will eventually stop supporting
• Hardware cost cheaper than AcuRite Access
• Better receiving antennas are available
• No 7-sensor limit (AcuRite Access supports up to 7 sensors per base station)
• Immediate data acquisition (AcuRite Access publishes data on a relatively long interval)

Benefits of AcuRite Access:

• All-in-one solution with free cloud service, data graphing, alerts, etc.
• Easy to set up and share sensor data

Sample rtl_433 configuration

This is from my own rtl_433 configuration which is saved to the file /config/rtl_433/rtl_433.conf.template on the device running Home Assistant. (tip: use the File editor addon for Home Assistant if you otherwise don't have filesystem access).

# This is an empty template for configuring rtl_433. mqtt information will be
# automatically added. Create multiple files ending in '.conf.template' to
# manage multiple rtl_433 radios, being sure to set the 'device' setting.
# https://github.com/merbanan/rtl_433/blob/master/conf/rtl_433.example.conf

output mqtt://${host}:${port},user=${username},pass=${password},retain=${retain}

# Uncomment the following line to also enable the default "table" output to the addon logs.
#output kv

frequency   433.92M
convert     customary
report_meta time:utc

#[11]  Acurite 609TXC Temperature and Humidity Sensor
protocol 11
# [40]  Acurite 592TXR Temp/Humidity, 5n1 Weather Station, 6045 Lightning, 3N1, Atlas
protocol 40
# [41]  Acurite 986 Refrigerator / Freezer Thermometer
protocol 41
# [55]  Acurite 606TX Temperature Sensor
protocol 55
# [74]  Acurite 00275rm,00276rm Temp/Humidity with optional probe
protocol 74
# [163]  Acurite 590TX Temperature with optional Humidity
protocol 163
# [197]  Acurite Grill/Meat Thermometer 01185M
protocol 197

Building from source

This project is built with Visual Studio 2017 (Community Edition). To build from source, you will also need my general-purpose utility library, which must be downloaded separately, here: https://github.com/bp2008/BPUtil