Automation
The forecast is part of the decision
Watering a garden the afternoon before a thunderstorm is the most wasteful thing a 'smart' planter can do. PlantHub looks ahead before it acts.
Where weather data comes from
PlantHub uses OpenWeatherMap as the default forecast provider. Each zone (or device, if no zone is set) has a latitude/longitude pulled from device registration. Forecasts are cached for 30 minutes per location to stay well inside free-tier rate limits.
What the AI checks before acting
- Precipitation probability over the next 6 hours. If rain is likely, watering is deferred or skipped.
- Forecast highs. If a heatwave is coming, the AI may pre-water and pre-vent so the plant enters the heat at peak hydration and airflow.
- Forecast lows. Frost warnings raise alerts and can trigger heater rules in greenhouses.
- Humidity trend. Sudden drops can trigger mist actuators on greenhouse zones.
Indoor zones skip weather checks
Zones tagged as indoor ignore the forecast — your basil on a kitchen windowsill is not affected by the rain outside. Greenhouse and outdoor zones use the forecast directly.
Rule-based fallback
Even if you have AI disabled, the rule engine factors in weather: any watering rule is suppressed when rain is expected within the configurable lookahead (default 6 hours). This applies to compiled offline rules too — weather is part of the last sync before they run.
API access
The current weather and forecast for any device are exposed at GET /api/v1/weather/{nodeId}. A lightweight summary endpoint returns just the dashboard-needed fields to keep payloads small.