Version 495 and server improvements

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Version 495 is now available. We also made some improvements on the server side.

  • One cool change is clickable links in the alert bar details.

  • We've also switched to kPa instead of hPa for pressure as that's most commonly used in Canada. If you like hPa, simply move the decimal point in your minds-eye. Eg. 101.35 kPa is 1013.5 hPa. :) We plan to add hPa as an option eventually. Thank you for your patience!

  • Humidex & Windchill added for "Feels like". You can choose between the hybrid feels like that includes wind and cloud or the more traditional Humidex/Windchill.

  • Humidity & Pressure for "Minutes" & "Hourly" products.

  • Big improvements to notification speed, especially for a large alert. More improvements coming soon!

  • Added & refined our Instant Updates™ for localized severe weather notifications .

  • Other bug and stability fixes (more coming!)

  • Great news! We’ve launched a fix on our servers (no update required) to combine alerts that are located in one alert-area into one single notification instead of several.

    Eg. Barrie, Oro, Collingwood

    Please keep an eye on it and let us know how it works! 

You can choose under settings the method used for the feels like calculation

You can choose under settings the method used for the feels like calculation

Humidity and pressure added to minutes and hourly products

Humidity and pressure added to minutes and hourly products

Hybrid feels like

Hybrid feels like

Humidex feels like

Humidex feels like

Note wind, humidity, and new pressure units

Note wind, humidity, and new pressure units

Environment Canada Alert Criteria

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Ever wonder about the criteria that Environment Canada uses to issues their alerts. Here is the link for severe thunderstorms watches and warnings https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/types-weather-forecasts-use/public/criteria-alerts.html#severeThunderstorm. If you scroll up and down the page you can see all the other alerts as well (for example Wreckhouse Winds 💨😮). Some of the alerts are location specific and also the criteria can be different for different locations and different times of the year as well. Our app will send out push notifications (if enabled) and the Environment Canada alerts will appear in our app. Not all thunderstorms for example meet the criteria for a watch or a warning.

Version 480 coming soon

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Version 480 has been submitted and we're waiting for approval!!!

Our internal testing looks good! I've submitted 480 for approval on both iOS and Android!

Here's what 480 brings:

1. No more missing radar imagery. Yes!!!

2. Improved severe weather notification system (custom Instant Updates for severe weather. See image for example)

3. When the app is minimized and opened, it stays where you were. Only when the app is completely closed does it open back to your top location

4. Alert pop-up box for all notifications that can be dismissed or take you to the new alert by pressing "Display"

5. Several bug and performances tweaks

Woohoo! Thank you!!

- Adam

IMG_5156.jpeg

Custom Severe Updates

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We’re working hard at adding our custom severe weather notification details to our new free app Instant Weather.

We send these custom severe updates out for tornado potential, dangerous wind gusts, large hail, and more.

Until we finish adding this feature, if you see a notification from us but nothing shows up in the app, please visit our Facebook page for the details.

We’re working hard to complete this feature! More details ASAP.

Thank you!

- Adam

Multiple Special Weather Statement update

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We're deploying new code to our servers soon to limit the multiple Special Weather Statements and limit many of the continued alerts that have been annoying, to say the least.

Woohoo!

The only exception will be anything tornado-related as any continued may have updated messages from Environment Canada in the details and those could be critical like "Spotter has confirmed a tornado the ground 20km east of Somethingville."

Here's hoping the new code runs flawlessly live but thankfully, if any fixes are required we can do them on our end without needing any app updates.

More details ASAP!

Multiple Special Weather Statement notifications

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Receiving multiple Special Weather Statement notifications in a row needs to be fixed in the notification logic and we have plans to limit these to 1 for at least a few hours. Sorry about that! Working on a fix for it! 

Adam

What we are working on

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Good morning! We’ll be internally testing some ipad/tablet fixes for those in landscape and some server side improvements today.

Next is notification speed improvements and after that, we’ll return to developing the widget, dark mode, and current conditions improvements. 

Adam

Notification Stress Test - Postponed

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Update: We have decided to postpone the stress test until we make some improvements to the notification system.

There will be a stress test of the system where we notify everyone on all locations on Sunday at March 1 2020 at 8 PM ET.

Please make sure that you have the latest version of the app. Currently 1.0.465

Thanks.

Ps. More details to follow.

App alert delays

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Noticing some app alert delays when sending to large regions like all of a province at the same time for example or larger cities where we have thousands of notifications to send now.

Our Text Message Alerts subscriptions seem unaffected by this and are arriving earlier than any other option so this seems to be something between us and our service provider for push notifications.

Looking into it and we may be migrating our notifications to a different provider that promises faster speeds but costs more. Working to get this addressed ASAP!

We can't be "Instant" weather if we're not sending alerts instantly. :)

- Adam

Push Notification Troubleshooting

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Check list

  1. Check the version of the app that you are running. We recommend 1.0.465 at the time of writing this post. You can see this at the bottom of the screen.

  2. Make sure your bells are green on the locations page. Simply touch them if they are white.

  3. Check that your device has notifications turned on for Instant Weather under Settings (gear icon).

    iOS settings > notifications > Instant Weather

    Android settings > Apps > Instant Weather > App Notifications (slight differences depending on version of Android)

    See below for screenshots.

  4. Add a location that is currently experiencing severe weather and has an alert see Environment Canada web page. You will need to wait for the alert to be updated or cancelled before you receive a push notification.

Other important tips and information

  1. Currently the app only sends out one push notification if you have a number of locations that are covered by the same EC alert. It also only specifies one location in the push notification. So unless you open the app and swipe to every location you will not know which locations are covered by the push notification. There are a few possible solutions to this. We could make it a configurable setting so that the user can decide if they want to receive one push notification per location or one per "group". Another solution would be changing the push notification to list the locations that it covers instead of only one. My guess is that there would be a limit to the number of locations that could be listed. Another related idea is to have an icon on the locations page next to each location with an alert so instead of swiping to each location you can see on locations page which ones have an alert. 

  2. Opening the app clears all the push notifications. So if you had any “unread” push notifications as soon as you open the app they will disappear.

  3. Until we include "Always Allow" location permissions, it is probably a good idea when traveling to either open the app fairly often or at worst, leave it minimized. Completely closing down the app will most likely not allow the location to update and this is possibly what is causing some users to occasionally receive alerts from an area they have recently visited.

If you think that you are missing notifications and the above has not helped or clarified things we would like to help troubleshoot this with you. Please send email to help@instantweather.ca.

iOS notifications screen

iOS notifications screen

Android notifications screen

Android notifications screen