Multiple Special Weather Statement notifications

/

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

Blowing spray

/

Blowing spray is an interesting forecast especially when you are not near a body of water unless you have a sprinkler going 😉. It really should only come up for locations that are near a body of water. If you see blowing spray in your forecast assume that it will be windy and if you are near a body of water visibility may be reduced due to displaced water droplets. Here is a link to a definition from the American Meteorological Society.

Hamilton Ontario - fixed

/

I just received an email from one of our data providers that said they found corrupt raw data that was skewing the temperature result and are working on putting in front-line fixes to mitigate this from happening again in the future. Thank you to all those in Hamilton who let us know about this issue and were patient as we got it addressed. We really appreciate it!

Adam

What we are working on

/

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

/

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

/

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

/

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

Apps and bugs

/

Something I’d like to clarify for those who may not know; every weather app (make that, every app) on the market from big to small has a % of their users that experience bugs.

Our % is actually extremely low for a relatively new app and with this many new users in such a short period of time. The difference is, we like to put it all out in the open.

I’ve personally suffered in silence with software and app bugs since the late 80’s and I’ve decided the only way to run IW is with development transparency and open communication for everyone using the app.

A big reason for that approach is that this community has entirely funded this project. No investors, no board of directors, just our generous, extraordinary community members that have believed in us from the beginning and have stuck by our side through thick and thin.

We answer only to this community and we will stop at nothing to get this right. This is your app as much as it’s ours and we will continue to carefully listen to your candid feedback, aggressively go after bugs, and work with you one by one until everyone in our community is receiving the best possible forecasting and alerting services available.

Thank you for joining us on this wild adventure and I can honestly say it’s inspiring to wake up every day to this amazing community knowing that with every tweak and every small improvement, this app will continue to become something truly special and useful for all of us. ❤

Adam

Location names

/

Just want to clarify that we do not use the city or town names to determine the forecast for your “following” location.

If you allow the app to use location services, we use the exact GPS location of your device and that means the forecast can be slightly unique for every km of the map at times.

I realize it can be confusing that your following location can occasionally switch between one town name to another if you’re close to the border between those locations. However, it’s important to realize that the name the app chooses has absolutely nothing to do with your forecast.

Long story short, we use exact lat/long GPS location if the app is following you and that will provide the best possible forecast. 🙂

Adam

Important if you travel

/

Until we add "Always allow" permissions to the app (coming soon), when you travel, please open the app when you arrive, even if just for a couple seconds in order to refresh the location on the app.

When you get home, please open it once again. If you don't open the app after you arrive home, it's likely that you'll receive notifications for a location you recently visited.

More details on this upgrade ASAP!

Adam