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Ask HN: Best Dark Sky Replacement for Android

3 points by Larrikin ↗ HN
Apple officially shut down Dark Sky for all Android users yesterday. The app helpfully cleared out the 7 day forecast on the widget to let me know that it really wasn't going to work at all after August 1st.

What is currently the best replacement on Android? I don't mind paying for a reasonable subscription service if its privacy conscious or atleast isn't egregiously anti-consumer privacy. Dark Sky hadn't been as good for the past year but previously it was amazing knowing when rain was starting and stopping down to the minute, so it'd be nice to have great features like that.

I initially switched to Dark Sky and became a paying user due to the controversy of Accuweather's free app taking and selling user's location data without permissions [1] so I'd prefer not going back to their ecosystem. However when I was doing light research when the shut down was announced I couldn't find any good alternatives. Carrot seemed like the strongest contender, but it relies on Dark Sky's API in the background [2] so I don't know if its safe from Apple. After deleting Dark Sky I realized that on my 6 home screens half had some kind of widget with weather data from Dark Sky so I'd really like to get something setup soon.

[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/accuweather-caught-sending-geo-location-data-even-when-denied-access/

[2] http://support.meetcarrot.com/weather/

5 comments

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sawaruna
Not sure about the Android version, but the cheapest subscription option for Carrot on iOS enables selectable data sources. Accuracy will vary for your area but there may be a good replacement.
ntw1103
Right now, the best solution I've found is forecastie. it is open source an available on F-droid. Here is the link to the repo: https://github.com/martykan/forecastie

It uses Openweathermap for its data.

StavrosK
What did Dark Sky use? Their source was always very accurate for me.
ntw1103
I'm honestly not sure on that one. I suspect they used NOAA data, as well as had partnerships with different weather stations. Based on their size, they were probably doing their own weather models and predictions, or may be had meteorologist on staff.