Getting Started

Initial Connect to a Meteobridge PRO

As the Meteobridge PRO has a display it is rather simple to get connected to it. You can reach out to it in two styles.

• cabled: When you started the unit first time with a LAN cable connected, it will try to receive an IP address via DHCP from your router. If this is successful the IP will displayed on the front panel. In this case you simply direct your browser to this IP and you can start setting up the unit.
• WiFi: When you started the unit first time without cable connection it comes up as a WiFi access point to allow you easy login with your smartphone, tablet or laptop. SSID to look for with your mobile device is given on the front panel of the Meteobridge PRO. Once you successfully directed your mobile device to connect to this temporary SSID all you have to do is to direct the browser on your device to IP 192.168.1.1. There you find the network configuration page of Meteobridge PRO. Please define network settings Meteobridge should use from now on and press „save and apply and reboot“. Having done this, Meteobridge pro will reboot and will try to connect with the given network credentials. If this works fine, IP of the unit will be displayed on front panel and fast blinking red LED will switch to steady on after a while. Now you are ready to login with your browser to the displayed IP and can start setting up the unit.

Initial Connect to a non-PRO Meteobridge

When your router platform has been flashed with Meteobridge firmware, next thing is to connect to the Meteobridge with your browser and to do configuration steps. In its inital state a Meteobridge is configured in LAN mode as DHCP client, expecting an IP from your router. Therefore, it needs to be connected to your router with an Ethernet cable and it needs your router acting as DHCP server and providing an IP address to the Meteobridge as the router also does for your other devices in your LAN. Good thing with DHCP is that you don't have to assign an IP manually. Bad thing is, that only your router knows the given IP and as the Meteobridge does not have a display to show you the IP. But don't worry, there a various ways to find out the IP of the Meteobridge in your LAN.

When Meteobridge is connected to your LAN it will try to receive a dynamic IP from your DHCP server during boot. Wait until blinking of the largest LED has stopped. Now there are different ways to find out which IP your Meteobridge has received.

Lazy Way

When Meteobridge starts it communicates LAN IP and WAN IP to the Internet server, where it loads the application stack from. Therefore you can ask there, what has been the last known LAN IP reported from a Meteobridge sharing the same router and WAN IP with your browsing PC. When Meteobridge and PC are in the same LAN, browsing to this address should tell you the LAN IP to use: MagicIP

IP Signaling

Do a short press on the push button on the top (TL-MR3020, WL-330N3G) or on the side (DIR-505) or a short press of the reset button behind the pinhole at the back of the unit (TL-WR703N, TL-MR3040). Now LED will start signaling the IP.

Meteobridge will signal its IP by pulsing the LED beneath the pressed button (TL-MR3020) or the blue LED on the top of the device (TL-WR703N) or the green LED opposite to the power LED (TL-MR3040) or the power LED (WL-330N3G). Sequence begins with LED going off, then each of the four numbers (delimited by a dot) will be signaled one by one. The dot between the numbers will be signaled by a "H" (LED shines bright). Each number is signaled by blinking digit per digit. Each digit is represented by a "M" (LED shines medium dimmed) repeated as often as the digit tells us. The zero digit is signaled by ten blinks. After having done this for all digits of all numbers of the IP, the end is signaled by LED staying off a while like it started with. When Sequenze is done, the LED is constantly turned on again.

Example: IP 192.168.10.77 Legend: M = LED medium dimmed, H = LED shines bright, _ = LED is dark

Signal:                                          Comment
___M___M_M_M_M_M_M_M_M_M___M_M___H               192
___M___M_M_M_M_M_M___M_M_M_M_M_M_M_M___H         168
___M___M_M_M_M_M_M_M_M_M_M___H                   10
___M_M_M_M_M_M_M___M_M_M_M_M_M_M___              77

When Meteobridge is connected via LAN it will signal the LAN IP. To get the WLAN IP signaled in that case, please disconnect ethernet cable from meteobridge's LAN port and start IP signaling again. This time WLAN IP will be signaled.

Alternative Ways to Find-Out IP

If you don't like reading the blinks, you can also use an IP scanner (for example: Advanced IP Scanner) or you can look into the logs of your router that provides IPs via DHCP for clients in the LAN/WLAN.

When a FAT formatted USB stick is connected to the USB port, a file "network.log" is written to the USB stick in addition to the LED blinking. The file will look like this:

Sat Jan  5 00:23:16 UTC 2013
MAC:     xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
LAN IP:  192.168.123.245

Cloud Simulator for Network Configuration

If Meteobridge client cannot connect to your LAN or your LAN does not provide a DHCP service, large LED will not leave fast-blinking mode. To get network settings fixed, you can define the correct network parameters in a simulator in the Internet, which works as follows.

1. Please browse to config.meteobridge.com. There you will find a simulation of the Meteobridge web interface. Please select the "Setup Network" tab and configure settings as needed for your specific network situation.
2. When settings are done, please press "save" and change to "Download" tab which will cause your browser to start downloading a configuration file named "config.tgz".
3. Please store that file (as is, do not unpack) on a USB stick formatted as FAT32 and start the Meteobridge with the USB stick plugged into the USB port of Meteobridge. When network settings are right, Meteobridge will stop with slow and fast blinking and turn on the LED constantly.
4. You can now remove the USB stick, it is no longer needed. When you restart this Meteobridge client with the same USB stick inserted, file "config.tgz" on USB stick will not be used again as it has been marked as used for this specific Meteobridge unit. Nevertheless, the stick can still be used to setup networking of other Meteobridge clients. The stick also holds a log file which reports if an update of network settings was applied.

First Login

When you have done the flashing of your Meteobridge and initial network setup done, you can reach Meteobridge for final configuration with your browser by typing in its IP as URL.

As login is protected by a password, your browser will ask for a user name and password. Please enter meteobridge as user and also meteobridge as password. While the user cannot be changed, you can change the password later on. On first login you will be guided to "License" tab, where you have to accept license terms and have to press "Save and Apply" before you can navigate to the other tabs. Sections listed in the setup menu at the left will tell you how to finalize configuration so that your weather data gets finally uploaded to Weather Underground.

Your browser will show you Meteobridge's web interface with a number of tabs. Please go through all these tabs and make the required settings. The page will show warnings for all still missing essentials until you have worked through all of this. It is just a few steps, which will be explained in the setup chapters, page by page.

Back to Defaults on a Meteobridge PRO

Whenever you lost connectivity the red LED keeps blinking fast. To get out of this situation, wait until red LED is in fast blinking mode and then press the button behind the pinhole below the LEDs on the front with an unfolded paper clip or a needle. Having done that the Display will show you options to choose from. Each time you press the button the cursor moves to the next item. To activate an item you just have to wait until the progress bar on the right has been running out. These are the options to choose from:

• SHOW DETAILS does nothing special but shows MAC, IP, Gateway IP, power consumption and temperature/humidity in the Meteobridge.
• REBOOT LAN CLIENT reboots Meteobridge PRO as a client for your wired LAN. Meteobridge expects a DHCP server in the LAN (mostly your router) to provide IP, network mask, gateway IP and DNS IP. This is the default configuration Meteobridge is shipped with.
• REBOOT WIFI AP reboots Meteobridge PRO as a WiFi access point. When the reboot is done Meteobridge PRO will show the SSID on the display and will ask you to connect with your mobile device to this WLAN and to browse to 192.168.1.1 where you will find the network configuration page of Meteobridge pro. Being there you can do needed network settings of your Meteobridge PRO to have it operational. „WiFi access point“ setting is just a temporary measure to allow you to reach network configuration without having the Meteobridge PRO connected to a wired LAN.
• RESET PASSWORD resets Meteobridge PRO's HTTP (and SSH) password back to „Meteobridge“.
• FACTORY RESET deletes all individual settings and reboots the Meteobridge. Data stored on the internal USB storage (like logged historical data) will not be touched.

When you keep the reset button pressed until the vertical progress bar hits the bottom the Meteobridge runs into a shut down. This is useful when you want to power-cycle the unit in a controlled way, not disrupting it in the mid of computing.

Back to Defaults on non-PRO Meteobridge

When you have misconfigured the network or system password in a way that you can't no longer reach Meteobridge, you can revert the system back to defaults by pressing the button on the top of TL-MR3020 / WL-330N3G or on the side of DIR-505 or the reset button of TL-WR703N / TL-MR3040 at the back behind a pin hole. By pushing these buttons (during normal Meteobridge operation or when it is stuck at fast blinking, not during boot) you can revert to defaults in three ways.

1. Reset to default network operation is done by pressing the button and keeping it pressed until LED flashes once. Now release button and system will restart with default network configuration, which is LAN DHCP client mode. Network settings done before are still stored inside Meteobridge when unit has started in LAN DHCP client mode, but these will need additional "Save" clicks to be made active again.
2. Reset password is done by pressing button and keeping it pressed until LED flashes for a second time. Meteobridge will reboot and will be available with default password via ssh (user root, password meteobridge) and http (user meteobridge, password meteobridge).
3. Reset to factory defaults is done by pressing the button and keeping it pressed until LED has flashed 5 times. This will delete all user settings changes made to the file system of the unit. Stored historical data will be erased. License will remain untouched. Unit will reboot automatically with default network settings and password.