swell allert idea "surfs up"

[marcus]

Ben / Stu from swellnet.
I have an idea how you may be able to improve the swellnet desktop surf tracker.
At the moment you can select alerts to let you know when the wind or temperature hits a chosen upper or lower value.
Sometimes i will get an allert that will pop up on my screen that will say "wind is less than 5 knots" for example.
what i think would be really useful to some would be a surf size alert.
say plug your limit to be when swell is greater than 4ft (or whatever size takes your fancy) and then up it pops on your screen when the surf or swell hits that size near your chosen location.
perhaps it could use the closest wave rider buoy data to the users location to supply the info.
just thought someone may be able to run with that idea.


another idea i have had for some time now is a wristwatch with GPS and telemetry to enable the wave rider buoys to tell you when the next set is predicted to arrive.

[Donweather]

another idea i have had for some time now is a wristwatch with GPS and telemetry to enable the wave rider buoys to tell you when the next set is predicted to arrive.

Not sure this will work as the wave buoys are not "real" time as such. ie, they only update every so often during the day, noting also that the readings that they post are also only averages etc over a time period (say 26 minutes of data reading).

[Trev]

another idea i have had for some time now is a wristwatch with GPS and telemetry to enable the wave rider buoys to tell you when the next set is predicted to arrive.

Not sure this will work as the wave buoys are not "real" time as such. ie, they only update every so often during the day, noting also that the readings that they post are also only averages etc over a time period (say 26 minutes of data reading).

Damn!
Another great idea ruined by facts.

[alakaboo]

actually don, i'm not sure that's true...
the output available online certainly fits that description, though they have to be averaging something, so there are realtime readings, based on the accelerometers in the buoys...
the online version is very different from the raw data, according to the bloke who manages the NSW network.
you'd have to work it directly with MHL/EPA rather than a secondary provider, but in theory it's still possible.

there ya go Trev, and Marcus... still potential.

[Skipper]

Sydney's Coast Guard and Harbour Control give hourly readings off the bouy 3 miles off Port Botany and if there's any variation throughout the day or night, it's reported as such. So they are pretty accurate and updated in real time.

Marcus, just get yerself a portable VHF radio and keep up to date that way

There's the possibility however that what you are desiring is further proof that the soul of surfing is being tarnished even further by technology and it's ability to diminish the human factor in the quest.

[Donweather]

actually don, i'm not sure that's true...
the output available online certainly fits that description, though they have to be averaging something, so there are realtime readings, based on the accelerometers in the buoys...
the online version is very different from the raw data, according to the bloke who manages the NSW network.
you'd have to work it directly with MHL/EPA rather than a secondary provider, but in theory it's still possible.

there ya go Trev, and Marcus... still potential.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't saying it couldn't be done....merely pointing out that with current public domain information available it wouldn't be possible, but yeah, sure do a deal with MHL and one could certainly get access to the raw data you would think.

[Donweather]

Sydney's Coast Guard and Harbour Control give hourly readings off the bouy 3 miles off Port Botany

An 8 sec period swell train will travel at approximately 22km/hr, thus the time taken to travel the 3 miles (4.8km from the wave buoy to the shoreline) would be approximately 13 minutes, thus hourly updates are still no good. And the numbers just get worse for any decent swell train (14sec - 39 km/hr - 7 minutes)

[Skipper]

An 8 sec period swell train will travel at approximately 22km/hr, thus the time taken to travel the 3 miles (4.8km from the wave buoy to the shoreline) would be approximately 13 minutes, thus hourly updates are still no good. And the numbers just get worse for any decent swell train (14sec - 39 km/hr - 7 minutes)

Fair enough Don.

I guess for the time poor recreational surfer out there, all the tech help they can get to catch that crucial moment of swell ....

[marcus]

i cant say too much, but im involved with Beta testing a device that has some of these features.
more info later