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Show HN: I built a navigation app that displays weather along the route

27 points by vkatluri ago | 17 comments
Hello HN,

I live in northern part of USA where winters are snowy. Whenever I took long trips, I always wondered what the weather along the route is going to be. For those who live in northern USA, you know weather can change frequently, so when you're traveling matters a lot, not just the route.

To solve this problem for myself, I built https://navimodo.com/. NaviModo calculates the route, and then checks weather along the route based on your start time, and displays weather along the route. Change start time, and the whole thing is recalculated.

I am not expecting any commercialization for this, just wanted to scratch an itch, and just did it. I have ideas for adding additional features (suggestions for when to take breaks based on bad weather, auto-suggestion of start time to avoid bad weather, etc.,) but will add more as time goes by.

Any feedback is welcome!

wlesieutre |next [-]

Similar concept to Weather on the Way, for the iOS folks

https://weatherontheway.app/

Looks good and I like being able to browse the map on a desktop, though for actual travel use the app with CarPlay support obviously has benefits

imp0cat |root |parent [-]

Or mapy.com and their "weather en route" - weather forecasting directly on planned routes.

vkatluri |root |parent [-]

Hello,

Yes, there are a few options available already. This was a passion project of mine, and I am reviewing all the use cases I can add. My primary aim was to have a website that works on both desktop and mobile. Did not prioritize mobile apps/CarPlay/Android Auto support yet.

herpderperator |next |previous [-]

Nice app! I see that the page title says "client" and there's the Vite favicon still, which you might want to fix :)

I also think having a dropdown for the address search is somewhat expected these days, but is lacking here. That might be on purpose or due to a technical limitation, but just thought I'd mention.

vkatluri |root |parent [-]

That's embarrassing... will fix the title and favicon.

Thanks for the feedback regarding addresses, on my TODO list to add support for dynamic search.

max8539 |next |previous [-]

Just a week ago, I asked ChatGPT to find me something and found Drive Weather iOS app, which I started using. I was also thinking of building something myself, but this one is good enough. Have you tried it or any other similar apps? Why did you decide to build a new one and why is it better? (Building just for fun is an option as well!)

doctoboggan |next |previous [-]

I’ve wanted something like this, but optimized for star gazing during road trips. I’d love for your tool to be able to tell me the best place stop along my route taking into account my expected travel location, light pollution, cloud cover, moon position, etc.

I live and spend most of my time in cities, so long road trips are some of my bests chances for seeing good stars out in the country.

Would your tool be adaptable to this use case?

emien |next |previous [-]

This is really nice, cool idea!

One thing I noticed: when I enter a destination that isn’t drivable like requires a flight, it returns OSRM API Error. Might be worth handling that case more gracefully or showing a clearer message.

vkatluri |root |parent [-]

Thanks for catching this! Will fix.

magesh_magi1 |next |previous [-]

I've applied for a patent for this very idea easily 10 years back but didn't get past my company. I've faced the issue when I travel from my office to home easily 1 hour journey without knowing when it'll rain where.

Good execution. How accurate it'll be within city

vkatluri |root |parent [-]

Not very accurate if it's short distances. What challenges did you face with the patent application?

big_toast |next |previous [-]

I immediately did SF to Reno through sacramento and south lake tahoe. Wildly different even in four hours.

A URL that persists the entered route might be desirable (especially to demo here). Otherwise I'm sure the additional features are endless.

vkatluri |root |parent [-]

Thanks for the feedback. When you say wildly different, was the weather different? Or did the application behave differently? I will definitely consider sticky URLs!

big_toast |root |parent [-]

It behaved properly.

I pictured someone using it on a 2 week road trip. But even within a couple hours traveling in SF/bay area, it can be pretty hard to know what weather you'll encounter. Even if you're a local.

addandsubtract |next |previous [-]

I hate when there's "NetworkError when attempting to fetch resource" on my journey.

vkatluri |root |parent [-]

Yikes. I wonder if I got throttled due to Hacker News traffic. Can you share more details?

addandsubtract |root |parent [-]

Oh, turns out uBlock Origin is blocking requests to router.project-osrm.org. No clue why, though. I mainly use the standard lists.

Also, one more improvement while I'm here; can you set the date/time forward by ~30mins? Currently, you always have to adjust it manually or else the date/time will be in the past.

pablovarela |previous [-]

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