Météo France smart home integration, free and open source
French weather forecasts and official vigilance alerts from Météo France.
Published by William-De71
- Devices
- Version 1.4.0
- Requires Gladys >=5.1.0
- ★ 0
This integration provides Gladys with weather forecasts and the official vigilance alerts from Météo France, the French national weather service. It feeds the dashboard weather widget, the voice assistant and the weather-alert scene triggers.
Ready to use
No configuration is required. Forecasts and vigilance alerts go through the Météo France public service: install the integration and it works right away.
An optional API key additionally unlocks the national vigilance map (see below).
What it provides
- Hourly forecast for the next 24 hours: temperature, feels-like, humidity, pressure, wind (speed, gusts, direction), rainfall and precipitation probability.
- Daily forecast for up to 8 days: min/max temperatures, conditions, total rainfall, UV index, sunrise and sunset.
- Official vigilance alerts: the nine Météo France phenomena (violent wind, rain-flooding, thunderstorms, floods, snow-ice, heatwave, extreme cold, avalanches, coastal flooding), with the department name and the full official bulletin.
- Vigilance map for today and tomorrow (requires the API key).
How a day's icon is picked
A day's icon summarises the most notable phenomenon of that day, not the weather at midday.
Météo France publishes two different things: the hour-by-hour forecast, and a summary stamped at midday. That summary describes the sky at one moment, so it can read "Ensoleillé" (sunny) on a day whose own hourly entries carry rain and several millimetres of rainfall. The integration therefore summarises the day from its hours, the way the Météo France website does, keeping the phenomenon that best characterises it: a shower outranks a sunny spell, a thunderstorm outranks a shower.
Beyond the fourth day Météo France stops publishing hourly detail, so the icon falls back to the midday summary — the only thing left to go on.
The icon may still differ from the Météo France app: Gladys ships a smaller icon set, and several distinct skies share the same picture there.
Scenes triggered by vigilance alerts
You can create a scene that runs when a vigilance alert is issued — for example, to receive an SMS on an orange-level alert.
In the scene editor, add a "Weather alert raised" or "Weather alert ended" trigger, then pick the house and, optionally, the phenomenon type and the minimum severity.
Gladys checks for alerts every 30 minutes. This integration additionally watches the vigilance every 15 minutes and notifies Gladys as soon as it changes, so your scene runs within seconds instead of waiting for the next scheduled check.
Scenes: Météo France triggers
On top of the vigilance alerts, the integration adds its own triggers to the scene editor (Gladys 5.1 or later), under Météo France:
| Trigger | Fires when… | Filters |
|---|---|---|
| Rain expected within the hour | the radar nowcast announces rain within the hour, where it announced none | house, intensity (light / moderate / heavy) |
| Rain stopped | the rain under way stops | house |
| Frost forecast | the next 24 hours go down to 0 °C, to -5 °C, or to a threshold of your choice (-20 to 5 °C) | house, level, custom threshold |
| Heat forecast | the next 24 hours go up to 30 °C, to 35 °C, or to a threshold of your choice (20 to 45 °C) | house, level, custom threshold |
| Strong wind forecast | the gusts of the next 24 hours reach 60, 80, 100 km/h, or a threshold of your choice (20 to 150 km/h, step 5) | house, level, custom threshold |
| Black ice forecast | the next 24 hours bring rain on a surface at or below freezing | house, level (risk / likely) |
| Snow forecast | snow (or sleet) enters the next 24 hours | house |
| Storm forecast | a thunderstorm (or hail) enters the next 12 hours | house |
| High UV forecast | the UV index of the coming day reaches 6, 8, 11, or a threshold of your choice (1 to 11) | house, level, custom threshold |
Examples: close the skylights and retract the awning on Rain expected within the hour, switch the heating to frost protection on Frost forecast, close the south shutters the day before a Heat forecast.
Each trigger hands the following actions a ready-to-send Summary ("Moderate rain expected in 15 min.", "Frost forecast: 28 °F expected tomorrow at 06:00.") along with the figures (minutes until the rain, temperature, time of the peak…).
Good to know:
- House: leave the field empty to watch every house. To target one, type its name exactly as in Gladys.
- Level: each level fires on its own. A "Frost forecast" scene set to 0 °C fires once when frost enters the forecast, not on every update. It re-arms once the forecast clearly moves back (2 °C above the threshold for frost and heat, 15 km/h below it for wind), so a forecast hesitating around 0 °C does not fire over and over.
- Custom threshold: for a value not in the list, pick the "Custom threshold" level and type the value in the field of the same name — say -10 °C for frost, 25 °C for heat or 40 km/h for wind. It must be a whole number (a multiple of 5 for wind) and is always in °C and km/h, whatever the unit system of Gladys. With "Custom threshold", always fill the field: left empty, the scene would fire at every degree crossed. With the other levels, leave it empty: a value there would keep the scene from firing.
- Rain within the hour comes from the Météo France radar, checked every 5 minutes. It is not available everywhere (some mountain areas, overseas): both rain triggers then stay silent. The same rain trigger never repeats within 30 minutes, so a hesitating shower does not warn you three times.
- After a restart, the first check is a baseline and fires nothing, like the Gladys vigilance alerts: a restart in the middle of a frost episode does not send the notification again.
- Black ice, snow, storm: each fires once when the phenomenon enters the forecast, and re-arms once it has left it. A forecast hesitating from one update to the next does not warn you twice: the same trigger never repeats within 6 hours. Snow fires on its presence, not on an amount: the unit of Météo France's snow amounts is not documented.
- High UV: Météo France only publishes one UV index per day. Before noon the trigger reads today's, after noon tomorrow's. So it fires once per day and level, usually around noon the day before (or later if the forecast goes up). The Custom threshold works as for frost.
- Location: these triggers watch the weather continuously, so the integration needs the location of your houses — which is why the install screen asks for location access. A house without a location is not watched.
Scenes: Météo France actions
Seven actions read the weather in the middle of a scene. Their results can be used by the following actions, for instance in a message or a condition:
| Action | What it returns |
|---|---|
| Get the forecast of a day | min/max temperatures, sky, rain and probability, wind and gusts, UV, humidity, sunrise and sunset |
| Get the rain of the next hours | dry or not, total rain, rainy hours, time of the first rain (over 1 to 24 h) |
| Get the rain within the hour | raining now, rain expected, intensity, minutes until the rain or until it stops |
| Get the vigilance | color and level, phenomena in force, department, official summary and full bulletin |
| Get the frost risk | level (0 none, 1 risk, 2 likely), worst hour, temperature, dew and frost points, humidity, clouds, wind |
| Get the black ice risk | level (0 none, 1 risk, 2 likely), onset time, temperature, freezing rain, rain of the last 6 hours, chance of frost |
| Get the forecast of an hour | at an hour of today, tomorrow or the day after: temperature, feels like, sky, rain and chance, wind, gusts and direction, clouds |
Each action also returns a one-sentence Summary, e.g. "Tomorrow: rain, 14 to 21 °C, 4.2 mm of rain (80%), gusts up to 55 km/h."
Examples:
- Morning briefing: a time trigger at 7 am, then Get the forecast of a day (today) and Get the vigilance, then a message quoting both summaries.
- Smart watering: before opening the valve, Get the rain of the next hours over 12 h, then a condition on Dry.
- Laundry outside?: Get the rain within the hour, then a condition on Rain within the hour.
- Black ice alert: the same scene as the frost alert, with Get the black ice risk.
- Morning commute: at 9 pm, Get the forecast of an hour (tomorrow, 8), then a message with the Summary ("Tomorrow at 08:00: partly cloudy, 11 °C (feels like 8 °C), south-west wind at 14 km/h, gusts up to 40 km/h, 1.2 mm of rain.").
- Frost alert: a time trigger at 6 pm, then Get the frost risk, then "Continue only if" Level ≥ 1, then a message with the Summary ("Frost likely tomorrow morning: 0.4 °C around 06:00, frost point -2.1 °C.").
Frost risk: Météo France publishes no dew point. The action computes it hour by hour from the temperature and the humidity, then derives the frost point. It looks from now until 10:00 of the coming morning (this morning before 10:00, tomorrow morning after) and keeps the worst hour. Frost likely: temperature ≤ 1 °C and frost point ≤ 0 °C, or temperature ≤ 0 °C and frost point ≤ -2 °C. Frost risk: temperature ≤ 3 °C and frost point ≤ 0 °C. Hoar frost forms under a clear sky and a light wind: an overcast sky (80% cloud cover or more) or a mean wind of 20 km/h or more lowers the level by one, as the Lowered by the sky or the wind output tells.
Black ice risk: Météo France forecasts neither black ice nor the ground temperature, and its "chance of frost" is only the chance of a temperature below 0 °C (returned for information). So the action looks for water on a cold surface, hour by hour, over the same window as the frost risk. Black ice likely: freezing rain forecast, rain with a temperature ≤ 0 °C, or a wet surface (rain in the 6 previous hours) with a temperature ≤ -1 °C. Black ice risk: a wet surface and a temperature ≤ 1 °C. The air temperature stands for the ground one, hence the 1 °C margin.
Forecast of an hour: until tomorrow Météo France forecasts hour by hour, past it by 3-hour steps. The action then takes the step covering the hour asked, and the Time of the forecast output tells which.
The House field is optional: left empty, the action uses the first located house. Temperatures, wind and rain follow the unit system of Gladys, and the texts its language (French or English). The Available output of Get the rain within the hour tells whether the radar nowcast covers your house.
Vigilance map (optional)
Displaying the national vigilance map requires a personal API key, free of charge:
- Create an account on the Météo France API portal.
- Subscribe to the "Données Publiques de Vigilance" API (free). It also appears as "Bulletin Vigilance", and as
DPVigilancein technical URLs — all three are the same API. - On the API configuration screen, pick the API Key token type (not OAuth2), enter a long validity duration, then generate the key — see the two points below, this is where it usually goes wrong.
- In Gladys, open the Météo France integration's Configuration screen, paste the key and save.
An API key, not an OAuth2 token
On the "Configurer l'API Bulletin Vigilance" screen, the portal asks for a token type:
| Works here | Lifetime | |
|---|---|---|
| API Key | ✅ yes | the duration you enter |
| OAuth2 (the Generate Token button) | ❌ no | about 1 hour, not renewed here |
So tick API Key. An OAuth2 token appears to work at first, then stops working after roughly an hour: the map silently disappears. If your map used to show and no longer does, this is almost always why.
Key validity duration
Once API Key is ticked, the portal shows a mandatory "Durée" (duration) field, empty by default, to be filled in seconds. That is when the key stops working — and the vigilance map with it.
Since the integration uses this key permanently, enter the longest duration you can, otherwise you will have to regenerate and re-paste it regularly.
Enter
94672800(about 3 years). That is the maximum the portal accepts — anything higher is rejected.
For reference, should you prefer a shorter duration:
| Duration | Value to enter |
|---|---|
| 1 month | 2592000 |
| 6 months | 15552000 |
| 1 year | 31536000 |
| ~3 years | 94672800 — maximum |
Write the expiry date down somewhere: on that day the map will stop with no warning, exactly like an OAuth2 token. Generating a new key and re-pasting it in Gladys is then all it takes.
Without this key, everything else keeps working normally — only the map is unavailable.
Cache duration
The dashboard and the chat assistant both ask for the weather, and every request costs two calls to Météo France. The integration therefore reuses a recent answer for the cache duration, adjustable in the Configuration screen (600 seconds by default, between 0 and 3600).
You normally never need to change it: the 600-second default suits the vast majority of setups.
Which value to pick
The setting is in seconds, between 0 and 3600 (1 hour).
| Value | Effect |
|---|---|
| 0 | no cache, every request calls Météo France |
| 300 (5 min) | fresher data, more calls |
| 600 (10 min) — default | good balance, recommended |
| 1800 (30 min) | fewer calls, very responsive dashboard |
| 3600 (1 h) | maximum, forecasts may be up to an hour old |
Raising the value is not risky: Météo France only refreshes its forecasts a few times an hour, so a 10 to 30 minute cache costs you almost nothing in freshness while making the dashboard faster.
Two things worth knowing:
- a change in the vigilance level is detected independently of the cache: the integration clears the cache and asks Gladys to re-pull immediately, so your alert scenes fire without waiting for the cache to expire, even with the cache set to 1 hour;
- setting it to 0 disables the cache and calls Météo France on every request. Since the forecast endpoint can take up to 20 seconds on a cold cache, the dashboard may then feel much slower. Keep it for one-off troubleshooting rather than permanent use.
Coverage
Météo France covers mainland France and its overseas departments. For a house outside that area, the integration returns no data and Gladys automatically falls back to another weather service if you have one configured.
Precedence over OpenWeather
If you already had OpenWeather configured, installing Météo France automatically takes over with no setting to change. If you stop or uninstall the integration, Gladys falls back to OpenWeather just as automatically.
Configuration settings
These are the settings Météo France asks for in its configuration screen in Gladys.
| Setting | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ready to use | section | No | Forecasts and vigilance alerts work with no configuration at all. The optional API key below only unlocks the national vigilance map image. |
| Météo France API key (optional) | secret | No | Only needed to display the national vigilance map. Create a free account on the Météo France API portal and subscribe to the "Données Publiques de Vigilance" API. Pick the "API Key" token type, NOT OAuth2 (which expires after about an hour), and set the mandatory "Durée" field to 94672800 seconds — about 3 years, the maximum the portal accepts. The map stops loading once that duration runs out. |
| Cache duration (s) | number | No | In seconds, between 0 and 3600. How long a weather answer is reused before calling Météo France again. The forecast endpoint can take up to 20 seconds on a cold cache, so reusing a recent answer keeps the dashboard responsive. The default of 600 (10 min) suits most setups; raising it to 1800 costs almost no freshness, as Météo France only refreshes a few times an hour. Set to 0 to always call the API (slower dashboard). A vigilance change always refreshes immediately, whatever this value. |
How to install Météo France in Gladys
- In Gladys, open Integrations: Météo France appears in the catalog, next to the native integrations, with a community badge.
- Click Install. Gladys pulls the Docker image (
ghcr.io/william-de71/gladys-meteo-france:1.4.0), starts it in a sandbox isolated from the core, and generates the integration's interface (devices, discovery and configuration). - Open the Configuration screen of the integration, fill in the settings, and save.
- You can also install it directly from its repository URL: https://github.com/William-De71/gladys-meteo-france.
Météo France requires Gladys >=5.1.0. The catalog inside Gladys refreshes every hour, so a new version becomes available at most one hour after its release.
Not running Gladys yet? It is free and open source: follow the installation guide to get started.
About external integrations
Météo France is an external integration: a community integration packaged as a Docker container and published on GitHub, that Gladys installs in one click and runs in a sandbox isolated from its core. It is published and maintained by William-De71, not by the Gladys core team.
- Browse all external integrations
- Discover the native integrations built into Gladys
- Build and publish your own external integration
- Source code on GitHub — source of this documentation