Tide Tables - Tabla de mareas

Daily tide predictions and tidal status for Spanish sea ports

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Inspiration

As a tide predictions consumer (because of surfing), one of the first searches I did when I got Alexa was for a tide Skill, but did not found any in Spain store, whereas in other countries there were many...so I asked myself why not to do it? So the motivation was double, first, it was going to be useful for me, and second, it was going to be the first tide prediction Alexa skill for Spain, and possibly it would be useful for many other people.

What it does

It provides daily tide predictions for 56 Spanish sea ports and cities. It also provides information about the current state of the tide, or the state of the tide at any requested time.

How I built it

First, I had to have tide predictions, so first thing was investigating about how to get them, whether there was any public service provider with this information, or how to make these predictions. As there was no public service or web that allowed me to use predictions, I started doing my own tide prediction, generating them from historical data of tides, offered publicly by the government of Spain. Once I had the data, I decided to start the skill using .net core and c#, which is what I usually work with. I developed the skill by myself and tested it with the family. I designed and tested APL layout and components with Alexa Developer Console.

Challenges I ran into

The main challenge was to acquire and process the data to make tide predictions for so many ports and for several years. Then, the design part, as a day could have up to 4 tides, I had to find the better way to give this information clearly and briefly, firstly using brief texts and simple card, and then I finally decided to incorporate APL to improve user experience and data visualization for those who have screen devices.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I am proud of having published my first skill, after so much work, but I will be prouder if the skill is also useful for people.

What I learned

I learned a lot about tides, and tide predictions. I learned a lot about Alexa. And, apart from all the technical things learned about developing an Alexa skill, I also learned that some data are not easy to obtain, and Alexa is a great way to offer this data to people, in many different ways, with sounds, voice, visuals... I am not done learning here, I will keep reading and researching to offer better conversational experiences.

What's next for Tide Tables

It would be fine to allow users save their main port to directly ask for their tides. Include new predictions about sun and moon rise and set, as well as new APL screens. I will keep learning and developing.

Built With

  • .net-core
  • c#
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