Overview

Tired of clunky, outdated Pi weather projects built on dead API keys and legacy Python 2 frameworks? This project is a modern, high-fidelity software-rendered Flip Clock and Weather Station built from the ground up for modern hardware and operating systems.

Runs on Linux, Windows and Mac os. Mainly designed for a Raspberry Pi running Pi os  Trixie with a 7 inch touch screen and display at 1024x768, however resizing the app is saved for your os.

Instead of building a heavy, resource-hogging web app wrapped in Chromium, this client is written natively in Python 3 and PySide6 (Qt6). It delivers a premium, tactile retro aesthetic with smooth alpha-blended animations and dynamic backgrounds, while operating under an incredibly lean resource footprint.

Key Features

  • Native Flip Clock Aesthetic: High-fidelity, smooth software-rendered flip cards without the noise, cost, or mechanical wear of physical split-flap hardware.
  • Two mini flip clocks can be set for different time zones.
  • Auto dim on sunset but this can be turned off if not required.
  • Clicking on the current day time temperature will also show for the next 7 hours ahead.
  • High-Density Weather Canvas: Displays rich real-time data including precise temperature, dynamic wind speed, compass direction, humidity, atmospheric pressure, and UV index.
  • Atmospheric Dynamic UI: The entire canvas gradient shifts fluidly in real-time based on the time of day (is_day) and exact weather code data. Also smooth fade between background changes.
  • Modern & Keyless: Pulls data seamlessly from the free, open-source Open-Meteo API—no subscription fees or easily deprecated API keys required.
  • True Cross-Platform Engine: Because it leverages Qt, the exact same codebase runs natively with hardware acceleration across Linux (including Raspberry Pi OS Trixie/Wayland), macOS, and Windows.

Hardware & Optimization

While designed to run cross-platform, this build is perfectly tailored to re-use a Raspberry Pi 4B combined with an official 7-inch touchscreen (1024x678) that was gathering dust in a drawer.

The app features a built-in TOUCH_MODE layout detector. When deployed on compact touch screens, it automatically optimizes the UI scaling—swapping dense desktop controls for generous, finger-friendly targets and launching in a seamless kiosk environment. Because it avoids heavy web-engine wrappers, it runs cool and silent on microcomputers, even showing excellent performance potential for low-spec boards like the Pi Zero 2 W.

Measured on Raspberry Pi 4B (Pi OS Trixie)

  • Idle desktop memory usage Pi os desktop: 274 MB
  • Memory usage with Flippy Clock running: 354 MB
  • Flippy Clock memory footprint: ~80 MB
  • CPU utilisation: ~20%
  • Resolution: 1024×768 touchscreen

Since this is a python tool, the code is portable so this has also been tested on Windows and Mac OS Tahoe ans Linux.

The contained zip file has runners for Linux (and Pi), Mac OS and a batch file for Windows OS