WindLive officially turns 1 years old!

Time goes so quickly nowadays. Can you believe it? We've been here for one whole year already! Today we celebrate this special milestone by sharing some of our development history.

A message from WindLive's creator

WindLive was officially launched to the public on November 25th, 2021. Since then, the website has grown exponentially, in ways I myself could never imagine. In 2022 alone, we've reached over 160,000 page views. Let that sink in! Today, our Le Morne page alone is loaded over 400+ times daily, making us one of the most visited windsports-related website in Mauritius. So much so, that we've even managed to outrank some of the most searched forecasting websites locally (hint: one of them rhymes with kangaroo 😉) – with a 2nd to 1st-place average on Le Morne wind-related searches on Google. It's just unbelievable!

We may still be only a year old, but development for WindLive actually started as early as late 2019, when I originally got the idea. Back then, the dream was to provide windsports fans with a direct link to live conditions, sourced directly from the spot. I myself started researching ways this could be done, how this kind of data could be gathered and how it could be displayed. Fast forward to late 2020, when I started drafting & coding the first prototypes for the actual website. At the time, I didn't have hands on actual measuring hardware, so I had to work with simulated data. Here's a screenshot of the first ever working prototype, dating from early 2021 (prepare to be vastly underwhelmed!). It's... well... it is what it is. This was a prototype page for Anse La Raie, which looks almost nothing like today's layout... We've come very far! Eventually with time, WindLive became into what it is today. Hundreds of hours poured into development over months and months of... well, headaches 😅

Of course, this would not have been possible without you, the users. I can't possibly thank everyone enough for everything. Thank you to all of those who helped contributing to the work done to keep the site running, and those who use the site on a daily basis! Another massive thanks goes to our friends at RIU for hosting our equipment and letting us stay. They've been doing so since day 1, and still are today, even through the renovations. Another thank you goes out to our platform host Webflow, who have recognised me as a Student Developer and have kindly kept our front-end hosting free-of-charge this year.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you everyone!

We still need your help!

Since day one, we've provided WindLive and its core features free of charge to everyone – and I'm devoting myself to keep it that way. However, as you may already know, nothing in life comes for free. This month, the hardware had to be upgraded to solar due to the closure & renovations happening at RIU. This all comes at a cost, in which we also have to make up for the hosting of the site's back-end, the cellular plan we use to send data from the measuring station, etc...

In addition, we also want expand our network to more places! two of which being highly requested – Poste La Fayette and Anse La Raie. In order to do this, we need some backing. This is where YOU come in! Here are some ways you can help support us:

• If you're a business owner in the area of Le Morne (or less than 15Km away), consider listing your business on the Le Morne page.
• We now also accept Banner Ads, if you'd like to rent a spot, please contact us!
• If you know someone who might be interested in using WindLive, don't hesitate to send a link! Every share counts 😁👍
• Lastly, if you happen to own land in one of these locations – Pte D'Esny; Anse La Raie; Poste Lafayette – let us know if you'd like to make a deal and host a station for us! contact us here.

‍

Once again, thank you everyone for everything!

- Hugo

‍