Building a weather app might sound boring — until you try to make one that’s fast, global, simple, and actually pleasant to use.
I recently built SkyCast, a free AI-powered weather web app that provides real-time weather, air quality, and forecasts worldwide — without logins or subscriptions.
This post covers:
Why I built it
The tech stack
Where AI fits in
What I learned along the way
🌦️ Why Build Yet Another Weather App?
Most weather websites today suffer from at least one of these problems:
Too many ads
Slow loading times
Unnecessary logins
Overloaded UI
My goal was to build a weather app that:
Works globally 🌍
Loads instantly ⚡
Feels clean and minimal ✨
Adds value with AI, not complexity 🤖
That’s how SkyCast started.
🛠️ Tech Stack (Kept Simple on Purpose)
I avoided heavy frameworks and focused on performance.
Frontend
HTML, CSS, JavaScript
Mobile-first responsive layout
Progressive Web App (PWA)
Weather Data
Open-Meteo API
Real-time weather
7-day forecast
Temperature, wind, humidity
Air Quality Index (AQI)
AI Layer
Serverless function
Converts raw weather data into short, human-readable insights
Example:
“Today will be warm with moderate air quality — staying hydrated is recommended.”
🤖 Why Use AI Here?
Most weather apps just display numbers.
SkyCast uses AI to:
Summarize weather conditions
Provide simple advice
Make forecasts easier to understand
The goal isn’t to replace meteorological data — it’s to make it more useful.
🎨 UI & UX Choices
I focused on clarity:
One primary temperature display
Minimal icons
No visual clutter
Fast interactions
If users can understand the weather in 3 seconds, the UI has done its job.
⚡ Performance & SEO Decisions
To keep things fast and discoverable:
Static HTML pages
No client-heavy frameworks
Optimized meta tags
Sitemap & robots.txt
Open Graph tags for sharing
This approach results in:
Faster load times
Better Lighthouse scores
Easier Google indexing
💸 Monetization (Still Experimenting)
Currently:
Non-intrusive ads
No subscriptions
No paywalls
Possible future ideas:
Premium AI insights
Weather widgets
Developer API access
Still validating what users actually want before committing.
🧠 Lessons Learned
Some key takeaways:
Simplicity beats complexity
Static sites scale extremely well
SEO should be done early
Google indexing takes patience
Community feedback is invaluable
🔗 Try It Live
SkyCast is live here:
👉 https://sky-cast-lime.vercel.app/
I’d love feedback on:
UI/UX
AI usefulness
Feature ideas
🚀 Final Thoughts
You don’t need a complex stack or a large team to build something useful.
Start small, ship early, and iterate based on feedback.
If you’re building a side project right now — keep going.
Thanks for reading 🙌
Top comments (1)
this app is visually outstanding, great work, is the code open source?