handy gadget but....

Having an altimeter compass thermometer stopwatch clock and barometer all-in-one seems handy enough. The unit seems to work well with one exception; the instructions say it may take 3 hours for the barometer/altimeter to correct itself after flight.



My unit was delivered by air and when it arrived the pressure reading was a full 3 inHg below the local weather station (reading 27" rather than 30"). It took not 3 hours but a WEEK for it to slowly creep up so that now it reads about 0.3" below the local station. Not sure how confident I am with it's minute-to-minute variation and since it calculates altitude from this I wouldn't be skydiving with it...More detail ...

A nice station for the price

I'm a meteorologist. If I had it in my budget to get a professional weather station (like from Davis) for my home I would but until I do this station will serve nicely.



The display unit is nice and large very easy to read. The base is narrow enough that I can set it on the kitchen window sill without worrying it will fall into the sink. The remote sensor is about 30-40 feet away around the corner of the house. Our home has metal siding and the signal from the remote has to travel through two exterior walls and a window; we've had no reception problems.



The sensors are accurate. When I first put in the batteries (follow the instructions as another reviewer said) I let the outdoor sensor sit next to the indoor sensor for quite a while. The readings from the base unit and remote matched within 0.7 of a degree and 2% humidity.



The clock set itself within about an hour of putting in the batteries.



The base unit is easy to read and full of information. The unit records not only high and low temperature and humidity for both the indoor and outdoor sensors but also the date and time the reading was taken. If you were so inclined you could reset the measurements on 1 January then on 31 December see when you had your highs and lows for the year.



I want to address a couple of comments by other reviewers. First the specifications of the unit (found on page 23 of the manual downloadable from Amazon) clearly state the unit will only report outside temperatures to about -22F. Expecting La Crosse to do something about this is like buying a Geo Metro and complaining that you can't compete in NASCAR. The unit is not built for those extreme low temperatures. Don't buy it if it doesn't meet your needs.



Second the Weather Channel reports measurements taken by a weather station (often at an airport or NWS office) that is in your cable viewing area. The Weather Channel is not reporting conditions in your backyard. Official measurments are taken using instruments housed in a shelter built to certain specifications usually 4-6 feet off the ground. I've got my outdoor sensor stuck to the side of the house about 8-9 feet up. It's good enough for backyard meteorology but it's definitely doesn't meet requirements for official measurements.



Third the reason the pressure tendency chart blinks (actually it's displayed in a scrolling fashion) is "to avoid burnout of the LCD". Manual page 18 section I9.



Remember the pressure displayed is station pressure. The values reported by the Weather Channel are converted to sea level pressure. Station pressure is affected by the height of the weather station; the higher you're located above sea level the lower the pressure displayed compared to sea level pressure. Fortunately it's not the number that matters. What you're interested in as a weather watcher is the pressure tendency. If the pressure is dropping then look for worsening weather; likewise with increasing pressure you can expect conditions to improve.



All in all this is a nice package with many features found only on more expensive units.



------------------

Update 25 Aug 2007

------------------



The unit is still going strong after a year though the outside sensor died. It fell off the side of the house a couple of times - it's possible that had something to do with it. Fortunately the replacement sensor is only $15 here on Amazon though it doesn't come with a weather shield. I have it under an eave but I still may seal the new sensor (La Crosse Technology TX6U Wireless Temperature Sensor) with silicon as a precaution.



I didn't realize how much I looked at the thing until the sensor died...I'm going through data withdrawal now.



Interestingly the unit is now branded as "The Weather Channel" wireless weather station. When I bought this it was just a regular old wireless weather station. Perhaps TWC branding is the reason the price has gone up since last year.

More detail ...

Reasonable and functional product

I bought this product so that I can keep track on the local weather. This is the best reasonably priced weather station that I am happy with. Still the user manual should be better (not sure hos to get Wind Chill and heat index function to work.....) and the mounting option should be better equipped.

Overall all I am happy with it.More detail ...

Not Bad

I bought this mainly for the barometer and anemomter features to have along for fishing and hunting trips. Both of these features work very well as well as the hygrometer. The unit shows these in real time tracks changes and records minimum and maximum events.



The only feature that doesn't work well is the altimeter. I don't know what theory or system is used but it isn't accurate at least not on my unit. I can be sitting in the same place and watch the altitude go up and down without moving it. It's very seldom that it remains stable. I can understand some fluctuation +/- a couple of feet but it goes beyond that. Since the altimeter wasn't an important feature for me it's not a bother.



The unit seems to be made well and hopefully proves to be reasonably durable which I think it will. It's a bit pricey but I got a better deal on Amazon than I found anywhere else. All in all it's not a bad little unit.More detail ...

Good accuracy

I have the Oregon Scientific WMR100 which comes with a rain collector a combined wind/temperature/humidity sensor a display unit and various mounting hardware. I tested its accuracy in several ways including pouring carefully measured amounts of water (from a rain gauge) through the rain collector comparing the temperature readings with a very accurate thermometer and holding the wind sensor out the window of a car at 40 mph. The results were impressive. I had previously tried these tests on a LaCrosse weather station as well as one from Radio Shack neither of which was completely accurate. The Oregon Scientific WMR100 was right on the mark for measuring preciptiation and also for temperature. The temperature was down to minus 15F one night and lithium batteries still worked fine. The outdoor temperature sensor is slow to respond to rapidly rising or falling temperature but this is probably a good design feature to avoid over-reaction to direct sunlight if it's not in the shade. The wind speed readings for 40 mph on the odometer ranged from 40 to 45+ on the display unit but doing this out the window of a car may not be 100% reliable as a test! The display unit sits firmly on a table (well weighted in the bottom) yet is easy to use as a hand unit. It is a little inconvenient to have to scroll through the settings to see everything -- for example the readings for rainfall UV and barometric pressure do not display simultaneously and it is necessary to use the control buttons to change between these settings in order to see them all. The manual is good in explaining everything. The construction is very sturdy considering that it's made of plastic and the mounting pole is even metal. All in all I am very satisfied with it and certainly would recommend it over LaCrosse for a number of reasons. From what I would expect for something at this price I would give it 5 stars.



Update July 2 2008: After several months the temperature and humidity signals were no longer coming through to the display unit without constantly having to reset the sensor (on the roof!) so I returned the whole weather station under warranty as instructed by Oregon Scientific's Customer Service Department listed in the warranty. After more than 7 months and many inquiries they had not sent me the new unit yet saying that it was "back ordered" and would be sent when available.... in a few months! I then contacted the Oregon Scientific retail store where I had purchased the unit and with no hesitation they told me that they backed the product and would send a replacement. So if you buy buy from a retailer who will back the product or directly from the company's retail store. Don't depend on Oregon Scientific's Customer Service Department! The Oregon Scientific retail store in Tigard Oregon was very helpful in dealing with the problem because I had purchased it there in the first place and they still had a copy of my receipt on file. My only regret is not having called them first when the problem began.



Update July 24 2009: This weather station is still working wonderfully!More detail ...

Fast Acurate and Portable.

This device is small enough to carry in your pocket and is very fast and accurate. Very useful since it can measure water and air temperature. Waterproof and it also floats. I have owned this for about 2 months and I am very happy with it has not let me down. More detail ...

Reliable but awful documentation and UI

The bad part first: the user interface is bad enough that you MUST use the manual to set it up - - and the manual is poorly-written and organized.



The good: It's cheap and all the functions I use work perfectly. The display is clear and well-organized. The data seems pretty accurate and the forecasting function is right more often than not.



I've had (and returned) several inexpensive weather stations now and while all their user interfaces have been horrible this Honeywell is the first one I've had which actually worked as promised. More detail ...

Looks good but inaccurate and not supported

This product includes three weather instrument packages: anemometer/wind direction vane temperature/humidity and rainfall all wirelessly linked to a large LCD display. It shows those data on the display roughly in real time (seems to update every five/seven seconds or so) and keeps track not only of maxima and minima on most of those statistics but also when they occurred... very nice. Fairly easy to set up see my review on the National Geographic weather station on how to get their similar wind and temperature packages set up. That's the good news.



The bad news is that the system is grossly inaccurate. The wind speed data always reports wind speeds thirty to fifty percent below their actual values (when compared to a NOAA instrument package very near my house) and temperatures that vary wildly as the day goes on.



I gathered enough data on wind and temperature readings several times/day for several days to see that while the AVERAGE value of the temperature reported over the day is fairly close to the NOAA data the standard deviation is about 250 percent that of the NOAA data despite my locating the thermometer off the ground and in the shade. The wind speed data's always significantly under actual wind speed -- the cheaper National Geographic unit with its anemometer sitting within a few feet of the Lacrosse anemometer tracked with the NOAA data very well -- despite the fact that I actually purchased a replacement anemometer unit from Lacrosse. (Both units showed the same biases -- wind direction was correct wind speed under-reported.) Atmospheric pressure was however dead on... once calibrated. So I thought maybe there's a calibration procedure for the wind speed?



The true insult however was when I contacted Lacrosse looking for some guidance... could they recommend better infrared shielding for the temperature gauge? Was there a way to calibrate and adjust the package's interpretation of the wind speed information? Their Web site warned that they were very busy this time of year so I thought I'd be a nice guy and use their email. No answer for two weeks so I politely asked a second time; no answer. It's been four weeks and I'm still waiting.



This unit seems basically well-thought-out save for the lack of calibration opportunities. Without that calibration though it's completely worthless. Save your money.More detail ...

Good but not around water!

This is a good product convenient and accurate. It is a bit expensive but typical for similar products. The screen tends to get scratched by the swivel holder cover.



The big complaint that I have is that it is not waterproof. Their rep. said it will float and is water-resistant but is not water proof cannot go under water. A dubious distinction since their web page says: ""water resistant to 3' ". Many of their sales sites say "waterproof". but it is not. the repair person made a fuzzy claim that it would float and withstand rain but not submersion. i reminded him of the specification on their site and he basically disclaimed it.



I put it in a breast pocket of a life jacket and after one spill it was flooded & ruined.



Anyway be warned!!

More detail ...

A Truly Great Gadget



Pro: many many American locations and international cities weather is frequently updated very good-looking display worked much better than other similar products



Con: Installation Software didn't come up automatically (but very easily remedied; rest of installation was very easy and the software worked great after that)



-------------



The Weather Fxi comes in shrink wrap packaging. You cut it out of the box. There's a receiver with the screen that you see in Amazon's listing a transmitter that plugs into a USB port on your computer and a CD. There are instructions but you barely need to read them.



You put the CD in your computer's drive. This was the only weakness of the whole package -- my CD drive did not automatically load the program. I had to go to explorer and click on the startup program manually. It was very obvious and it took me under 15 seconds but some people might be a bit stalled by this. If you were expecting the program to just pop up on the screen (or if you didn't know how to start a program by using Window's explorer --that would be right click on the start button and then scroll till you find your CD drive and then double click on the startup program that you'll find on that drive) then I suppose you might not be able to get this to work. I do not consider this the least bit difficult; it takes 15 seconds tops and most everyone I know is familiar with finding programs on their disk drive and double clicking on them.



Anyway you then plug in the transmitter to a USB port on the computer. Finally you pick five locales to monitor. There are a LOT of cities -- my Boston suburb is on there with a population of 30000 as was my mother's suburb of NYC also about the same size. My mother in law and daughter who live in their respective cities were also there; there wasn't a way (that I saw anyway) to further define their location but I think that should be suficient anyway. Finally for my son I selected Munich Germany. The selection process takes about 3 or 4 minutes. You have to wait for 30 seconds or so after each selection for the software to think before you can move on to the next city.



That's it. We've had it for several days now and it constantly updates all by itself. The display screen is really good looking and detailed. There are at least 15 or 20 different symbols for the weather (clouds rain snow sun partial sun etc.) a written statement (like "becoming cloudy and cold" the temperature high and low wind precipitation humidity what temperature it "really" feels like as well as the predictions or the next several days. You can press a button on one side and instead of three days forecasts it will give you morning noon and night for today or days four through six. You press a button on the other side and it scrolls through complete data for the other 4 cities. If you plug it in it stays back-lit (it runs on batteries too but we haven't tried that). It's extrememly easy to read. One last thing -- the screen changes colors depending on what band of 10 degrees the temperature is -- my wife loves that.



So the bottom line is that it took less than 10 minutes to set up it takes no maintenance whatsoever it displays international locations (very few do) and it is very sharp looking.



VERY highly recommended.

More detail ...

this *IS* the version used by the US Military

The Kestrel 4500/4500NV is a pocket sized weather station weighing in at a mere 102 grams with NIST tracable accuracy trend recording data for plots of barometric pressure over time (in days) or windspeed (in minutes) and numerous calculations of wind chill heat index and many more. Its compass is one of the most accurate electronic compasses I have used (and I use garmin's frequently) with a reading to the nearest degree that is repeatable. Using just 2 AAA batteries and an included brace to prevent them from rattling causing compass errors it provides 400 hours of active usage or months of weather trend logging.



Basically the older 4000 unit had a few bugs mostly with the extreme case sealing to make the unit watertight so it could be left outside overnigt or dunked in the water. While you could buy the 4000 in grey or orange and get the same electronics the olive drab 4500NV is substantially different than the 4500 yellow model. The NV stands for night vision and uses a backlight scheme that is compatible with Gen 3 NV goggles. While both units are identical during the day at night the 4500NV has a dimly backlit display while the 4500 yellow case has a bright green backlight along the lines of the timex indiglo (TM) design. If you are using night vision goggles the 4500NV is the proper version however many people have complained that without NV goggles the backlight is not sufficient on the 4500NV compared to the 4500. Unfortunately the case color and backlight go together and you can not swap either. While the 4500NV is not invisible to the naked eye it is sure dim compared side by side with the 4500. To sum it up the 4500NV can be used on a dark night if your eyes have adapted.



Cons:



The 4500 is an amazingly accurate piece of weather forcasting equipment however there are a handfull of functions left out. Keeping in mind the 4500NV is a low power device designed to run for months of plotting pressure / temperature / windspeed trends it lacks such items as a moon phase calculator found in garmin's handheld GPSs. For a true military mission meterological data on a full moon or new moon is always taken into consideration but your gps will tell you that. Given that 2 lithium AAAs will power the 4500NV for 6+ months of 30 minute weather samples I can do without the moon function to know when the coolest time of day is and the pressure trend over the past 3 days.



I think both military and non-military users would have liked a design with a choice of colors and a switch in the setup menu for NV backlight or normal eyes backlight but perhaps we will see this in some new 4XXX model down the road.



Pros:



Basically it's a weather station in the hand and lightweight enough to take with you. It serves the medic the sniper and the intelligence planner with up to the minute accurate information.



Timekeeping is great - with a clock settable down to the second and fantastic accuracy it's seldom +/- 1 second with my GPS - better than alot of watches.



Another major pro - because the whole unit is hermtically sealed - if you want to know water temperature just dunk it into the water and set it for measuring temp. It won't damage the unit provided you stay within specified boundaries (e.g. don't try to boil it)



A personal favorite pro which is common to most kestrel units are 3 user setup screens in which you can put any reading from the supported set and have 3 "windows" for such readings. For example you can make one screen to measure barometric pressure related values one for temperature values (e.g. temp wind chill heat index) and the 3rd screen for wind related measurements (wind speed wind chill crosswind) which you use when the protector is open. In this way you can customize the display to your liking.



The final pro is that although you have a compass and altimiter you now have a non-GPS dependent navigation tool with fast response time and light weight. While the Kestrel 4500 costs more than some $99 GPS handhelds none of them can tell you if a storm is approaching and none will work for months on one set of batteries.



Overall the 4500 and 4500NV represent significant advances over their cousin the 4000 model. Choosing which to buy is tied to the backlight and case color. If you are really fond of the olive drab color at the expense of a bright backlight then the 4500NV is the model to buy. If a yellow case is fine and you prefer the indiglo style backlight the normal 4500 is the one to buy. Either way you'll be very happy with the PC connectivity accessories and reliability of your palm sized weather station.



Enjoy!More detail ...

Triple Sensor Weather Station

Pros:

Price less than $100.

Fewer batteries 5 - AA's

Battery only no wall wart required

Long Battery Life ~2 Years

Detailed illustrated manual

Altitude adjustment for the barometer

Impressive wireless range

* Rain gauge more useful than expected



Cons:

Mixed reviews

No radio receiver for WWV's Atomic Clock

Temp sensor not weather proof

No inside temp reading

No PC Connection

*Painful Max/Min reset procedure



Looking at the product picture one sees The Weather Channel logo yet if you go to their store nothing approaching this product exists. My conclusion is that after six-months at the TWC they wanted no part of the headaches and shipped their inventory back to Lacrosse for sale on Amazon. So this price disappears with that inventory.

* I no longer believe the above I've seen this exact model for sale at Wal-Mart.



In researching the triple sensor (temp wind rain) market I was primarily interested in temp and wind. Since its always windy in the winter now I'll know how windy. It rains so seldom that why bother measuring besides it won't measure snow and humidity is always so low it's at the fringe of dry sensor measurement. I'm not a weather hobbiest so PC connection was unimportant besides being impractical in my solar-electric home. I'll just do the same as the last 10-years write down the daily min and max in the monthly wall calendar how crude pen and paper.



I considered Oregon Scientific better reviews more features but much more expensive and it needed 10 batteries and a wall wart. Also Zephyr and Davis the first had no reviews or downloadable manual and the latter was out of my price range. I read many positive and negative reviews for the 1611/1612 and I downloaded several manuals. In the end I decided on the "devil I knew" my $20 La Cross wireless thermometer 9013 had been reliable for many years. I'll keep it around for its atomic clock.



Like all La Crosse weather instruments the top line of the display is the time and date on a weather station? Then the date field is so tight mine now reads 11209 unlike the time field there are no spaces or delimiters. The single most important reading the outdoor temp is buried in the fourth group duh. Since you can get an atomic clock on $15 units one has to wonder why its not included on the 1611? Having all that in mind I was price driven so the 1611 is it.



A clever feature of the 1611 is one pair of AA's inside the temp sensor powers it and both the rain and wind sensors all wired together. Now it gets strange if all these sensors are outside and wirelessly connected to the base station why is the temp sensor not weather proof? It has to be protected from rain and sun Duh? So I made a "bird house" to protect the "outdoor" sensor from the weather.



I have the sensors roughly 200-feet from the base the signal has to pass through a 12" solid wood wall and the base is sitting on a table with a wireless b/g router and a wireless mouse no problems. I'm impressed.



I've attached two photos may help to visualize setup. *Added three more pics.



Edit (*)July 10 2009

After the wind blew over my original mast and smashed the wind sensor into too many pieces to count I bought a second used unit. I guyed the mast with four steel cables see pic. I now have two working base stations and a few spare parts.



I have two more complaints about the user interface:

1) Resetting the max/min readings. Press Max/Min to scroll through all the possible values > press Set then press + for every value you wish to reset. Theirs no master reset.

2) The Beaufort wind speed scale is meaningless unless you live on the ocean and own a boat. I'd much prefer the MPH value be inside the wind rose.More detail ...

Do your homework

The Oregon Scientific WMR968 is a very inexpensive but complex weather instrument. I have been researching home weather stations for over a year now and just purchased the WMR968 from Amazon.com when the price dropped by half. At the current price it is worth the extra trouble to get it to do what it should do. At this price you have to expect to do some extra fiddling to get it to perform. If you really want a weather station that is going to perform perfectly time after time right out of the box keep looking. This isn't the one for you. But on the other hand for those of you who like me have very little cash to spend on a home weather station this is a good buy.

Only beware! As is noted in these reviews and on many other consumer review web sites the manual that comes in the box is trash! Do not use that manual to set up and tune your WMR968. Please please please go to the Radio Shack website and download the manual for the Radio Shack Cable Free Weather Station with AccuWeather and use that one it is excellent! The Radio Shack weather station is identical in all respects to the one sold under the Oregon Scientific brand name except that for some reason it has a real manual written by a real American and it has all the information you need. Note that the manual that comes with the Oregon Scientific weather station has 9 pages. The Radio Shack manual has 36 pages.

My advice: if you decide to take the risk and purchase the Oregon Scientific WMR968 from Amazon.com like I did read all the consumer reviews even the nasty ones. You should know what might happen to you. Gather up as much information as you can. I have found several exellent tips on setting up and tuning the WMR968 on this and other web sites. Another suggestion: join and contribute to a weather station bulletin board such as WeatherMatrix.net. Share your knowledge and experience with others. Finally don't be tempted to cut corners when setting up your weather station. The sensitive electronics are not tolerant of abuse. Do your best to make sure everything outdoors is weather-tight.More detail ...

Pretty good for multiple location humidity & temp display.

We have an older home that had some mold issue we had to correct when we moved in. I have a weather stations and various temp/humidity sensors in the house but wanted a centralized unit that could display temp and humidty. The temp and humidty are very accurate (I used my high end Davis unit to compare data) from the base unit and remote sensors. I have been able to determine that having the bathroom exhaust fan for 10 min after a shower is inadequate. With this sensor I know it needs to run for 20-30 minutes to bring the humidty below 60% again. Having this data was vital to prove to my wife that she needs to keep that fan on which she hates doing otherwise.



I have had no issues with the display clarity and think there is adequate backlight when the button is depressed.



There are a few cons:



1) Unit lacks a max/min for temperature or humidity. I found this very surprising since Oregon Sc. has this on their other units that sell for much less. There's merit for keeping things simple but this was just being cheap on their part.



2) There is no trend indicator showing if temp & humidity are rising or falling. Again this would have been very easy to program into the main display but I'm getting picky.



3) Additional remote sensor prices are unreasonably inflated. This is just robbery. For the price of 2 additional sensors you could buy a new unit with 2 remote sensors (unfortunetly the outside doesn'ty let you change the transmission channel). More detail ...

Two for the price of one and both accurate

I've had this weather station up and running for over a week and it is doing well. My previous one was a sophisticated (and much more expensive) Oregon Scientific that died with no chance of resurrection a little over a year along. This evidently made me wary of the brand so I decided to go for the La Crosse this time around and keep it simpler.



The Combo11-IT is actually two weather stations -- one complete and one basic -- in one package plus an external temperature and humidity sensor. The more complete station is the WS-9037U-IT and the basic one is the WS-9080UR-JT. There is no way you can apprehend this from reading the skimpy info in the product page and I only found out when I received it. This two-in-one scheme is very handy because for instance you can have one station in the living room and the other one in the bedroom and both are fed the same data from the external transmitter.



The more complete panel is very similar to other La Crosse models and gives you:

* Time in 12 or 24 hrs and date (set by atomic clock if you live in the US or manually if you don't)

* Moon phase

* Indoor temperature and humidity (celsius or fahrenheit and % respectively) plus a comfort indicator icon that states the obvious

* Forecast which is dependent on barometric pressure changes. Another set of icons composed of an arrow and an image. Arrow can point upwards or downwards and the icon can indicate "sunny" "cloudy with sunny intervals" or "rainy"

* Barometric pressure in Hg or hPa

* Barometric pressure 24-hour history

* Outdoor temperature and humidity (C /F and %) plus the comfort indicator



You can also set the station to alarm clock mode with or without snooze and customize several parameters such as measuring units forecast icon sensitivity back-light intensity etc. and see the maximum and minimum indoor and outdoor temps and humidity for the last 24 hours.



The basic panel gives you only time (12/24 hrs) indoor and outdoor temperatures (C or F) and minimum and maximum temperatures in the last 24 hours. It comes with its own little manual. You can set the time by the atomic clock or manually and adjust the LCD display's contrast.



The weather-resistant outdoor transmitter only displays the current temperature reading in fahrenheit which I found very odd. My stations are set to celsius (I am metric) and there is no way to set the transmitter to it. I emailed La Crosse about this -- the package contains helpful info about contacting them for support including an email address -- but more than a week has passed and still no reply. I no longer expect one...



I advise you to read the manual as there is a procedure to set up the main units and the transmitter and all the configuring is done with 5 buttons on the right side. However I found it easy and quick and got it right the first time around in a few minutes.



The readings from both units appear to be accurate enough. I put them in different rooms in places with no direct sunlight and the temperature variation between them is just 0.3 celsius (roughly 0.6F). The external transmitter reaches both units equally well.



Both units have a nice discreet design and appear well built. The complete one has a very firm detachable stand or can be wall-mounted. The basic unit has a fold-in stand and can also be wall-hung.



The one thing that really daunted me was getting all the components out of their horrendous packaging. It was one of those impossible-to-cut-open plastic and cardboard setups that nearly made me send the whole thing back. But once I overcame this first hurdle (with a brand-new cut on my finger) the rest was easy.



I like the Combo11-IT pack and think that it is good value for the money. I just hope it lasts for a long time.



















More detail ...