AcuRiteNotos (3-in-1) Weather Station with Wind, Temperature, and Humidity (00638A3), Black and Metal

AcuRite 00638A2 Wireless Weather Station with Wind SensorThis a gift for my wife, who has wanted one for some time. I learned that you could spend a lot of money for one for a serious weather hobbyist, and probably get complexity that isn't wanted or needed. This little unit is GOOD, for a beginner who might want to move up later, and for someone who just wants to see a solid, basic weather system that gives a good introduction to reading the weather right at home. The receiving unit is well made, easy to read, and has buttons big enough for our arthritic old fingers. The manual is complete and easy to understand. Installation is quick and not complicated. I installed where my wife wanted it, wondering if it might suffer from electrical interference, and saw good steady readings on the meter that agreed with our other indoor/outdoor thermometers. The wind and pressure readings are fine, with the understanding that this old man is not about to place it high enough to escape wind interferences of our houses, or replace batteries when needed.THIS LITTLE INSTRUMENT JUST WORKS.... AND IT WORKS RIGHT! But it's not all pros and no cons: the manual recommends PVC pipe to mount it. That works, but the manual writers forgot Kansas winds! I strapped the pipe to a corner fence post with zip ties, and it sways like a buggy whip in any breeze at all, so I'll get a piece of steel pipe, set the pole into it and a minor problem will be no problem at all.

Works great, not problems

This is a handsome unit with a small footprint which won't look ugly or upset the neighbors. It was easy to set up and the vanes are always turning, it even measures wind speed down to 1mph, something the Big Boys don't do. I have mounted it on a 10' pole where it captures all the wind and is not blocked by trees or houses. The signal is very strong and it captured the atomic time immediately. Now why it only gets 4 stars:It mounts on a 3/4" pole, readily available at Home Depot. Despite the admonitions that a metal pole might attract lightning, get one anyway. A plastic pole will whip in the wind, and lightning will hit the highest object, your house not the anemometer. Mounting this illustrates a true design flaw. When this is placed on a 3/4" pole, it needs to be tightend onto the pole by two set screws which tighten the two halfs together. Good luck. The screws are deeply recessed and are so tiny you can barely even see them. I do not exaggerate when I say you will need the smallest jewler's screwdriver on the planet, phillips head, to even make contact. Then you cannot generate enough torque to tighten the screws. This would be a deal breaker if the pole did not penetrate so far into the unit it could not fall off anyway. Were it mounted on a plastic pole the wind would whip it around so much it would fall off. Does the manufacturer ever test their products before rushing them to market???The final negative is something which is beyond control. During the day the solar radiation gives a temperature about 2-3 degrees above normal. It would be nice if there were a compensation feature which would allow this to be adjusted, but then the nighttime temperature would be off a few degrees. Also, a backlight should have been included. For you desert dwellers, the humidity level reads down to 1%, here in Las Vegas it is in the single degree range 6 months a year. This is rarely spelled out in the summary of products.To conclude, this is a well constructed station with the console extremely easy to read. If you can work around the limitations, you will enjoy it.To conclude, this

Bought this as a birthday gift for my husband. We've been using it for a couple of months now. He has been very pleased with it. The only thing is that unless you mount the outdoor unit up about 30 feet in an open area, you will not get the same (and most accurate) wind velocity reading that you'd get from a professional forecast. Bearing in mind the way our home is situated, and the fact that at some point we will need access to replace the batteries, we opted to just mount it on top of our patio trellis (about 12 feet high) and settle for the less accurate reading. I suppose you could build something/errect a pole that could be accessed by a ladder. Otherwise, we have been very pleased with the accuracy of the device. The digital data panel is clear and easy to read as well. This is a very reasonably priced unit, and seems well made. Set up was easy, too.

This Acurite weather center has many advantages, such as:Easy to read indoor display unit with detailed information about the current weather, including indoor and outdor temperature and humidity, barometric pressure, moon phases, wind speed, future weather icons, time/date, and historical graph trends for the temperature, pressure, and wind.The 433 Mhz frequency allows you to connect the indoor and outside units wirelessly and over a long range.The outside unit has meters for recording the temperature, humidity, and wind speed, and this is the only weather center that has a sun shield, so the temperature does not rise dramatically when the sun shines on the weather station like other units, causing false temperature readings.The indoor unit resets its minimum and maximum temperature and wind speed readings automatically every 24 hours.There are no disadvantages to having this weather station. At only around $60, it beats other competitors units costing much more. I highly recommend buying it.

Very happy.