Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)From the review that says it's very poor... I can't really argue with that, but let me clarify a few things! I bought this unit as Sam's Club for $39.99 like the other reviewer did. I figured it'd be cheap, and I was right, but I also figured it would meet my simplistic needs.
Out of the box, the setup wasn't too convoluted at all. Install batteries, select the channel on the outdoor transmitter and set the indoor receiver to the same channel. It comes with a table stand and wall mount on both the indoor and outdoor pieces. The outdoor piece is detachable from the the wall mount, which makes it much easier to hang. The indoor receiver is not detachable from the wall mount but in the event of mounting it on the wall, the table stand it detachable.
The other review was pretty accurate in saying it's hard to read. It is. It's full on LCD and if you're looking directly at the display from a ninety degree angle, it's almost impossible to read anything other than the clock and the moon cycle. These two items dominate the display, which is kind of silly for a weather station if you ask me. There is a Snooze/Light button on the top of the unit which activates the light for five seconds. When the light is on, it is almost impossible to read any part of the display at a ninety degree angle. If you're looking down at a forty-five degree angle from the top-right side, the display is crystal clear. A LCD design flaw, a big one!
The atomic clock dominates the display followed by the moon cycles, the alarm and the 12 and 24 hour forecast. The lower right corner is dominated by the barometric pressure history chart and could have been assigned to something much more useful.
The lower left corner is the outdoor/indoor temperature and the outdoor/indoor humidity displayed around a thermometer. I guess it looks alright but it should have been quite a bit bigger seeing as how this is a weather station, not an atomic clock with weather capabilities!
I find the temperature to be a couple degrees off from other instruments I have. It seems to be about 2 to 2.5 degrees higher than I'm measuring with everything else. I can not speak for the humidity or the barometric pressure, as I do not have another other measurement instruments.
The outdoor transmitter seems to have a NWS receiver built-in because the unit is an atomic clock (which, surprisingly, seems accurate within less than a second) and there is a 12 hour and a 24 hour weather forecast on the display. When you first power up the unit, it will take 15 to 20 minutes to sync up with the transmitter and give you an accurate time, temperature and humidity reading. The barometer seemed to come online in a minute or so.
Bottom line...
If you're looking for a cheap device to satisfy your curiosity that is easy to setup and use, and you won't be poking around with it too much, then this is probably the unit for you. If you're looking for something more robust, or with some kind of computer/GPI interface, then this isn't what you want.
As far as the overall construction goes... Well, it's made in China! Or made in a copy of China! I haven't dropped the unit, but have the feeling that if it ever come in contact with the ground, it would not survive. It's pretty cheap plastic and I don't really expect it to live more than a couple of years.
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