Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

according to people

184
people found this helpful, as of 2023
ranked #183,503 most helpful out of 571,544,897 reviews
★☆☆☆☆
This one costs a lot, but spend just a little more the first time.
Pro's: Nice looking display unit (at first glance, read further). Con's: Outdoor sensor quality chintzy, accuracy, customer service, limited history data without hooking up to a computer, set up time, no energy storage for solar, update frequency. I purchased this weather station to replace 3 separate aging weather units to enable all weather data on a single unit. Upon unpacking the 200WMRa I noticed all of the outdoor sensor units feel like they could break just handling them. After setting everything up indoors to test connectivity, I could not get a reading from the outside temp/humidity. The first time I called customer service they had me run through a battery of tests and instead of sending me just the one sensor (none available), I had to pack up the entire unit and send it back. Two weeks later, I again have everything set up indoors as a test; again no outdoor temp or humidity. This time I order a second unit online so that I can have it quicker and the third sensor was bad as well. Second call to customer service "please send back the entire unit...". I waited an hour and called again and luckily got someone on the phone who let me know that they did have a problem with the sensor (now discontinued) and that they could send me the redesigned sensor. This replacement sensor worked fine, but didn't have solar hookup which defeats one of the advantages of this system. A note on the solar power on this system; it doesn't have any means of storage, so any time it's cloudy or at night you are running on batteries. The main console unit looks nice at first glance, but really gives very little data without hooking to a computer via some VERY outdated and glitchy software. The unit's graph is only usable for pressure, rain and wind history. For instance, you cannot see the temp trend for the last few days, only highs or lows from when you first powered up the unit. Accuracy: At one point I had purchased two systems and had them both set up indoors at the same time trying to work the bugs out of the sensors. Every bit of data was different from both units and not by just 1 degree or 1 percent, it was off by as much as 5 degrees/percent in each field. Sure enough if you read the published specifications, it states about that much as far as accuracy. To me, if you are going to spend this much money on knowing whats happening outside, you might as well have REAL DATA to go by. Update frequency: If you hear a really big wind gust outside, you may be standing there a minute or two before seeing how high it actually was. I didn't initially want to spend another hundred on the Davis unit; after my experience thus far I figured I could sell this on ebay and put the extra toward the Davis. BY CONTRAST: The biggest differences on the Davis unit is that all the outdoor sensors are mounted in one reasonably sized very sturdy unit; that utilizes true solar with storage that only resorts to batteries if it hasn't seen light in 3-4 days. The main display is built like a tank in comparison; the graph can be used to watch any data you choose over whatever time period you choose, such as: last 24 hours, 24 days, 24 minutes (rain) or even 24 years. Highs and lows can also be seen for ALL DATA for any time you choose: Daily, hourly, monthly or even yearly. Now you can see at a glance "What was the coldest day last year?" or "What was the highest wind gust last year?", etc. The Davis units update every 2-10 seconds depending on data; basically real time. Published accuracy is 0.6 of a degree!! I went with the Davis ISS (integrated sensors) with the ProVantage 2 console/display. These together cost $360. Save the time & frustration and buy any one of the Davis units the first time, it is money well spent.
January 2010 · Patio Lawn and Garden · verified purchase
the product in question
Oregon Scientific WMR200 Professional Weather Center
3.2★ · 115 ratings, as of 2023
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