[Mldxcc] La Crosse 5-in-1 Professional Wireless Weather Station Review

[Dennis Moore]

Here's my review of a weather station I received at Christmas.

I had seen this in Costco before Christmas but didn’t pay much attention 
to it. All of the weather stations I’ve used in the past were a hassle, 
requiring you to stand on your head and tapping buttons in a certain 
sequence while whistling Danny Boy until the inside display and outside 
sensor connected. When the batteries in one or the other died you had to 
repeat the whole process. Needless to say, when I did receive this as a 
gift at Christmas I had my doubts.

After it sat on the table for a week I finally got around to setting it 
up. There are three outdoor sensors and one main indoor display. The 
three outdoor sensors are wind speed, rain gauge, and temp/humidity. The 
indoor display shows the data from the three outdoor sensors plus 
internal temp and humidity, real feel temperature, daily forecast, and a 
user customizable scroll message that I currently have set to NWS wind 
information that alternates with date/time. Date and time are set from 
the internet. There is also a smaller indoor display that shows the 
outdoor temp/humidity.

Surprisingly, there were no magical steps to go through to connect all 
the devices together. Put in the sensor batteries in any sequence at all 
and the indoor units automatically connected to the outdoor sensors. The 
main display uses a wall wart.
Before you run out to install the sensors there is an important step to 
take care of, and it isn’t covered in ANY of the documentation. The 
Lacrosse View app for iOS/Android allows you to monitor your weather 
info from anywhere you have a data signal, whether it’s at home or on 
the road. The main unit connects to your home wifi, and once you have an 
account set up that information is available online through the app. 
Each of the outdoor sensors and the main display have a barcode, and 
each of those barcodes has to be scanned by the app in order for the 
information from that sensor to be available on the app. Many poor 
reviews of the app have been posted online because most people (myself 
included) thought that only the main unit needed to be added as a 
device, and in doing so the only information available was indoor 
temp/humidity. Understandably, many people were upset that all it 
reported was the inside temp. Correctly adding the devices allows 
everything to be seen on the app. I found this out after I had mounted 
all of the outdoor sensors, so I had to take them all down to access 
their barcodes.

A nice feature with the phone app is that you can set an alert, so say 
if the wind gets above a certain speed you’ll receive an alert on your 
phone. Nice to have if you’re in the habit of lowering a tower in high 
winds or have other things you need to secure. The phone app could use 
some improvement, for example it only shows data from one sensor at a 
time. You need to tap a menu then select which sensor you want to read.  
The main display in the house shows everything at once, and there is a 
lot of wasted screen space in the phone app, so I don’t know why they 
don’t make it all available at once.

Installing is easy. Just find suitable locations outdoors and use the 
included hardware (screws/wall anchors). I have the wind sensor mounted 
high on an old barn about 120’ from the house and have no connection 
problems. The self-draining rain gauge works, accuracy unknown. It 
reported 1.75” of rain during our last big storm and that seems about 
right to me.

For about $75.00 at Costco, this is a good package. Easy to set up and 
configure, plus lets me know if the wind is getting too high. Recommended.

73, Dennis NJ6G

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