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