WS-1002-WiFi

This weather station is a very good station for those just starting, or those who have been monitoring the weather for years. It's value comes from the number of sensors, quality build, and accuracy that has thus far, been on par with my more expensive Davis Vantage Pro 2 Wireless Station. We got this station for my sister, who lives about 2 miles from where my Davis station is located. Other than manually having to adjust the barometric pressure, as we live at an altitude of over 6,500 feet, and this can sometimes cause a false reading on a lot of different weather stations, everything else was spot on out of the box. Setup was 1,000 times easier than setting up my Davis station, and everything just worked like it should from unboxing, to installation, to firing up the station and getting it online to report to weather underground. The trick though is an application that you download on your PC called Easy Weather. If you do this, you can pass up the tedious task of having to setup your station through the small monitor that shows you what your station is doing, the LED part of the station that you put up on your wall or set on your desk. If you setup this station through that small monitor, you'll be clicking the little buttons on it for hours, inputting everything from coordinates, to time, to elevation, ect... Using the PC application instead, you can do the same thing through your computer, and believe me, it's much easier to input numbers and letters with a keyboard than with those little buttons on the monitor! It wirelessly programs that monitor through your computer and setup only takes 5-10 minutes. Once that's done, it's ready to go! We got my sisters station up in about an hour, from installing it to programming it and having it report to weather underground. The other really big tip for those who live in areas that get cold, use lithium AA batteries in the outdoor sensor array. Alkaline batteries don't like really cold temperatures, and will go dead within a year from the cold itself. Lithium batteries are not affected in this way, and will last for many years. This way, you won't be needing to go out there and replace the three AA batteries in the sensor arrays belly, and depending on where you mount your station, that can be a pain to do every year. All in all, we are very pleased with the performance and accuracy of this weather station and I would highly recommend it for someone who don't want to spend a lot of money on one, but still wants the accuracy and quality of a more expensive model with all of the sensors you need! Plus, watching your station on the internet is a lot of fun, and seeing how different weather variables fluctuates throughout the day/night is very interesting. Before you know it, you'll be investing in a weather camera to go with your weather station, as the little "Missing webcam" image on your personal weather page on weather underground, is annoying as hell!! lol Have fun and enjoy sharing your weather with all of your family and friends!!

After combing through a myriad of reviews on personal weather stations (PWS), I finally settled on the WS-1001-WiFi. Its features and configuration seemed to work best for my setup here at the farm, and I have found it to be an excellent product thus far. That is not to say other products are inferior in any way. I am pretty new to the PWS world, so I cannot begin to speak to other products out there, however I can speak to how well this has worked for me. Setup took a little thought and planning, with a bit of research. The truth is that everyone's property and needed configuration can vary greatly, so outside of the basic hardware included to mount the station itself, determining what will be used to mount the system to your house will likely be unique. I elected to mount my WS-1001-WiFi to a heavy piece of 1" x 48" galvanized plumber's pipe, just under $18. It does have threads on it (which I did not use in any fashion), however I selected it because it was pre-cut at the big box store. The U-bolts included with the WS-1001 worked well with the 1" pipe. I also picked up a package of galvanized 1" two-hole "pipe straps", basically clamps, to attach the pole to a redwood 4x4. As overkill (and being a type-A personality) I added a 90 degree, corner bracket, used as a seat for the pipe to reduce any downward pressure by the setup. In one of the pics you can see it at the base of the pipe, directly under the orange plastic cape the pipe comes with to protect the pipe threads. For the redwood 4x4 I realized that leaving the square top open to the elements may cause the entire thing to bow over time, I learned this the hard way from another project using the same material in much the same way. So I decided to make a beveled cut at the top to encourage rain shedding and I coated it as well with rubber spray Rust-Oleum 265494 12-Ounce Leak Seal Flexible Rubber Sealant, Black . I also coated the remainder of the 4x4 with Thompson's (again, likely overkill) Thompsons 10100 Aerosol Water Seal Multi-Surface Waterproofer . Once complete, I mounted the WS-1001 to the Pipe, then the Pipe to the 4x4, and then the 4x4 to an existing fence post. My only gripe, and it is a minor one, is that on the top of the WS-1001 there is a level bubble, which should be used to ensure the unit is level for rain gauge accuracy. And while this is great for say a roof top install, it isn't so great for a pole type installation look from the group up. Yes, I can get a ladder out, etc. but a bubble facing down as well would not have hurt my feelings. :-) Once everything was mounted, turning on the display and getting data was a snap! Joining it to my WiFi network worked well. Keyboard navigation was a tad tedious, but nothing a little patience couldn't solve. Once joined to my network, time synced right up. It is important not to try to skip some of the steps in the manual. I learned the hard way that Lat and Long are used for properly determining sunrise and sunset. And the indoor sensor must be installed to get the barometric pressure. Lastly, joining Weather Underground, getting my station ID ( KCOFORTL13 ) and logging in was super easy. Outside of that I am still learning about all the settings, etc. The feeling I get is that if you just want to dabble and have a nice weather station of your own, this will work quite well. If you want tons of data to sort through, etc. ... this will also work for you. I am incredibly happy with this purchase! If you are considering this as a present for a loved one, then definitely consider this unit. One does NOT need to be a technical genius to setup and run this station.

I've had this unit for about a month now and by and large it works very well. Setup was very easy, no problems at all connecting to wifi and linking to a WU account. The display unit is full-featured and presents an amazing amount of data. The only reason for the 4-star rating instead of 5 stars is that it seems to have some trouble with cold weather. On a recent night the temperature got down to -23F. The unit stopped transmitting prior to that, at -17F. I assume that the extreme cold was too much for the solar powered rechargeable battery to generate a strong enough signal back to the base station. The outdoor unit is only about 30 feet from the base station, and direct line of sight, so I was a bit surprised. Obviously this will be a rare occurrence, but the lesson would be that if you are planning to use your weather station in an area that sees extreme cold weather on a regular basis, this might not be the best choice.

I've had Ambient Weather WS-1001-WiFi for almost a year now, so here is a review of my experience with it. WS-1001 is my third weather station, and it is a winner. The sensors are reliable and appear to be accurate. I am especially pleased that the humidity sensor is as reliable as it should be, performing without any hiccups which I unfortunately observed with my previous weather stations. The temperature, barometric pressure, rainfall, wind speed and direction, solar radiation and UV level sensors are all good. Although the main screen of the base station might seem a little overwhelming at first, I got used to it fairly quickly. Finding the right widget on screen is easy once you get used to it a little thanks to the use of larger/smaller fonts. The initial configuration of the base station, as well as re-configuration after each firmware upgrade, could have been a little easier with a touch-screen display. I think the manufacturer should also consider saving user settings between firmware upgrades to save users from the need to re-enter configuration settings after an upgrade. The sensors unit and the base station are separated by a roof and two ceilings. They are about 30-40 feet (10 m) away from each other. With this setup, I am not experiencing loss of radio signal from the sensors unit. WS-1001 starts reporting to Weather Underground as soon as the base station is configured for WiFi connection and for WU reporting. All looks really well as long as the base station is reporting. In my case however I experienced occasional "your station has stopped reporting" messages from WU. The Ambient Weather support staff has been extremely helpful in offering possible solutions to what they called a "network issue". It is not clear to me what causes the issue, I think it could be the Wunderground Server itself. I ended up creating a hack where I re-routed all traffic from the base station to my home router, thus intercepting traffic from the base station before it left my home LAN. The home router would then collect information from the base station and periodically run a script to pass the information on to WU. With that hack, the issue completely disappeared. WS-1001 has been rock-solid ever since then, running for many months without any problem at all. Overall, good and reliable sensors, rock-solid base station as long as you do not have the "network issue", and good value for the money.

I purchased the Ambient Weather WS-1001 WIFI Observer because it had most features for the price. As this was my first weather station I felt this was the best choice. My intention was to connect this to WUnderground and it been working well. The Package comes with mounting hardware but you need to have a mast or pole to clamp or insert into. I'm currently using (2) 5 foot Masts attached to a fence post using additional hardware. Two things to be aware of are placement and connection to a Wifi. There is also an Indoor sensor which can be easily mounted on a wall. Once powered up the color console looks sharp and clear and shows all details of the Weather array. The console works just perfect on a table (has a flip out stand in back or can be wall mounted) It has a feature to turn the display on/off at programmed times which is very handy. It does comes with a/c adapter which powers the Console and sends the data to WUnderground.com. The setup to the Wifi is pretty easy, you use the console arrow keys to enter Station ID and Wifi info. Once entered it started posting data to WUnderground within 24 hours. Once its connected it will automatically send data using rapid-fire which show real-time data on WUnderground.com and logs data every 5 minutes on the site. You can also capture the data using a micro-sd card which allows you to backup the data and then can be read offline. Overall I'm very pleased with the installation and setup of the unit and highly recommended it. Here is the link to my Weather Station www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KNYNEWYO411

This was easy to setup and install and works almost flawlessly. The menus are a bit clunky to use and the new version of the software that connects to it has a few minor bugs but neither are a showstopper. The base station did stop communicating with the wireless router several times and with the remote unit on the roof but after a power cycle/reboot, the problems seems to have fixed itself. The display is crisp and clean looking and will adjust it's own brightness to the ambient room light if you set it up that way. The only drawback is there is NO battery backup so if your power goes off, so does your weather station. Mine is plugged into a ups but not everyone has one of those. Comes right back up and connects after a power outage though. UPDATE: The sensor array got hit by a hail storm and that destroyed the wind vane and demolished the anemometer cups too. There is a replacement wind vane but according to their tek support, no replacement for the cups! I ended up replacing the entire sensor array but at $120 a pop for that, that will be the last time unless they come up with a way to replace the cups too. Between now and the next hail storm (probably next summer) I'll be looking for a better station that actually has replaceable parts. The inability to supply replacements parts gets this station one star at best.

This is an update after having this unit for over a year. The rain sensor failed twice. The first time they sent me a replacement, but then that one died and I was out of warrantee. Shame because you have to replace everything. All and all its adequate. It does what it says but its really not much fun. Previous review. - I waited for many months for this to come back in stock and I just received this only a few days ago so this review is more about initial observations rather than a detailed long term review. Firstly my initial impression was that its all very "plasticy". The display module is extremely light and definitely has that Chinese manufacturer feel. Its so light that you can't press the buttons on the bottom without it sliding backwards so you have to use one hand to hold the unit to press the buttons with your other hand. Maybe ill find some rubber feet to try to give it more traction. The OS is really not that great. On one page the "enter" button is on one place and then it moves to a different place on another page so you are always having to look to where the right buttons have moved to. On some pages the "enter" button means what it says but then its simply missing from other pages where you have to use the "+" "-" to actually enter into the menu. Clear history and clear max/mins don't seem to do anything. I have done this several times and nothing changed at all. There is very little color on this color screen. The outside unit seems ok. Again very light and "plasticy". I have no confidence in its long term survivability. As many of the other reviews have mentioned the pole that the unit comes with is entirely too short and makes it very difficult to connect to another pole. The entire mounting system is poor and the whole unit is held on by nothing other than two small plastic clips and friction. I see this thing flying away in a good wind. Why on earth is there no battery in the console? I want to be able to unplug this and take it with me to the storm shelter if things go bad or just move it around the house as I work. You unplug the adapter and its off. The console would have been much better with a touch screen. These buttons whose functions shift around and the poor OS just make it terrible to navigate. So overall I am not at all impressed. Its a real shame because I thought this was going to be great and its really just adequate at best.

So far, I am very pleased with the WS-1001. The setup was easy as was creating and connecting to Wunderground.com. The built in Wifi and connection to Wunderground.com are a great plus. Now I can easily check conditions at home from my smartphone anywhere. And our kids can check our weather from their homes (which is great since we live on a mountain and tend to have different weather from our nearest NOAA weather center). I have check the accuracy with other instruments and find it to be more accurate than my digital thermometers I currently have. Mounted this high off the metal roof, I cannot detect any thermal anomalies from the roof, and even though it is in direct sun most of the day, the thermal radiation shield seems to do a good job of keeping it accurate. And the rain gauge is very close to my Stratus 4" gauge. Of course, as expected, it does not work well with snow. Most of it blows away and then you get a false read a few days later when it melts. I mounted it on a 10' pole mounted to a wall mast mount at the peak of my roof. I was a little worried about the signal getting to the receiver as I have a metal roof, but have had no difficulty with the signals at all. Improvements could be made with the software. I would like the main display to have more customization, like different themes. My wife, who is more a temperature and precipitation only person, has difficulty finding the outdoor temperature amount all the other readings. Likewise with the EasyWeather PC software. For instance, the main display shows the current and max wind chill but not the min or an average for the day, etc. Why do I want to know the maximum wind chill - isn't that always going to be the max outdoor temp?