Ambient WeatherWS-2801A Advanced Wireless Color Forecast Station w/Temperature, Humidity, Barometer

This weather station replaced an earlier model that died after 14 years. We like the black background as it is easy to ready the white info shown on the station. Works great and very helpful info for us.

Been using it for about 2 weeks so far and it's been very good. I checked the barometer readings a few times with what Intellicast was showing for my town and each time I looked it was either exactly the same or within 0.01 of the Intellicast reading, so pretty accurate from what I've seen. I had no problems getting the outside sending unit to link up with the inside unit. Started communicating right away. I have this unit plugged in to an AC outlet all the time so the display is continuously on. There are some negative reviews on here stating that some buyers claim they didn't know ahead of time that you needed to keep it plugged in for continuous illumination of the display but I saw this clearly disclosed on the product's Amazon description and also in the manual that came with it. I don't know why you'd want this continuously illuminated on battery power anyway. You'd be cranking through batteries every other day. As soon as I plugged in the unit and got it running and communicating with the outside transmitter, I set the time, date, time zone, etc, all manually because it was the middle of the day and I knew it wasn't going to get the radio controlled clock (RCC) signal ("atomic clock" is actually a misnomer) until at least that night or longer. The manual that came with the unit says it can take at least a couple days before the radio signal gets successfully received for the first time. In the meantime I wanted the readings to at least be as correct as possible manually. This was a Wednesday around noon, and I did not see the little radio antenna symbol illuminate on the display for the first time signifying that it successfully linked up with the radio signal until I woke up that Saturday morning. I was starting to get a little concerned that something was wrong but don't lose hope if you don't see it right away. One thing I also noticed is that the little antenna symbol will appear and disappear over the course of a week, so it's not getting the signal every single day of the week constantly, but enough to keep the time and other data plenty accurate for anyone's needs I would think. For example, the antenna symbol will be there Mon, Tue, Fri, Sun, but missing on Wed, Thu, Sat. It comes and goes. I live in Connecticut so maybe I'm in a fringe area and the signal has good days and bad days in my area? Who knows. The display is plenty bright for us to read anywhere in the room day or night. The viewing angle is very good left to right, but the viewing angle up or down is not that good when it's propped by its rear leg on a flat surface. I had to wrap a little bit of bubble wrap around the prop-leg behind the unit to make it stand more upright rather than angled back and after doing that the viewing from greater distances improved noticeably. I like the minimum/maximum readings on it that reset every midnight more than I thought. Nice feature. It's nice that the outside transmitter also displays the temp and RH% out there too so it's like having another thermometer outside too. I did not put Lithium batteries in the outside transmitter yet since I was out of them at the time but I plan to before the next winter season gets here. Lithiums will last longer and will operate in a broader range of high/low temps than regular alkalines. I found this out from prior units I've had in past years. To summarize, I know it's only been a couple weeks but so far I'm very pleased with the purchase and am hoping that it continues to work well. Right now I can definitely recommend it.

I know this is a long review but you may benefit from our experience after reading it.This is a terrific weather station for the price! I read through all the reviews before purchasing and noted all the negatives. Then, BEFORE BUYING, I thoroughly read the online PDF manual and found that many of the negatives I had noted were actually issues that other buyers encountered because they may have not read the manual in advance or post purchase. A few of the negatives turned out affect me as well:1. The actual setup needs to be reviewed prior to doing so. It IS a bit finicky. I followed it exactly and did not encounter a problem but pre-reading the setup procedure helped me immensely. RTFM.2. The sensor's orientation seems to affect the signal strength. I purchased a sensor shield into which I placed the sensor. That turned out to be good idea which allowed me to rotate the sensor within the shield. When first mounted, the base station had a weak signal from the sensor. I then rotated the sensor within the shield so the front of the sensor (with the display) faced in a direct line to the base station. The signal strength on the base station then reached the maximum. The manual does not mention sensor rotation vis-a-vis signal strength, but it may be worth a try if your signal is weak.3. The display's orientation can, indeed, be an issue. We found best position for viewing is to orient it within about 30/35-degrees of its perpendicular center. This should be fairly easy with the stand as long as it is not high or low on a shelf. Ours is mounted at eye-level on the wall.A note on its accuracy. We live within a 25-mile radius of three Class C/D airports; each of which has an Automated Weather Observation System (AWOS). These systems generate periodic weather reports known as Meteorological Terminal Air Reports (METARs) and can be accessed over the internet. As a pilot, I routinely depend on METARs to report weather conditions. I can tell you that, in my location, what is reported by the WS-2801A is always within the range reported from the three local Class C/D airports.Also note that you can calibrate the outdoor (channel 1) temperature, humidity and relative barometric pressure as well as the temperature and humidity on the two additional sensor channels. We tracked the outdoor data and the averaged (same time) METAR from our local airports for a week before we made any calibrations. By comparing these data sources, we were able to determine the calibration offsets needed to bring our WS-2801A within the averaged data reported from the airports. It has been over 2-weeks since calibration and the data is still spot-on!As for the other problems reported here, I believe many of them stem from not carefully reading the manual and, thus, having expectations beyond that which the WS-2801A can support. For instance, the manual clearly states that the pictograph representing the forecast needs "at least one month for the weather station to learn the barometric pressure over time" (page29). Further, on page 30, the manual states "the reason the current conditions do not match the forecast icon is because the forecast is a prediction 24-48 hours in advance" and "in most locations, this (24-48 hour) prediction is only 70% accurate." It has not yet been a month since our final calibration so we are not yet expecting the forecast pictograph to be accurate. After the 1-month time frame, I will be using the pictograph for a very general forecast but will rely upon the National Weather Service for timely and sensitive data like determining if frost is likely overnight.Finally, there ave been several mentions that the automatic date and time (RCC) setting does not work. The manual states (page 12) that "in some locations RRC may take a couple of days to receive the signal." And, in fact, the RCC signal is actually received by the sensor and forwarded to the base station. When first installed, the sensor interrupts its weather-sending operation after the first 30-seconds to try to receive the RRC signal. If it fails, it will try every 2 hours until a signal is received. Please note that the time signal is actually an AM radio signal (from WWVB) and is usually fairly weak during the day. Therefore, signal establishment may occur at night in most locations. We installed ours on a Thursday and it wasn't until Saturday morning that I noticed the RCC icon on the base station. Since then, I've noticed that the sensor seems to wait 1-week (each Saturday in our case) before trying to reset the time and date. The manual does not mention this but it seems logical that the day and time of the successful RRC signal reception be remembered by the sensor for next time. It also seems plausible that there is a "hard-coded" update frequency of once a week.Please read the manual before buying so you understand the capabilities (and limitations) of this excellent home weather station!