Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I've had this about a week now -- and so far, so good. It's sending the signal to the monitor and bridge just fine. I've got it set up with AcuLink and Weather Underground. I don't have any way of really knowing how accurate it is, but I think it's close enough. I particularly like the rain gauge since I grow a vegetable garden in my suburban yard. I found the variety of products and descriptions a little hard to follow, so I'll describe what this package does in case any one is confused: The white sensor goes outside and measures wind speed, wind direction, rainfall, barometric pressure and temperature. The screen (inside) reads/displays info from the outdoor sensor every few seconds plus gives you indoor temperature and humidity. It stores historical readings, has a 'weather ticker' which scrolls through a series of readings (like month-to-date rainfall, high temperature this week, etc.), and gives a 'forecast' based on rising or falling barometric pressure. The third piece is the internet bridge. It hooks directly to your internet modem with a cable, and reads information from the OUTDOOR sensor and pushes it to the internet about every 15 minutes. There you can view it on the AcuLink or Weather Underground (my preference) web sites. Weather Underground requires you to set up a free account and register your weather station. You'll show up on their site along with thousands of other personal weather stations. Pretty cool.Weather underground has an iPad-only app called WunderStation that is very nice. A few specific points: 1) The package didn't include the full manual for the internet bridge, just the quick start guide. The quick start guide wasn't as specific as needed to get the bridge running smoothly. The full manual, which I downloaded after a frustrating hour of trying to get set up, made clear that the bridge would need up to a half hour to update software and another 10 minutes before the signal would be picked up by AcuLink. The full manual should be included, and the quick start guide could be written better. 2) The monitor is larger than it needs to be in my opinion. It's almost too big to put on a desk or small table. Also, it's illuminated all the time. Might be able to change that -- I'll have to investigate. It's LCD with a color background. It's hard to read unless you're at just the right angle, the color template makes that worse. I really would rather have a good old black and white monitor about half the size of this one. 3) The update rate to AcuLink and Weather Underground is every 15 minutes. That just seems to be too slow for this real time world we live in. What are we waiting for? 4) The AcuLink website is serving its purpose, but it's a leetle bit primitive looking. Also, it would be nice if historical data stored and accessible. I can get it on Wunderground though. [Edited 6/9/2015 to add: Data is available from AcuLink, just not real obvious how to do it. Select 'chart' and then 'save'. The data downloads into an Excel file.] 5) The short, stubby mounting bracket isn't very well designed. After noodling it over for a while, I threw the bracket in the trash, headed to Home Depot and bought a 10 foot length of 3/4 inch electrical conduit which I fastened to a fence post with conduit straps and nails. Cost was less than $10. Update: 5/2016 The unit frequently loses contact with the internet bridge, so I have large gaps in the data collected and a never-ending stream of e-mails from Wunderground that my unit has stopped and re-started reporting. I'm sure the manufacturer would say move the bridge closer to the unit, but it's just not possible for me to mount near enough to my modem and still get good weather readings. Also, the indoor unit has been reporting 1% indoor humidity for several months now. And the display is dark all the time rather than illuminated as I mentioned before. So, to read it I have to fumble around and find the button on the back. So, I've grumbled about it being too bright and now about it being too dark. Really, a gray-scale monitor that's about half the size would be preferable. All it adds is the indoor reading anyway, as the outdoors readings are readily available are your smart phone or tablet (when the link is working). Update: 10/2016 Original rating was 4 stars -- I'm taking it down to 2 now. Indoor humidity, mentioned above, is non-functional. The outdoor temperature consistently read significantly higher than other units in my area and another thermometer I have in the back yard -- 3-5 degrees. I switched out my cable modem and now I've lost all touch with the bridge and the online instructions simply don't work. It may be my modem, but I'm done trying. It's a big disappointment the amount of time I've invested in getting this thing to work right and having it work correctly for such a short period of time. Update:11/2017 It's in the trash now. This summer it took a hit in a hail storm and the wind speed thingy was broken. Replaces with the Ambient Weather 2902 this week. I really like the design of the monitor -- it's more compact and has a cleaner look too. Setup was extremely easy, and no bridge required to connect to the internet (WU, etc.). Well designed and thought out.