Ambient Weather WS-1171 Wireless Advanced Weather Station Reviews

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List Price: $79.99
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I am somewhat knowledgeable about weather stations and I found that for under $40 the Ambient Weather WS-1170 is a great buy. I found that temperature, humidity, and barometer all had accurate readings. It uses a frequency of 433MHz that doesn't interfere my other wireless stuff.

I made a video review if you want to see it.

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AT LAST, an indoor-outdoor weather station that is simple to set up, easy to re-program if you choose, easy to read, and reliable. And it costs much less than the other brands that I tried and discarded. I tried a Lacrosse wireless weather station and ended up throwing it out. It was an engineering nightmare whose set-up was so complicated and counter-intuitive that it was impossible without the instructions. And it needed to be set-up anew everytime you changed the batteries. Heaven help you if you lost the instructions! The Oregon weather station required specialized tools. I have a lot of optical equipment with screwdrivers of all kinds and sizes, but none worked. I sent the Oregon station back. The set-up of the Ambient is simple and intuitive, with almost everything being done for you. All you need is a standard philips screwdriver. Basically, insert the batteries and it does the rest. Re-setting is simple. The Ambient display is also clear and easy to read. Not so the Lacrosse. Others make the same complaint about the Oregon. The Ambient weather station actually works, and that tells you everything you need to know. The fact that it is much cheaper, delivery is timely, Ambient keeps you informed about the packgage's whereabouts, and confirms delivery are all pleasant extras. Good to find a company at last that treats customers as if they actually matter.

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Overall, a good buy, and at a good price ($30). I agree with the preceding Reviewers about most things, but not all. I am generally very happy with the WS-1170 Unit, but I did not find it so intuitive to set up, and had a couple of problems following the fairly complete, but tiny-print user Guide. One was that I had to guess at the number to enter to set my Time Zone for the Clock (I think I guessed -9 for the Pacific Time Zone -and I lucked out). The other one related to setting the date it was clear (in retrospect), but just not intuitive to me at the time. I did not fuss with any of the many Alarms settings.

The unit clearly displays everything you want to know about your Inside & Outdoor Weather, tendencies & time. I find that if I prop it up completely vertically (the built-in Stand is set to hold it at an angle), the display info looks darker and is much easier to read (to me anyway).

I had big discrepancies between my In & Outdoor Humidity readings when I kept the Outdoor Sensor and the Display Unit indoors to try to validate the readings. I figured that everything should be the same as long as I kept a 10 foot separation between the Units in the same Room. Not so. Apparently, Humidity is a tough one, and also varies between Indoors and Outdoors.

I also set the Ambient beside my older, and much larger, La Crosse Weather Station to compare results, and they were very close. I agree with the others that the La Crosse Units are a "bear" (term substituted) to deal with for both setup and when the batteries need to be replaced, but (unlike the other Reviewers) otherwise I have been very satisfied with my La Crosse.

I was very impressed with Ambient's excellent, fast delivery of the Unit, and even more impressed with the support from them both via E-mail and by Phone. For starters, it's been a long time since I've been told that I was a "valued Customer", and Reviewer Mele confirms that finding also. Ambient's Ed persevered (promptly and helpfully) with me through several E-mails and a Phone contact even offering to replace the Unit--which I declined.

I told him that Outdoor Humidity was the least of the information I wanted about the Outdoors, and the other 3 Measurements were validated as correct. The Heinz variety of other Settings and Alarms don't really interest me much, so I did not bother with them and cannot report. I also noticed that the Barometer is more responsive to changes than my La Crosse Unit, but have to admit that sometimes I'd like to know the Wind speed. Well, for 30 bucks, why not? But overall, it has more than I need, and I am another buyer who really likes it!

Update: 9/21/10 Highly recommend downloading the Manual available at their Web Site. At the very least it contains the Table for adjusting your Time Zone which is missing from the Manual in the Box. My Wild Guess turned out to be off by 1 Time Zone. Also it gives you a chance to get a larger Print version.

Honest reviews on Ambient Weather WS-1171 Wireless Advanced Weather Station

This is my first experience with Ambient Weather products and I have been extremely satisfied. The indoor and outdoor temperature, humidity, and pressure readings have been consistently accurate. Setting up the outdoor sensor was straightforward and went exactly according to the instructions. (sensor placed about 30ft from the unit)

The atomic time took a day or so to sync initially but has been working consistently since then.

A minor issue was the screws for the sensor mount were not the greatest (heads stripped while mounting) and I replaced them with some of my own, but that was my fault for being impatient and not predrilling the mounting holes.

As far as day-to-day performance goes, I have been checking temperature, humidity, and pressure against nearby (a few blocks away) weather underground readings on a daily basis and it tracks extremely well.

Humidity is probably the most variable. As indicated in the instructions, the humidity can be off at the high end (above 85% or so) but I dont consider this to be a big deal since the only time that occurs is when there is actual precipitation. Under conditions of near or actual precipitation, I find it can be off by around 10% in the 70-80% range, but this is measured against weather underground readings which are likely to be subject to local variation during actual precipitation anyway, so I cant really determine the actual inaccuracy of the sensor under those conditions.

The low end seems pretty good. Right now it is getting very cold and dry in the northeast and the difference in personal comfort between 15% and 30% indoor humidity is pretty significant, so having accurate report in that range has been very useful.

Temperature both indoor and outdoor has been spot on. I have another indoor temperature/clock unit (La Crosse Wt-8005U-B) and it is within about 0.2 degrees. When I initially set it up I noticed a discrepancy of about 1.5 degrees F and was a bit concerned, but I realized that I was comparing against the temperature reading from the La Crosse unit across the room. When I brought them together they were consistent and I realized that the difference was real and I actually had a significant temperature gradient in the room due to a nearby outside door. Score one for the WS-1170.

As for pressure, there is a relative pressure adjustment that needs to be made on setup to account for local altitude, but after that it has been very accurate, again as measured against weather underground values (within about 0.1%)

Some people have complained about the pressure tracking graph, but I like it. I have the unit mounted on a highly visible kitchen wall that gets a lot of nearby traffic and the animated graph is not the slightest bit distracting, but I imagine that is a matter of personal tastes.

A pleasant surprise has been the basic weather prediction feature that has been unexpectedly accurate. I wouldnt rely on it over more comprehensive meteorological predictions, but it has been fun to see how well it does based on simple pressure changes. If I had to use it in a pinch, say at a cabin without internet access, I would be about 70% confident that the predictions would be right to within a day or two.

Even the storm alert feature works well (although it is generally telling you something that you could have deduced by just sticking your head out the door)

Overall, I would highly recommend this. Great price, great product. It performs as advertised and has managed to even exceed my expectations.

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I'm not exactly a weatherphile, but I like to know where the barometer is headed, and what the humidity levels are outdoors. It seemed like all of the weather stations in this price range only told me indoor humidity, which I could not care less about. This one does exactly what I need it to do, and looks nice on the wall. Numbers are large enough to read easily. I recommend watching the video review another user posted, because I hadn't realized the pressure chart at the bottom constantly reanimated itself. It isn't a problem, but you should be aware of it in case you plan to mount it somewhere that a scrolling graph might be distracting.

I also like that the outdoor sensor has a digital readout of temp and humidity, so if you're just outdoors and curious, you can take a look instead of going inside.