Ambient WeatherWS-2902 WiFi Smart Weather Station

This is a replacement for the other cheaper well know brand after several DOA units we received and they have needed replacements after every 2 years or so. I was very pleased that this one worked perfectly out of the box in a few minutes. The WIFI linking directions were a bit wonky, but then I installed the Abient Weather app and set it all up quickly. I was surprised to see I did not have to configure anything since the location,time, and Date was all sent to the display automatically unlike the former brand which needed resetting after battery changes. The free app links us to many other users supplying weather info to the app. I have a neighbor a block away and we can check each other's data to make sure ours are still accurate!It's not hard to figure out why there are so many Chinese knock-off of this brand.

I had been looking for a home weather station for years and finally decided to pull the trigger. Mainly because I had the perfect poll for it that had been sitting under out carport for years and my wife threated to get rid of it with the next bulk trash pickup. Use it or lose it, so I put it to use.If you are looking for a great weather station at great price this is the perfect unit. This station has all the basics you would want and more. Rain gage that measures not only the amount of rain but hourly rain fall as well as 24 hour rain fall, weekly, monthly and rain event totals. The unit has a wind vain and anemometer for wind direction and speed, of course. It also has temperature with heat index and wind chill. We have a pool so I love that the unit measures UV index and Solar Radiation.Assembly: Not too difficult. Everything goes together pretty easy if you have a basic knowledge of putting things together. If you don't then call your kids or grandkids to come do it for you. Directions are rather long and wordy and at times seem out of order. It also has a few steps for optional equipment that does not some with this particular unit. Dug through the box looking for those things before realizing they were optional. The wind vain and anemometer cups slip on and you just need a small screw driver to tighten them down. Rain gauge twist into place and the wire filter pushes right in. The unit runs on solar power but uses two AA batteries as a backup. Took me a minute to figure out how to get the cover to slide off, I never want to push too hard and break something.The biggest issue you will have is how and where to mount the unit. I have a large yard and a garden framed with rail road ties out around 100 feet away from the house. I also had an old pipe with tripod feet that use to be on our roof with our internet dish that I was able to mount the unit too. I was able to bold the stand to the railroad ties so it is not going anywhere. The u-joints that came with the unit securely mounted the unit to the pole I had and was fairly simple. The thing to remember is mouth it facing north, which I was easily able to do using the compass on my iPhone and the arrow on top of the unit. And do not forget to check the level of the unit. It has a level dot on top. I thought I was done, but then noticed that and spend another 30 minutes trying to adjust the base and the u-joint and pole screws to try and get it perfect… then just got mad and bent the pole and BAM… unit level.It took the unit a few minutes to find the indoor unit. I had to then move it around to find the best spot for reception. I have tried moving it all over the house and the base has a tough time reading the station if you move it too far away or there are too many walls between the station and the base. I have it setting on one of my wife’s tables by a back window within eyesight of the weather station. It gets five bars there and is working great, however my wife thinks it clashes with the aesthetic of the table… can’t win them all.Pros: Within a few hours of setting the unit up we had a big rain event. Unit worked great. We got over 3 inches of rain over night. With wind and rain unit held firmly in place. Display is easy to read. Also easy to setup and create accounts on Ambientweather.net and other weather apps that let me check out the weather conditions at my home wherever I am.Cons: Not many major ones. Set unit DST (Daylight savings time) thinking it would automatically spring forward and fall back with time change, but instead it would randomly spring forward an hour. Once I turned DST off the clock has kept the correct time.I could see if you have a small yard, or are in an area where the house are close together, or have a lot of trees, you may have a hard time finding a clear, unobstructed, spot to mount the unit. Also, if you do not have an existing pole to mount the unit to you could spend as much on the poll and hardware as you spend on the station itself.As for the unit itself the wind gauge does not look to read over 99.9 mph. I live on the Texas coast, took a direct hit from Hurricane Harvey in 2017, so that is a possibility where I live. While the unit might not display wind speed that high it may still read that and post it on the Ambientweather.net site.Lastly, If you are not computer or tech savvy then have your kids, grandkids, or someone under the age of 25 come over and help you with that part of the set up. I had an issue connecting it to our WiFi trying to follow the directions, and my son took it and without even looking at the directions had it connected in about 30 seconds.Overall great weather station for a great price.

My WS-2902A weather station has been in operation since April of 2020 (5 Yrs.) and continues to out perform my expectations.The sensor array is mounted on the second floor of my boat dock, about 150’ from the head display unit. Signal strength has never been a problem.Operationally, the only issue I’ve had is bird droppings clogging the rain funnel, which causes inaccurate rain fall amounts. It’s a pretty minor maintenance issue and easily corrected. Newer funnels have a wire coil grate in the funnel which reduces the clogging problem. I’ll have to inquire about the grate to see if it’s sold separately.Otherwise, this system has been highly reliable and a good bang for the buck.

I've been meaning to get myself a weather station and after a lot of reading, decided on the WS-2902c for a number of reasons. Here's an overview of this product, if you're considering a purchase:The Sensor ArrayThe sensor array is the part that stays outdoors and contains most of the weather sensors. The sensor array itself is pretty lightweight and easy to assemble; it can measure temperature, barometric pressure, wind speed, wind direction, humidity, rainfall, and sunlight strength. Assembly takes a few minutes and will require a precision screwdriver (aka jeweler's screwdriver), which is not included.The rain bucket funnel installation was slightly trickier than I expected. The instructions tell you to push it down and rotate clockwise. This is correct, but the tabs on the funnel need to align to the grooves in the bucket, or things won't click in place. Also, it required more force when pushing down than I expected.The sensor array works with two AA batteries and a small solar panel. Don't forget to remove the sticker that covers the solar panel before installing the array on a pole. In fact, the manual wisely recommends that you assemble the array and make sure it connects to the console before installing it in a permanent location. It's also important to note that you *cannot* use rechargeable batteries on the sensor array (different voltage). Regular alkalines should last for years, but I used a Lithium AA (non-rechargeable) for maximum time between recharges. Remember, the array only uses the batteries when there's no solar light available, and it only sends one pulse of data every 15s or so.Sensor Array installation (outdoors)This is the fun part of installing your weather station. First, search around the Internet for instructions on where to mount your sensor array. More expensive models allow setting up each component at a different location (for instance, temperature sensors are best if installed ~5ft from the ground, but anemometers need to go 10-15ft high and so on). This model has all sensors in a single unit, so a compromise is needed. It's important to not mount the station too close to other obstacles (trees, roofs, etc) and not too close to lawns (where irrigation will throw the humidity measurements off).In my case, I used a 2" PVC conduit (see photo) to raise the station above my roof. The included U-bolts (used to tie the sensor array to the pole) can accept pipes up to 2" diameter but this is *outside diameter*. PVC pipes are measured in inside diameters. In my case, a PVC junction and a reduction bushing + a small piece of 1 1/2" PVC worked beautifully. I had to brace the pole to an existing 4-by-4, with three EMT braces, which worked beautifully.Another tip is: If you want to use PVC, use at least 2" for more stability. Even 2" PVC starts to wobble after 6ft or so (which is what I needed). A metal pole is stiffer and ideal but presents complications with lightning. If you use a metal pole, make sure you properly ground it! Ideally, pay an electrician to do it if you're unsure about how to do that.The consoleThe console is the part that stays inside your house. It has a few functions:- Measures indoor temperature and humidity.- Connects to the Sensor Array using the ISM band (915Mhz).- Connects to your WiFI (2.4Ghz only!) and transmits data to ambientweather.net and others.To set up the console, you also need a cellphone app. For Android, the app is "Awnet". It has terrible ratings, and is very simplistic, but did the job for me. Once you configure the console, you don't need to use this app anymore. The app will also check the firmware on the station and, if required, prompt you to upgrade it. If that's the case, make sure to upgrade the firmware. Newer versions come with nice features, like allowing the console to connect to arbitrary webservers.The console requires 3 AAA batteries and will use them to keep the configuration intact if the power goes out. It is OK to use rechargeable batteries in the console.The console will optionally transmit your data to ambientweather.net, where other people can see your data in realtime. It can also directly upload to other sites like Weather Underground and to a custom site (if, for example, you run your own web server and want to further process this data.) Note that ambientweather.net (the site) itself can transmit your data to other personal weather station aggregators. So in fact you only need to transmit your data once (to ambientweather.net). From there, you can configure the site to transmit to pwsweather and weather underground. It's all free.Now, the bad: The display on the station is awful. The viewing angles are very narrow. I installed mine on a wall and it became almost unreadable since the console is naturally angled up instead of being flat. Here's a tip: The angles are not so bad when you're looking at the console from above. If you install it on a wall, it has to go lower than you expect. In my tests, it has to be around 10" below the line of your eyes. I docked one star out of my review for this and honestly considered docking two stars.ExtrasFor the SDR geeks out there, you can listen to your weather station using rtl_433 software (open source) and a cheap SDR dongle. The station transmits on the 915Mhz frequency every 15s or so. If using rtl_433, just run "rtl_433 -f 915Mhz". You can also pipe this to a JSON file for further processing if you wish (add -f json to the rtl_433 command-line).ConclusionOverall, I like the weather station. Installation outside required some thinking but the result was rewarding. I really dislike the console though :( The ws-2902c (this model) supposedly has a redesigned console from the ws-2902b. It's a real shame they didn't improve this or give us another option of a console for this model. Fortunately, the integration with personal weather station aggregators works really well, and I particularly like the option to upload data to any web server of your choice, if you want to further process this data.