Customer Reviews

Ambient Weather WS-1171 Wireless Advanced Weather Station with Temperature, Dew Point, Barometer and Humidity

5 star:		(149)
4 star:		(73)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Length:: 3:37 Mins

I am somewhat knowledgeable about weather stations and I found that for under $30 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.

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.

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.

It's funny to read a lot of the negative reviews (and some positive ones) saying that the humidity readings aren't accurate. First of all, relative humidity is a POOR indicator of the air's "stickyness." Especially in the summer. This is because the relative humidity (RH) is exactly what it says, it is RELATIVE to the outside temperature at a given point in time. To properly check the moisture content in the air (which is what causes the uncomfortable feeling in the summer) you should follow the dewpoint (DP). Thankfully, this unit is one of the only ones to feature a dewpoint readout. About 98% of all other wireless weather stations only have relative humidity, which tells you nothing (other than being higher in the early mornings, and lower in the middle of the day). I wish people would understand what dewpoint is, but even most local weather forecasts on the news will report relative humidity and not dewpoint, so it figures that people focus on this aspect too much. In any case, this unit worked good for me, because all I wanted in the first place was an accurate digital dewpoint monitor (without having to use an old fashioned sling psychrometer). Hope this helps people out there to learn the difference when someone mentions the "humidity" rather than the dewpoint.

The device is quite interesting and displays lots of information, but it seems to be not so well thought at best.

Here are the immediate issues upon installation:
1) The unit can display Dew Point outside, but it displays it INSTEAD of outside temperature. So you have two options:
- see outside temp and humidity and don't see dew point
- see outside dew point and humidity and don't see outside temp(who would use that feature??)
So, basically, you can't see the outside temp and dew point on the same screen. Dew point is a substitute for humidity, not the temperature.
That's the craziest design one could imagine and this is the main component of my rating.

2) The main's backside is curvy so it doesn't stay firm when attached to a flat wall and will be turning back and forth every time you click any button. It is like pressing buttons on a basketball standing next to a wall. Once again, I can't think of any logic behind the decision to make it that way.

3) If you power the main unit first, it will not see a remote unit if you power it later. There is no search function. (it is written in the manual though).
My other weather station can do this easily.

4) If you power off the main unit, you'll have to set it up again from scratch: temp units, relative humidity calibration, 24H format, time etc and so on and so forth.

5) Remote can only display Fahrenheit, so looking at the remote itself is useless for me. I have to go to the main to understand what the remote is showing. Main unit can switch between Fahrenheit and Celsius.
Once again - very unusual. My other weather station's remote switches easily between the two.

6) The main uses AA batteries, while remote uses AAA. A minor thing, but be prepared.

7) I would not say that it feels sturdy.

The pros are:
Good manual
Display lots of information. Some it seems irrelevant though: date, time, seconds, day of the week.

Given the cons though, I am highly inclined to return the unit.

Great little weather station! Gives almost all the weather info except phases of the moon,wind speed and rainfall amount. Just set it up and it works. Easy to follow instructions. I would like for it to have been larger so I could read it from across the room, but I knew the dimensions when I ordered it. Even so, I enjoy it and would recommend it to anyone wanting indoor and outdoor temp& humidity info.

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.

Update 10/2011: Outdoor sensor stopped transmitting temperature and humidity when ambient temp fell below about 61F (happens this time of year in New England!). Display on sensor showed temp & humidity, and both outdoor sensor and indoor console had fresh batteries. Still works normally at higher temps. Disappointing failure *just* out of warranty (15 months, 1 year warranty)- had to lower rating a notch.

Has all the features the previous reviewer noted, so good purchase for the price. Had some issues with the instructions, but the manufacturer corrected those almost immediately!

A very nice feature is that the "Radio-Controlled Clock (RCC)" receiver is in the remote sensor, which in turn sends time info to the main display unit. Since the remote sensor is usually mounted outside and relatively high, it has an optimum reception opportunity, and the main display can be located anywhere within the remote's transmission range.

Shipped promptly, great support.

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.

Since we lost our weather sensor with our move to our new house, it was time for a replacement. I was impressed that this Ambient Weather device had so much at $30. However, I wasn't as "wowed" as I thought I would be.

It is nice to have the Humidity readings both inside and out. (Compared to weather internet readings, I find all wx readings reasonable accurate.) But to get Dew Point, you must hit two buttons; then Dew Point replaces Outside Temperature. With the large screen, I thought Temperature, Humidity AND Dew Point would all be displayed at the same time. (What I would really like is to have the aforementioned three readings plus Heat Index.)

For $30 I think it is a very good deal. However, if all you really want is outdoor and indoor Temperature, then I would consider something less expensive.