Customer Reviews

La Crosse Technology WA-1140U Weather Direct 4-Day Talking Internet-Powered Wireless Forecaster

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

This sounded like something my 91 yr old father who is a weather buff would enjoy. I am used to "Talking" items being user friendly for people with severe vision imparement. This is not. Some of the information scrolls across the screen and is not spoken. The entire signing up process was done online, so if a person is not comfortable with a computer, someone else must assist.
Also, you get 1 location to monitor that is free (you must fill out quite a form on the computer), but there is a yearly fee for any of the additional 4 locations it can monitor. I felt that the description was not clear on that.
There have also been a number of times the recording seems "broken" for lack of a better word. It will repeat several words of the greeting, then stop completely; never giving the weather. Sometimes nothing happens when you press the button and you assume it is broken. But the next day it is working fine!
It is basically impossible to speak with anyone at the website, although a number is given. I have sent a message asking for a call back and never received it. Very poor customer support.
Someone who has lots of time to "fiddle" with it and can see would probably do okay.

The Weather Direct WA-1140U arrived at 4:00 p.m. By 5:00 p.m. the same day, I was seeing local weather forcast (including the temp at my home). The hardest part of the entire setup was picking a spot for the unit to sit on my desk and where to place the remote sensor. Everything else was pretty bulletproof.
Since the installation, I have subscribed to some of the additional services offered by Weather Direct (alerts and warnings) which have proven to be quite accurate and timely. And I always know when an alert has been triggered as the annoying beep accompanying the alert makes our family dog nervous (so go check the Weather Direct).
The news feeds are also a plus as I can do a quick review in the morning and not have to go the television or computer for news headlines.
For a weather geek like me who wants to know the current, the future, and for locations around the country, this is a great unit.

There are now three different types of home weather stations:
1) The kind that comes with its own sensors and attempts to develop a forecast based on their readings. The drawback of this type is that inexpensive models come with flimsy and inaccurate sensors, and no matter how pricey the unit, the forecast really isn't that great.
2) MSN-Direct models. These models have you select a location, and they use the MSN-Direct wireless service to obtain a forecast. This involves pretty much zero setup, but many users have reported problems with reception.
3) The Weather Direct units. Instead of relying on the MSN-Direct unit, you plug a small transmitter into your home network, and it obtains the forecast information over the internet. This enables the unit to pull down a wide range of information, and it gives you a lot more flexibility as to where in the house the unit can be placed.

Following the included directions, I had little trouble setting up the unit. It worked exactly as advertised on the first try, and the website was pretty self-explanatory. For the price I paid (about 1/3rd of list), it is worth it. The list of available forecast locations is large, there are many options as to how you want the forecast set up, and since almost all the configuration is done from the website, you don't have to wade through piles of obscure button presses to get anything done.

Some things I would change about the unit if I were LaCrosse:
1) The spoken forecast is too short if you choose the basic forecast, and too long if you choose the detailed. The detailed has the right amount of detail, but instead of "flowing" from one part of the day to another, it breaks them up which takes too much time.
2) More customization of the scrolling forecast. It displays the sunrise and sunset every time, and leaves off the wind speed, which is only available in the detailed spoken forecast. You can't get the temperature forecast over time via the scrolling display.
3) Re-configure the picture forecast. I would like to vary the pictured forecast between the 4-day, and the next four 6-hour forecast sections. Right now, if you hit some buttons, you can get the precipitation forecast for the rest of the day, but you can't get the temperature forecast. (That's only available in the spoken detailed forecast.)
4) The warnings setup needs some work. I need to set it up so that during the night when I'm sleeping, the unit will only wake me up for tornados. Otherwise, I don't want it to even beep. During the day, I DO want the unit to gently let me know of other severe weather conditions. Right now, all you can do is pick what action you want for each kind of warning, but it won't change that during the night. (For instance, I want to know about a flood warning during the day, but at night I don't care, as I live on high ground.)

In summary: If you can get this for a good price, go ahead, but I wouldn't pay anywhere near list for this device until they clean it up some.

I bought this for my parents since they get frustrated when they have to wait for the TV weather forecast to scroll through a lot of cities before it gets to the ones they're looking for. Now they get accurate weather forecasts for their city, as well as for my grandmother's and all three of their kids, at the push of a button. But the little bonus is that you can record a 50-character message to play (set to come on automatically each morning, or manually by pressing a button). Every day I program a new message from my computer in New Hampshire and it plays the next morning at my parents' house, 550 miles away! I wasn't sure about its quality when I ordered it as the price seemed so cheap on Amazon, but it's great, and I have since ordered four more for other family members that saw it and wanted one!

Mine also shipped without the weather sensor. That wasn't very important to me because I already have a full featured weather station; I mainly wanted the unit for the forecast capability. Getting the gateway hooked up with my router and registered via the internet was a snap...but I could never get the base station to synch with the gateway; therefore the forecast (and all of the other main features) didn't work. I tried various things on my own and used the online troubleshooting (including downloading a utility which verified my router, firewall, etc were all set up perfectly) with no results. I then called customer service and was on hold forever so I gave up. By now I had wasted almost 2 hours trying to get the thing to work so I reboxed it and returned it. Too bad; it looked like it could be a useful little device.

I ordered this unit, had to replace cuz it came w/o any wireless sensor in the box. After receiving the replacement, the wireless sensor... died again after 2 wks of using. Forecast function still fine. The "talking" function is worthless since I barely hear anything with the unit at my ear, even at the maximum volume. I decide to keep it still since I got it for so cheap w the gold box deal, it worth the price for the forecast function.
This is the 3rd LaCrosse weather station I bought this year. Their wireless sensor failed 2 times before, seem like it is the common problem w LaCrosse. So disappointed w LaCrosse weather station. However seem like they are the only 1 who make them. My GE station last 2 years until the day I dropped it, and is much cheaper than any LaCrosse, but they dont make them anymore.

Very easy to set-up. I got this at Walmart for $20 on clearance and what a deal. Sends info to the unit wirelessly from a connection to your home router. You can customize what headlines you want to hear by chosing online when setting-up. You can also customize the greeting. The sound quality is pretty good.

I bought one of these units last christmas and the weather is always about 10 degrees off - year round. I have contacted them numerous times and you can never get through (due to overwhelming demand they say - probably due to all the complaints). Through email they tell me that they are resubmitting information to their meteorologist. I don't understand why they can't figure out the weather when I can go to any weather website and get the correct weather. They keep emailing updates that their meteoroligist is working on it. It has been almost a year and they still can't figure out how to make the unit tell the right weather.

Although the hardware for this weather station is decent (at least in the short term), the software makes this system very difficult to setup. And if something goes wrong, you often have to remove batteries and start again. The setup process will likely require a good hour, with much trial and error. The instructions are poor and incomplete. And make sure you have a router in your house. This thing will only work with a router.

The outdoor temperature sensor is a joke. First of all, it is not waterproof. They state that clearly in the instructions, and it is obvious from a cursory look at the sensor. How dumb is that. So this sensor must be placed in a location where it will not get wet, but simultaneously, quite close to the main receiver unit. For me, that was next to impossible. The sensor is now too far from the receiver unit to couple properly, and the outdoor temperature reading is lost.

There are, however, some nice features. The web based weather updates are great, and very useful. If there is a weather station near you, the fact that the outdoor temperature sensor is useless is no longer a big issue. [...] I was lucky- mine is within a mile. There are a lot of them. Furthermore, there is no cost to continued web weather updates, which is a pleasant surprise. If you want this thing to provide news, or emergency weather information, that requires a subscription.

Hence, this thing gets three stars. Terrible setup process and no useful outdoor temperature sensor is the bad. But the web forecasts, which include temperature, are very useful, and the 3 day overview is the good.

LaCrosse recently migrated their servers from Germany to the US and during that whole time the device has not worked. I talked to the person who headed up the migration and he himself told me that he was the only one on the migration and that he had no extra help and that the company had no rollback plan or "plan b". Clearly this was a cost-cutting move that has rendered all of their "talking" devices useless and actually dangerous (socially not physically). What I mean is that my daughters were already late to school 3 times because the alarm not only failed to get the audio but the backup system (it was supposed to at least beep when no audio file was received) also was disabled by the error so the alarm does nothing. At least if they are going to mess up the audio file don't render the alarm completely mute.

To make matters worse is they have not been honest with their users. Their update messages on the site about system status all claim things like:

"We're very pleased to note that the WD customer base continues to grow, even faster this holiday season. If you have a Weather Direct model that offers audible forecasts, you may notice that although the visible forecast data updates regularly, a manual update is sometimes required to retrieve the spoken forecast (press and hold the SNOOZE button until the unit beeps). This is a side effect of increased volume on the system, and will be resolved as soon as possible. With most other issues, the Weather Direct units usually self-recover without user intervention if they remain connected.:

Well three things:
1. I've had this problem for months so unless the holiday season includes Labor Day I think this is just a thinly described excuse for the fact that they are still having server migration issues.
2. So how helpful is that that you need to manually update the audio. First of all should I have to make sure the device has the audio before I go to sleep? Second, even if I wanted the hassle it updates overnight and during the update it fails to get the audio update and the device goes silent (as per the note above) so you don't have an alarm anyway.
3. Their own instructions are wrong. You actually have to hold the SNOOZE button until the unit beeps TWICE. The first beep won't do it (yes I have read the instructions in detail). Also if you do hold it down for 2 beeps that also doesn't work either. it will go throught the update cycle but it doesn't bring down the audio. You'll notice that the reception indicator will be one "dot" and not one "dot" and three "semicircle" lines that indicate a good signal eventhough you are right next to the broadcasting unit.

So the combination of a shoddy product, an underfunded backend system (which this device is heavily dependent on) and thinly disguised excuses makes for a bad company you should steer clear of. There are other weather devices out there (Oregon ScientificOregon Scientific BAR388HGA Wireless Weather Station with Atomic Clock, Black, HoneywellHoneywell TN924W Weather Information Station, Black) so I would look at those instead. Please note LaCrosse Technology and Weather Direct are the same company so avoid products from both if you share these concerns.