Customer Reviews

La Crosse Technology WS-9118U Wireless Weather Station with Heat Index

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

 

 

I'm very happy with this product. Setup was straightforward and the sensor measurements seem to be consistently accurate. I think it was a good value. I particularly like the outdoor humidity and dew point LCD displays on the body of the outside module, in addition to the remote display of the information indoors. It is also handy that the remote display shows local time referenced to NIST's WWV.

Our old General Electric indoor/outdoor thermometer's outdoor sensor broke this summer, so it was time to replace it with a weather station that could give more info about the weather than just the temp. I live in South Florida, and it's nice to know what the heat index is, because in the summer, our temps along the coast rarely rise above 90 degrees, but the heat index rarely is below 100 (in which case I choose the indoor treadmill over running outside).

I bought this unit on the strength of prior reviews, which I think are pretty darn accurate in their overall assessment. I can't present much new information here, but I will validate some of the prior comments.

The weather station is constructed of cheap plastic. I think if this station falls off our kitchen bar, where it rests today, it will break into smithereens. It'll be best hung from a nail on a wall or put in a location where it's not going to fall to the ground -- ever.

The weather station has a clumsy vertical design with a small base so I think it'd be pretty easy to bump into it and knock it over. The same advice in the above paragraph applies here, too.

The weather station does emit a high-pitched tone when you press a button to backlight the display for a few seconds. It's not a big deal to me, but some might find that annoying.

The weather station does have a clutzy, non-intuitive method of setting the display which really does call for pressing the Set button up to 11 times! Each depression of the Set button selects one area of the display to be set, and there are a lot of settings being displayed (time, day, date, etc.).

It was pretty easy to spend a moment setting the weather station (despite the clutzy interface), and because I live in the Eastern time zone, my job was made easier because the default setting is for the Eastern time zone. The clock automatically synchronized with some atomic clock somewhere, so that part worked just fine.

As for accuracy, well, I've had it only a few days now, but it seems to be working alright. We've had rain for the last few days, and the barometric display -- which only shows clouds/rain, partly sunny, and sunny -- accurately forecasted the cold front by the drop in air pressure. When I put the outdoor sensor next to the indoor sensor (inside my house), the readings were within a few tenths of a degree from each other. The humidity readings were exactly the same.

The weather station reads between .3 and .7 degrees warmer than my old indoor/outdoor thermometer. I wouldn't know which of the two digital displays is accurate -- my old thermometer or this new weather station. The weather station does seem a lot more jumpy when it comes to reading the indoor temp. It's quick (when compared to my old indoor thermometer) to change the reading when, say, the air conditioning turns on.

Having the lunar phase display is a nice touch.

Overall, I like this unit so far. I wish it were constructed of more durable plastic -- my old GE indoor/outdoor unit is built to be thrown against a wall without being damaged -- and I think I'd prefer a thermometer reading that wasn't quick so jumpy with temperature fluctuations. I like the humidity readings for both indoor and outdoor, and I especially like the heat index calculation.

In all, I would recommmend this weather station to other buyers.

The unit itself is rather flimsy plastic, the control buttons have a cheap feel to them, and my biggest complaint is that there is an audible high-pitched hum that is heard whenever the backlight is on. Not sure I'll keep it for that last reason alone. The interface for changing settings is really old-school; by that I mean almost so archane that you don't even want to bother changing any settings. Here's a quote from the manual "press and hold the SET button for 3 seconds...press and release the SET button 11 times". 11 times? La Crosse, there's got to be a better way! Having said all that, it seems to monitor the indoor and outdoor weather OK... which is why it gets 3 stars.

Though as others have commented, it has a "flimsy" feel to it, it has worked for me so far. The process of using the buttons for resetting the max and min measurements is cumbersome enough to discourage you from doing it every day, unfortunately. (I'd love it if it could reset every day so you could automatically see the highs and lows of the previous 24 hours, but none in this class with these options seem to be able to do it.) The setup worked as advertised for me, and the temperature seems accurate enough for amateur use compared with the other measurements I've taken. I like that it has the head index for outdoors and humidity for indoors AND outdoors. It is readable and innocuous enough to have sitting wherever I need it in the house. I think it's worth the pretty low price for the information it provides, especially since it comes with the remote you need for the outdoor measurements.

I had one of their Atomic Wall Clocks and I was very happy with it. Sadly the battery exploded and the acid damage it. I have been assigned to a project far from home for a couple of weeks so I decided to buy something more portable. I am a weather enthusiast and I like to know more than just the IN/OUT temperature. This product met the purpose. Been using it for a couple of weeks now and seems to get more accurate with time (temperature-wise). The forecast is another story. Tomorrow a huge storm is expected with 80% chance of 4 to 8 in of snow and its forecast appear a sun with the arrow pointing up. Looks nice anyway. Who knows maybe the weather websites and meteorologist are wrong. Maybe I can give an update latter on.

Overall I am not very enthusiastic about it but hey it does what it says it should do, therefore I would give it a 4.6/5.

We have had this weather station for several months now and have had no problems with it. Set-up went exactly as the instructions stated, getting the two units to recognize each other was easy and we've had no loss of signal between the two ever since. This unit appears to be very accurate and it supplies information that other units often left out. Although it does seem a little pricey compared to other stations I would recommend this device to anyone.

This is great to look at every morning in my bedroom - I can figure out what to wear without having to go outside.

Been using the weather station for a few months now and am pretty satisfied with it. Temperatures agree okay, and humidity is within the accuracy specified by LaCrosse. The display is a bit busy, so I occasionally have trouble finding the information I want quickly.

This is an easy device to set-up; it works great! I am very pleased with this product

My husband checks this gadget all the time. For the most part, it's right on. He likes it and that's the main thing. Thanks