Customer Reviews

Honeywell TE821W Wireless Weather Station with Rain Gauge, Wind Gauge, Thermometer Atomic Clock, Barometer

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Length:: 4:47 Mins

The Honeywell Station has many nice features, but the issue is some of the features do not work. We have are still having issues with the wind gauge... but these may be operator issues!

Things we enjoy-

- Many great features - especially for the price.
- A great gift for weather fans!
- With the exception of the wind gauge everything works great - including the barometric pressure.
- The Base Unit looks nice and has a relatively small footprint.

Areas for Improvement

- The unit did not come with all of the hardware needed
- An INSANE number of screws must be removed to install/remove batteries
- The Wind Gauge is still not working
- The Set-Screw for the wind gauge is very difficult to access.
- The numbers on the screen would be difficult to see if it was wall-mounted.

Going into set-up you need the following-

- LITHIUM batteries if you live in a climate that dips below 32 degrees.
- A good set of allen wrenches - since the one that comes with the unit is useless
- Some extra wood screws - since our unit did not come with all of the needed hardware.
- Cordless drill or screwdriver.

Final Verdict - mixed review - however at this point 3 1/2 stars --- going to 4 stars if we can get the wind gauge to work

I bought this for my Dad since he is always fishing/hunting or just outside in general and is constantly listening to the weather service. Since the setup is wireless he is able to place all of the componets where they will work best. He keeps the monitor in his office where it draws plenty of attention from people who want to see the recent weather trends and whats coming up. This unit also has a blue backlight that just looks cool when needed. I'll be buying myself one for my new home too.

I was very happy when I received this item. I had to wait to buy mounting hardware from another vendor before I got this equipment set up. When I did get it up, I was very disappointed in that the Wind part of the weather station does not work. I have tried to email the vendor to let them know this and would like to get a replacement for that part of the unit. I have yet to hear from them regarding this.

The rest of the unit seems to work fine. The base unit, the temp/hum. module and the rainfall module all work ok. Just waiting for a reply from weatherbuffs.com

June 1, 2009: The unit is made in China by Hideki Electronics for Honeywell. Too many small screws to remove to install the batteries. The wind and temperature sensors work fine, but the rain gauge does not indicate the correct amount. In fact, it is way off. The barometer is very accurate. If I had it to do over again, I'd buy the TE831W which has computer interface and software.

July 25, 2009: Some WD-40 got the rocker arm in the rain gauge to pivot easier so that the gauge is almost accurate. But, this week the temperature sensor reads the correct temp and humidity, but the main module displays an entirely different temperature. In fact, as the outside temp goes up, the display shows it going down. Example: Sensor - 87 degrees, display - 54 degrees.

I bought this for my son for X-mas. Just unpacked it and right off the bat, there is a missing part to attach the wind speed cups to the shaft. (I hate tab "A" to slot "B" stuff when there are missing parts!!!!!)
I e-mailed customer service at Honeywell. We will see how that goes and I will post on customer service later. Also, this came with two remote sensors for temperature and humidity. I have the two sensors sitting side by side with the base unit and they all read different temperatures. (Remote Unit 1, 71.2 degrees), (Remote Unit 2, 73.6 degrees) and the base unit 75.8 degrees. They are all within 3 inches of each other. I even walked away for 15 minutes figuring they were so accurate they were picking up my body heat. NOT!
My thermostat and a secondary thermometer in the home both accurately match and read 70 degrees.
Not sure why they are all different. I looked at some more expensive models, but we bought the Honeywell because of name recognition and reputation. Oh well, so much for that theory.
On the positive side, the units are well sealed from weather, hence, lots of screws to access and replace the batteries as in another post here. I am not sure what else will not be working until I fully set it up.
For now, I will probably return it.

Update: I heard back from Honeywell Customer Service after the Holiday passed. They were very helpfull and sent the missing part next day delivery. Arrived on time and began to set the system up again. Still have a huge variance to the sensors. Decided to send it back.

A great value with good features and function. MUCH better than competing LaCrosse units.

One complaint - you will have to unscrew and screw 19 tiny screws to access all the battery compartments. In the case of the anemometer, they are recessed in holes just a little smaller than a screwdriver shaft - so you may have some frustration with the initial setup.

Requires a wall-wart in order to use the backlight function.

purchased a Honeywell TE821W weather station and it does not work well, I had a old Davis weather station and wanted to up grade to a better one., I thought a name " Honeywell" and all the instrument you have, your weather station would be the best. The Pressure stays at 29.8 and does not move hardly at all. I check with my local weather station and its NEVER the same, The Davis was always the same as the local weather station. The outdoors temp keep losing the signal. It located only 20 ft from the station.The weather forecast is always display cloudy. Last week it was the clearest sky I've seen in a long time, but the forecaster on my system said rain. I'm very displease with this unit. I will save my money and get a better one, and it won't be a Honeywell
Don Shreveport, La.

I purchased the TE821W-2 system in December. This system is no longer carried by Amazon but the only difference is the -2 kit has 2 remote sensors.

The system works fine and we are happy with it. I have this unit online to Weather Underground, PWS and CWOP.

I would recommend going ahead and spending the extra money for Lithium batteries. The batteries in the kit will work fine for about 30 days before you start losing signals. My wind and rain gauge are close to 100 feet from the base unit. After several days below 32 degrees the sensors would lose contact with the receiver. I would have to use the search mode on the receiver to establish connection. Once I replaced the batteries with Lithium this problem stopped.

Make sure you don't do anything with the receiver (push buttons, move it) for 10 minutes after it has started to initialize for the first time or you will be starting over because the barometric pressure will be off. Don't setup your altitude for the first day or this will cause issues too.

You need to download the latest Weather Capture Advance software from the web site. The software in the package is basic and not good at all. The advance version is better but is missing many features I would like to have seen, like current daily rain total. The software shows Yesterday, Last Week, Last Month and Total since you started recording but does not show you today's rainfall total. You can get this and more details by downloading the WUHU software and running it to retrieve the data from the Weather Capture Advance software. The software for the station does not provide real-time updates (shortest is 2 minutes) and the sensors only transmit every 30 seconds. If you need or want real-time data you will have to step up a system like Davis sells.

Overall this is a good basic (first time) weather station for those who enjoy keeping track of weather in their neighborhood but don't need streaming updates. If you want more details and options you need to step up to a Davis system.

I gave the unit a 4 because it is a good basic unit. I would have given it a 5 if the software was better and the sensors streamed. For the price you can't go wrong with this unit.

Overall, this product is good and is fun to use. My main issue is that the internal temperature gauge on the main display unit is always two degrees off. We've contacted Honeywell but can't seem to fix it. Also, the software that it comes with is very basic.

I couldn't find another weather station with the same features for the money. I was looking for accurate wind speed readings, especially, and a Web site review gave it a better rating than Oregon Scientific stations. However, assembly was not helped by the instructions which could have been improved. Some features were not well-explained and set-up programming could have been more explicit. But, once assembled and programmed, it has worked very well (except for the "Atomic" clock which hasn't found the time signal).

An update on the Atomic Clock - it started working after a few days. All systems are go after six months and I am still well-pleased with this weather station. I think it is the best station available for the money.