I purchased this thermometer and 2 additional sensors with the hopes of using the system to monitor high-low temperatures in my garden and in 2 unheated rooms in my house. I found that absolutely none of the features that I needed actually worked.
First of all, what they don't mention in the description is that the 100 foot range is only for clear line of sight. The sensors and main unit worked fine when they were all together on the kitchen table. But when I put the main unit by a window and the remote sensor 20 feet away across the driveway, there was no reception. I opened the window--still no reception. In order to get reception on the main unit, I also had to open the screen. Opening the window and the screen to get a temperature reading? Not acceptable! Needless to say, with several walls between the sensor in my unheated room and the main unit, there was no reception with that sensor either, despite being well within the 100 foot stated range. Thus, in my experience, there was about a 20 foot useable range, provided there was nothing but clear air in between, no glass, no window screens.
The main unit came with a free sensor. Although the sensor was supposed to be able to work on any of the 3 available channels, it only worked on channel 1. Of the other 2 sensors I purchased, one of them would only work on channel 1 or 2. When I had the 3 sensors lined up with the main unit on the kitchen table, I got temperature readings that differed by as much as 3 degrees, although the specifications for the sensors say they are supposed to have a "resolution" of .2 degrees F. Thus, the sensors hadn't received proper quality testing.
The main unit has a clock that theoretically checks in with the national standard clock signal and updates the time automatically. Despite putting my unit directly beside a window, it never found the national standard clock in a week. It also never found the signal when I set it outdoors for an hour.
The design of the main unit is lousy. In order to change the channel button, your hand wants to hold the unit steady with the palm while you stab at the channel button with your thumb. However, the entire top of the unit is the snooze/light button, which inteferes with the channel button if you happen to press it at the same time as you try to change channels. So then you need two hands to change channels, one to hold the unit steady, and one to press the button. But half the time I grasped the unit by the side so that I could press the front buttons, the battery case cover went flying off the back.
The battery covers for the remote sensors are a bit inconvenient to remove. They require a very small Phillips head screwdriver to loosen the 4 screws. I guess designing the batter covers like this was supposed to provide some weatherproofing. Inside the cover is an additional thin strip of rubber inlaid around the batter compartment. In one of my sensors, the rubber strip hadn't been seated properly.
And what's this about a pre-alarm in case of freezing? Apparently, (if everything is working as it should--ha!) the unit has an alarm in case of frost. But this is a pre-alarm, not a real frost alarm. If it gets cold out sometime during the night and the temperature goes below freezing, it will ring the alarm in the morning 15-90 minutes earlier than usual. Hunh? Maybe there are some climates where it only freezes every once in a while where such a feature might be useful. But I want to know if there is a frost, and I want the alarm to ring exactly when the frost happens--or better yet, when the temperature drops to 33 F. Too bad the designers didn't think of that one.
Thus, in my experience, this product was entirely a piece of junk. It didn't live up to the technical descriptions, and the quality control was abysmal. Honeywell should be ashamed to see their name on this product.Buy Honeywell TE211W Atomic Clock with Wireless Thermometer!
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