A little over a year ago I purchased this product and deployed it in the middle of a record breaking Canadian winter. I had done some research on personal weather stations and found this one to be listed in the above average consumer ratings category. I was initially drawn to this product by its fairly reasonable cost of $249 and figured it must be good quality because it carries the well known "Honeywell" name. However, I must confess that I have been somewhat disappointed in its performance over the last year.
To begin with, the setup is very cumbersome due to the programming buttons located on the back of the console and complicated steps to change settings. Once it was up and running things seemed to go well for a couple days until my remote wind instruments lost reception for a few minutes and then would not come back online until I powered down the unit. Of course this meant that I had to go through the confusing setup again. Unfortunately the console does not continue to scan for a sensor once it loses a signal. After placing my sensors closer to the base unit and using lithium batteries this problem was corrected for the most part. However, I have had to power down the unit (unplug it and take out the back-up batteries) at least once or twice a month since I put it in operation. The only good thing about this is that I have become quite good at programming it now.
Another BIG issue that I have noticed is that the remote temperature sensors tend to read 1.5 to 2 degrees F higher than the correct temperature. I know this because of have checked the sensors against other professional thermometers and have watched water drops freeze while the senor says it is 34 F at the same location. To try and correct this I bought an additional temperature sensor and field tested it against the first one. I noticed this one also read high. My placement for these sensors are per NWS standards at 5' above the ground. I have one sensor in the shade and one with a standard solar radiation shield and they still read high. I am able to correct this error with my software so that my data is logged correctly but the console reading remains off. This is a problem for a company that has been in the business of making thermostats and other temperature devices longer than I have been alive.
The other issue that is a problem is that the wind instruments are made of "white" plastic. I presume this is to cut down on solar radiation absorption which would make the other thermometer located in the anemometer read off the chart in sunny conditions. The problem I have found is in icing conditions the wind instruments will freeze up and sometimes remain in that condition for days until the temperature rises above freezing. If this instrument was made of black plastic, like that of the Davis products, a brief episode of sun would probably free it up a lot sooner. Since my instruments are located 35 feet in the air it is not feasible to climb up on a ladder every time this happens. In the last year I have had this icing problem occur 4 times with an average 2 days of waiting for the wind instruments to free up.
Some good things about this product are that it looks great and has a bright blue backlight that automatically adjust to the light of the room. It has a great NOAA weather alert radio built in, and its cost is reasonable. If you don't mind messing around with and tweaking this product then it is a good buy. If you want precise measurements, I would suggest spending a little more money to buy an another personal weather station.Buy Honeywell TN924W Complete Pro Weather Station with Rain, Wind, Temperature, Humidity & NOAA Alert Radio!!
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