Product Description

The Oregon Scientific Weather Center gives you all the weather data you'll need from your own back yard! Equipped with a touch-panel interface for quick and convenient information access, the WMR200 captures over 10 weather measurements, from up to 300 feet away. You'll see the precise Atomic time, current indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity, wind speed and direction, wind chill, dew point, heat index, barometric pressure and rainfall data. For additional weather monitoring, the unit can support up to ten remote sensors, including a UV monitor (optional). The integrated wind sensor tower and free PC software with multi-language capability make this the only Weather Center you'll ever need.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #58557 in Lawn & Patio
• Color: Silver
• Brand: Oregon Scientific
• Model: WMR200
• Dimensions: 12.25" h x 7.50" w x 8.50" l, 14.00 pounds

Features

• Displays Weather Forecast icons - Sunny, Partly Cloudy, Cloudy, Rainy or Snow
• Displays current moon phase
• Indoor and outdoor (up to 10 wireless sensors) temperature and humidity measurements
• Measures temperature, humidity, wind chill, wind speed, wind direction, UV index (optional), barometric pressure and rainfall
• Weather alert alarms for temperature, heat index, humidity, dew point, gust wind and rainfall rate

Customer Reviews

Great home system
The weather system (so far) has been great. Installed about three weeks ago. Naturally, the "forecasts" it provides are unreliable, as they are limited to what the system senses, but the readings are pretty accurate. All the sensors appear to operate well, although the anemometer is not yet reading accurately (I knew it wasn't in the best spot on the roof when I installed it, and I haven't yet had the time to get up on the roof and check it out). The majority of the sensors are on the roof, and the main panel is in the kitchen, with about 40 linear feet, including the roof and a ceiling, between them, with no wireless connectivity issues. Also installed the optional UV sensor, which is working well, too.

Easy to install, instructions were very clear, as long as you have at least a smidgeon of mechanical aptitude. I had the whole thing in place in a matter of 1-1/2 hours. That is AFTER carefully reading the instructions and identifying all the parts, as you should always do.

I'd recommend it to any homeowner looking for a good quality, easy to install, wireless home system.

It works but still have some questions. Will give update Jan 2008
UPDATE:
The developer of the Weather Display software has released an update that now fixes my primary complaint of this Weather Station not being able to provide timely updates to the computer. I appreciate the developer being very personable during our communication although my review is quite stinging.

I still am quite disappointed with Oregon Scientific support as it appears that they do not have WMR200's connected to any computers to assist in troubleshooting or confirming that the Weather Display software, that is shipped in the box is working as intended.

Kudos to "Windy" at Weather Display for getting to the bottom of the problem without any assistance from Oregon Scientific.

On the hardware side it appears my rain gauge is now not working without a reset every couple of days.


ORIGINAL REVIEW:
Although initial assembly and setup of the outdoor components and the indoor display are rather simple, if you plan on connecting the station to your computer you are in for some pain and suffering.

This is NOT an "Advanced Pro Weather Station" as stated in the Product description in my opinion as it is just to difficult to get past the basic features of the touch pad that is delivered with it. The software that is shipped with the WMR200 weather station that allows you log, monitor and publish your weather data automatically is the basic version of Weather Display which has a ton of features but seems very fragmented and thrown together, in my opinion it needs a major re-write as it feels and looks very clunky/disjointed, dare I say it looks like an application that has been written since the Windows 3.1 days and just carried forward adding this and that without any re-think.

Once I installed the Weather Display software and configured it to work with the WMR200 I have had nothing but weird connection problems between the WMR200 base display and the software. The WMR200 has only a single USB connection to connect to the computer. The software will intermedantly stop collection or recieving data from the WMR200 over the USB connection. What is stange about this behaviour is that although you will loose the ability to get updated humidity/tempature data the wind speed and direction continues to update properly between the software and the WMR200 display.

You can see my WMR200 online data at Weather Underground with personal weatherstation id KFLMIDDL6.

A great package for the price...
A little carefull pre-planing and reading these reviews can help avoid many of the disasters that probably happen with something so economical but so sophisticated. I picked the WMR200 because it seemed the more modern of all the brands out there that was present early Aug 2009. I has a really cool touch screen display,and backlighting/lit buttons, and I also liked the fact that it came with a consolidated mast design.

I figured that by going with the best dealer, it could head off some of the problems other viewers had, and I think I was right. Ambient Weather has chat service, and even 800 phone support: this seems to be a new thing as I couldn't find it before, but their 800 phone support menu has changed.

For someone who has computer and gizmo interest this was a piece of cake to set up; just a few hangups. The rain gauge came in inop. It is a good idea to set everything up on the kitchen table so everything is definitely in range of each other to confirm operability. Even the rain gauge reported the water test we performed accurately, but later became totally inoperative. The base station wouldn't even count it as a device on the console. We sent it in for RMA, and another is coming. I checked to make sure replacement parts would be available, but the folks over there panicked at first and said it would be months to get them from the factory. However this was in error.

I like the setup so well I order a whole other older station just so the signals wouldn't get crossed and so I could get a rain guage with solar charging.

The newer one went together real well, but dont waste time with any of the mounting schemes except the EZ-30-12 pole mount. That one worked very well despite the saleman's trepidation. It looks really good on the telephone pole and is solid as a rock. Do not get the rain guage shelf for this model line as it is so frail I feel it is responsible for knocking out the rain guage from ratteling in the wind; it was so flimsey that it couldn't even hold the rain guage steady, and level! You'd be better off with a wooden board.

We did use the SRS100 sun shade however, as I had learned in research you have to put these things out in the open to get accurate measurements and the instruments shield that is sold with it is more for shady yards than serious science. We mounted it with the all-in-one mast with rubber bands and zipties to hold the temp/hygrometers in place under the shade. It all looks very professional, and my buddie's back yard looks like a goverment installation now! I will post pictures later.

I tried everything in the book at my long history as a gadget tech to solve the inop condition of the rain guage but after talking to Ambient Weather, it was obviously not going to work. So hopefully the new one will be fine. Don't forget it does not have solar charging, so battery replacement will be in force. I've used Oregon wireless outdoor sensors for years and they are very tough, and don't plow through batteries very often. In fact, for the first time, I just changed the batteries in a temp sender I bought back in 2003!!

(Update 9/22/09): RMA was successful on the rain guage and the new one is working fine! The data between it and the one on the WMR968 match perfectly, a big thanks to Ambient Weather on that one!

Now here is the really cool part(to me); with the Virtual Station(internet capable version) you can send station information to a web page at Weather Underground and view your stats at any time off the internet anywhere, they automatically assign you a station number for your area. Be prepared to have your GPS coordinates and elevation from sea level for this. Even cooler, I found a 'gadget' at that site that dislays wind direction/speed, temperature, barometric pressure, and humidity, all from your own personal weather station!! I put this and the main Windows Weather Underground gadget on my desktop sidebar to complete a real time watch of all the weather data I would need except precipitation(which I can get from my web-page link). It even has better radar!!

With all this info, who needs WeatherBug? HA! I am very happy with this arrangement, and will report on the WMR968 solar assisted weather station, that I purchased with this, to complement it. I did this originally because I wanted a functional rain guage now, but I'm glad we have two consoles. One for the living room and the other for the computer. You will like the convenience of the USB connection for this console.

I have checked the accuracy with other NOAA stations in my area and I don't know what people are talking about on the accuracy of these cheaper instruments; they concur with MUCH more expensive devices used by the weather service in my area. The only difference in data is the fact that the NOAA devices are mounted in areas that are known to be cooler and out of the wind. But most of them that are out in the open completely agree with my data, off BOTH stations.

I have no reasonable cons to this system as of this time; I did get confused about which software was what, as we got the CDs mixed up upon shipment. But make sure you enter the paid version key into the virtual weather station software, if you want to use internet connectivity.

I'm hoping I can find a way, of getting the consol to run in the background as a service, but for now I just minimize it to the taskbar and it doesn't conflict with anything we do on the computer PC in anyway. Uses almost no bandwith or resources.

I hope I have covered all possibilities, but I will revisit this review and add more data later. Thanks for your patience, and hope you have good experience no matter which brand or model you pick here at Amazon!

(Update 9/22/09): We now seem to be getting high battery usage on the anemometer, and you guessed it, Oregon Scientific is giving me the same run around everyone else is reporting. I plan to contact them, and simply order the part, as it isn't worth the hassle of trying to get an RMA or warranty, I can always place a complaint with the Better Business Bureau later. The only product out there as modern as this one, may be the Davis Vantage Vue(wireless):

Davis Vantage Vue Professional Weather Station, Model #6250

You may like the fact that Davis brags that their product is US made, and this might be considered - what with the total unreliability of Chinese(foreign) made instruments now days. But - you'd end up spending a lot of money by the time you buy their data logger program. So even with replacement parts costs, the Oregon Scientific is still way cheaper to operate. I still prefer this design over the La Crosse series; probably the only serious next contender.