There are a few main manufacturers of weather stations. The jury’s still out on which company designs and produces the best home weather stations, but two strong players in the market have always been Davis Instruments and La Crosse Technology. Other companies include the well-known Rainwise, Inc. and Kestrel, a company that produces handheld weather instruments.

Comparing Models to Find the Best Home Weather Stations

Because there are so many highly varied products in the weather station market, companies often release feature comparison charts. These charts make it easy to see the strengths of each product at a glance. Also, since features are more or less similar for all companies that produce weather instruments, charts make comparing between companies easy as well. Viewing comparison charts is also a good way to realize exactly what you’re looking for in a weather station.

There are a few key features that you might be interested in. Firstly, you may want to look for a weather station that can receive data from a remote sensor. This allows you to have the weather station inside of your home, and still monitor the data from outside. Secondly, you may be interested in finding a weather station that is designed to blend in with your interior decor. While this is not an issue for some people, others may want to minimize the “eyesore factor” often associated with tech products.

These days, wireless weather stations offer an ease of use that far surpasses older, cabled models. The array of sensors mounts securely anywhere outside of your home, receiving its power from solar cells, and beaming its data inside, creating a truly wireless setup. Touch sensitivity on the LCD displays of many digital weather stations means intuitive, touch-and-go control that allows you instant access to complex weather data.

As far as practicality, today’s home weather stations are by far the most customizable they have ever been. Able to receive data from a wide variety of sensors, including highly specialized sensors such as soil moisture sensors means that weather stations are perfect for home use as well as laboratory of commercial use. Many are also customizable with computer connectivity, an option that adds convenience and opens the door to more advanced levels of record keeping and data publishing.

Engineering a Quality Barometer and Thermometer

Many outdoor thermometers can provide approximate temperature data, but engineering a product to make accurate measurements is a difficult task. Factors like UV radiation can easily interfere with a thermometers ability to take precision measurements. In order to prevent interference, some manufacturers house their thermometers in a radiation shield made of UV-stabilized plastic.

The basic model of weather station generally includes two units: a base station, which is the data organizer and monitor unit (also referred to as the “weather station”), and the sensor unit, which is sometimes called the “sensor suite.” The most common setup involves placing the sensor suite outside and the weather station inside. The addition of one tiny unit inside can turn simple home weather stations into automatic weather stations.

Using Home Computers to Control Automatic Weather Stations

The simplest method for automation involves purchasing an antenna for your home computer that is capable of receiving data from the sensor suite. Though computer antennas aren’t available for all weather stations, many manufactures offer computer connectivity on models in and above the middle range of the product line. Along with software from the company, the antenna allows your computer to monitor the same data as the weather station does, but it also allows your computer to keep detailed records of the weather, post data automatically onto the internet, and save “snapshots” of data from specific times and dates.

Some antennas connect to your home computer via a USB cable, and some use the older serial, or ADB, option. Drivers for current operating systems are available from the manufacturers, and installation is easy. If you’re looking for a little more out of your weather station, consider computer control a powerful option.

The pairing of radio-controlled clock calibration and indoor/outdoor weather centers seems perfect, because both kinds of devices rely on a base unit that is able to receive a signal from a remote unit. In the case of home atomic clocks, the home unit isn’t powered by atomic means, nor does it keep time by fundamental atomic resonance (9 billion cycles per second, just in case you were curious). Instead, home atomic clocks receive a timecode signal broadcast by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

This is similar to home weather centers in that weather stations receive all of their data from remote sensor suites. The sensor suite, mounted somewhere outside your house, collects weather data from its constituent sensors and broadcasts that data to the weather station. Since both weather stations and home atomic clocks operate on similar principles, they make a natural pairing.

Calibrating Atomic Clock Weather Stations

While it is possible on some models of atomic clock weather stations to manually set the time, there is generally little need to do so. As soon you install batteries into radio-controlled timepieces, they will search for the signal from the national atomic clock. If no signal is received, the best way to help the clock’s antenna find one is to place the clock in a window until a signal is received.

Commonly, home weather stations come packaged with an array of sensors called a sensor suite. Often included in the sensor suite are basic weather sensory devices such as digital indoor outdoor thermometers, barometers, and hygrometers. Though some of the sensors (such as leaf wetness sensors) have been designed strictly for scientific use, many (like thermometers) are customizable for many applications. Not only can you use a thermometer to monitor a room temperature (necessary in controlled environments like wine cellars) but they can also be used to monitor pool or hot tub temperatures.

Facts About Digital Indoor Outdoor Thermometers

Every thermometer that is designed for outdoor use can also be used indoors, but not every indoor thermometer makes the best outdoor thermometer. Placing a thermometer in the outdoors can expose it to many x-factors that can influence its ability to correctly measure the temperature. One of those factors is UV radiation, which can easily influence a thermometers measurement unless that thermometer is housed in a radiation shield.

Many weather stations use thermometers that are powered by photovoltaic cells, and transit their data wirelessly, as well. Elimination of the hassle of cables and extension cords makes installing outdoor thermometers much easier than it used to be. Any location will provide temperature data to your weather station, but consult NWS guidelines for details on the best places to install outdoor thermometers.

I love all things wireless. Cables and wires have always found a way to get wrapped up between my feet. I broke my first thermometer sometime around the beginning of the 90’s, in Crossgates, Leeds. It was winter and the weather forecast was predicting a particularly cold night. Being the weather buff/geek that I am I decided to trail the outdoor thermometer cable as far out of the window as I could, to record the overnight minimum. A simple enough exercise except I had to leave the window open so as to not trap the cable. Unfortunately I woke up freezing in the small hours and, in a sleep induced haze, pulled the window tight shut, severing the wire sufficiently for the outdoor function to never work again.

This started a pattern of tripping, kicking and general weather station abuse until the wireless phenomenon came to my rescue. Suddenly the black cables reaching from the mantelpiece across the cream wall and into the back garden were a thing of the past. Wireless thermometers or weather stations allowed me to close all windows on a cold night if I so wished and still get an accurate overnight temperature. An important factor for gardeners, farmers and weather geeks alike.

A wireless thermometer (or weather station) is a simple device which allows you to check the weather outside without ever actually venturing out there yourself. You fit the outdoor probe to whichever part of the garden or house you like and it wirelessly sends the current temperatures and recent historical temperature data to your weather station positioned inside, preferably next to your favourite chair beside the fire with a hot mug of cocoa and a biscuit.

The technology is moving on quickly these days as with all things wireless, and it is now possible to get a fully functional wireless weather station recording all aspects of the weather from wind speed and temperature to humidity and pressure. They can also look good too, with more and more aesthetically pleasing stations being produced in a multitude of designs and colours.

There is a part of me that misses some of the more traditional thermometers though. My dad had an old fashioned U-shaped mercury thermometer with 2 pins and a magnet on the garage wall. Each night you would move the pin with the magnet to the top of the mercury column and the next morning wherever the pin had reached its highest point indicated the coldest overnight temperature. And then we would tap the barometer to check the air pressure. No more tapping with wireless! Oh well, times change and so must we.

Incidentally, I still have my first weather station, complete with the severed cable. It records the temperature indoors just fine, however the outdoor display is permanently stuck on -50 degrees Celsius. I don’t think we’ll be seeing temperature like that in Britain until the next ice age.

Mark Boardman BSc dip.hyp is a leading author and expert on The Weather For more information about World Weather, feel free to visit these sites.

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The sensors in the wireless thermometer allow temperature detecting up to 100 feet away from the thermometer. Another great thing about a wireless thermometer is that it converts Fahrenheit to Celsius quickly. That time saving technology eliminates need to use paper, calculator, or a cell phone to guesstimate. A wireless thermometer solves time problems efficiently. Most thermometers can be carried and could be mounted to a wall. A wireless thermometer is the same way, but it can capture two temperature readings.

When you want to know if wearing shorts is an option, or if a jacket should be worn, a wireless thermometer allows you to check out the temperature at the convenience of your warm home. Need to know what temperature is needed for comfort and to keep electric bills down? No problem, a wireless thermometer shows the temperature on a liquid crystal display screen. Four AA batteries allow the thermometer to have the energy to be wireless. Another great thing about the wireless thermometer is that the reading is displayed in numbers, whereas most regular thermometers need to be measured by reading, therefore improving accuracy and precision.

These nifty little gadgets keep track of temperature, air pressure, humidity, wind speed and direction, rainfall and even rainfall rate! And they also come with an inbuilt severe weather alarm to warn you of forthcoming storms. These alarms work on the principle that a sudden storm is preceded by a rapid drop in air pressure. Simple but clever. My alarm is normally triggered maybe once or twice a year, but if you live in an area renown for extreme weather a wireless weather station may prove to be very handy indeed.

More and more these stations are being designed to be aesthetically pleasing. The clinical electronic modern look can be replaced by a more retro design for the sentimental amongst us, but without losing any of the modern technology and functionality of course.

Wireless weather stations are ideal for use in the the office, looking far classier (in my opinion) than the desktop executive toys of the 80’s and 90’s. Professional weather stations have PC connections and related software. Wireless Weather Stations are very useful and are clearly the most convenient of all weather instruments. Radio waves transmit measurements from the remote sensors to the indoor display console, and this is the principle of wireless technology, which although very new is becoming an essential part of our day to day electronic living. Just look at the proliferation of wireless laptops.

A wireless weather station reads the indoor conditions as well as those outdoors. Some units are supplied with several consoles so you may locate them at various points around your home and garden. The weather station is also an automatically updating clock and calendar. It’s great to have the ability to measure all these climatic conditions from one simple console. It doesn’t seem two minutes since Bill Giles and Michael Fish were plying their trade with magnetic stick on clouds and a certain amount of guesswork.

So while you sit in your favourite chair, watching the telly and eating a snack, enjoy the sound of the rain on your window and the wind in the trees in perfect comfort. Let us indulge our passion with the weather and become amateur meteorologists. I reckon we can now give the professionals a decent run for their money.

Mark Boardman BSc dip.hyp is a leading author and expert on The Weather For more information about World Weather, feel free to visit these sites.

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Our close fascination with the weather is being aided by the ever growing popularity of the wireless weather station.

Wireless weather stations are gadgets for determining the weather, temperature, air pressure, humidity, and other weather factors. Wireless weather stations are great for the home or office with professional units having PC connections and related software. These professional wireless weather stations are easy to install and have the flexibility to change the location of the console without having to drill a new hole and move the cable. Wireless Weather Stations are very useful and are clearly the most convenient of all weather instruments.

Many of these units come with inbuilt alarms set to alert you of certain weather conditions. My personal unit’s alarm is only triggered maybe once a year, but when it does I know there’s some severe weather on the way. Depending on the model you select, temperature, humidity, barometric pressure and other types of weather information such as wind measurement can all be monitored within the comfort of your home. Of course if you have a built in anemometer (wind gauge) then you need it to be located away from any obstructions to the prevailing wind. The roof is generally a good place.

Wireless home weather stations use radio waves to transmit their weather measurements from the remote sensors to the indoor display console. This console can not only tell you the climate readings outside, but with a touch of a button will tell you the conditions inside as well! Some units can come with several consoles so you may locate then at various points around your home or garden.

Wireless home weather stations typically cost more than the older cabled units but it is often worth spending the extra money for the increase in convenience. Before making your weather station purchase, you should consider several issues related to wireless digital weather station technology: Manufacturers usually specify a transmission range rating based upon “open air,” meaning a direct line of sight path with no obstructions (walls, etc. To make a more realistic estimate of the distances required between components in your installation it is recommended to review the weather station set up information for the individual unit of your choice.) Another minor problem can be radio frequency interference (RFI). Generally speaking though, this is not a major issue, as there are millions of wireless home weather stations operating without any problems. Finally, the altitude where your wireless digital weather station is going to be installed can also be an issue with regard to the accuracy of barometric pressure measurements. Many stations have a transmission range of up to 330 feet, overcoming most problems effecting home wireless weather stations.

Also, and this is the case for many people, if temperature is your only interest, a wireless thermometer may be all that you need at a much cheaper price than the full weather station. Many of these weather stations also feature radio controlled clocks, which are accurate to the second and updated daily automatically.

Mark Boardman BSc dip.hyp is a leading author and expert on The Weather For more information about World Weather, feel free to visit these sites.

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