Oregon Scientific WMR86 Complete Home Weather Station

Having had an Oregon Scientific external/internal temperature gauge for some years I wanted something to measure wind speed/direction and rainfall (without having to go outside and empty the gauge) I bought a system from a well known UK High Street Electronics group (M****n) and was misled by the salesman as to it's capabilities. Being very pleased with the Oregon I had and not wanting to spend £3-400 on a specialist bit of kit I decided to go for the Oregon WMR86. I didn't need it to talk to the computer as I am quite capable of writing things down (at the moment). It worked straight out of the box and I can reset the temperature and wind speed recorder each day (usually midnight for my records). I do however, have one niggle, to change the values, i.e. m.p.h. - km.h -imperial - metric - barometric pressure values etc. you are told to press a button. NO-WHERE does it tell you where this damn button is. It is behind the cover of the base unit, marked in VERY SMALL writing... you'll need your glasses, trust me! Apart from that I am pleased with it, it stood up to storm force winds during a hail re-inforced thunderstorm and measures everything accurately. I'm just dreading having to replace batteries in the wind and rain guages as they are on the roof and I have no head for heights, thank goodness for someone else who'll get up there to fix it in place.

Tricky setup, but works well except the rain measure.

Rain reading doesn't work.

The class 3 mode of wireless transmission seems totally reliable. I have not had a single break in indications or need to reset over the several weeks I have been using it. This is unlike another comparable (Watson) weather station I purchased at similar cost some years ago. Like all weather stations, the Oregon one appears to take only changes in barometric pressure into account when forecasting. I'd describe the forecasts as very generally correct (but you may wish to take an umbrella anyway!) Disadvantages include the need to cycle through the indications to obtain all the information required. Also it requires many batteries. If you want the outdoor ones to over-winter reliably, lithium cells need to be purchased. Still, they last a long time and the costs are coming down. I particularly liked the integration of the anemometer and wind direction vane. The construction seems man enough for the job and well sealed against wind and rain.The rain gauge is separate and requires separate mounting. So is the temperature and humidity unit, but I was pleased to be able to put it in an out-of the way location, well protected from direct wind and rain. If you have the display unit on a low table, you may find the contrast and viewing angle poor, a defect with many LCD type screens. Overall though, I am pleased with the purchase and the display unit seems reasonably neat and harmonious in domestic surroundings. I have always had good experiences with Oregon Scientific equipment.

Very comprehensive, and the wind speed and direction is good. The rain gauge stopped working after 9 months and I have given up on it. The manual is rubbish, as is usual with this sort of product, and the various toggles to obtain different readouts are certainly not intuitive, and are definitely unduly fussy.

Having my recent weather station refuse to cooperate with me lately, I decided it was time for a replacement. After a week of researching the choice went for this one from Oregon Scientific. Few observations which only now I came realise. The good * Indication of the moon phase (just brilliant). * Indication of the atomic clock reception (again, somebody did put some though into this). * Good range (10m through windows works perfect). * More sensors can be added - nice! On the other hand, why would I want to have 3 more temperature sensors? * Temperature and humidity tendency (nice - at least I get to see if it is dropping or on the rise). The less good - sadly, the list is a bit longer: * Design is rather primitive (back to the 90ties) and material quality of the display is simply cheap. * You may not see in and out temperature at the same time - need to switch with buttons. SO far I haven't found an options that the unit would automatically flip through in/out, min/max, etc. * No rubber feet, so the freaken thing trips and moves all around the table when I try to push the buttons. I attached some, but because of cheap plastics (it is quite light and not very well balanced) the main unit must be first taken into hands and then operated. * No idea how to change wind units (there is a bit more than m/s, like knots, kmph, mph or beufort scale). * Normally when we speak of a NORTHERN wind, we mean it comes-from-the-NORTH, right? Well, this thing shows on a little direction circle where-to the wind is blowing. Thus a northern wind will be indicated towards north. Confusing! * Contrast - rather poor, in dim lighting I see...well, not much. * Not very sure about the display; don't get me wrong, I fully appreciate designing a nice one in Orgon must be difficult, but still for almost a 100 quid I can have some expectations. Indication of which sensor is on is seriously confusing (unit uses plain numbers pictured in a symbol of a little house), there is some rocket indicator (only yesterday I discovered it is meant to show a flag on a mast. Who came up with that?). * As I write this, it is 2015 - devices do have some simple artificial intelligence build in (even the humble laundry machine). Well not here - the main unit does not even focus on the devices that are present (all channels are available to browse through despite nothing connected). A rather "dum" device. Overall - the WMR86, with its proud label on the back "made in China" feels like a lower class product: not very well though through and made of cheap materials. Let's see how long it will last. 2 weeks later - more observations. I take it back (thx Laura!) the unit has different units, and it is possible to mix&match them which is making me very happy. Operation is from the back of the unit (not very handy) but oki - I can live with that. The biggest problem I have found though is the device fails at one of the key things it is supposed to do - namely predict weather. The indication seems rather random eg. clear day - unit shows rain; dark sky & rain outside - unit claims sunny days. And so on. Over the past 2 weeks I have found zero relationship between what the unit predicts and what is outside. I appreciate there is an algorithm inside, well guess it is just not very good. Sorry - that's a star down:(

This unit was purchased to replace a previous Oregon device which unfortunately perished when a batch of cheap Chinese batteries decided to leak spectacularly and eat away the terminals (Cautionary tale there folks...stick to a good brand of battery !) Essentially pleased with this device - Main information I wanted was the temperature, humidity and barometric pressure. The rain gauge is interesting, as we get a lot of it in Lancashire. Not yet set up the anemometer, as unless you live out in open country with enough room for uninterrupted 360° wind flow, or are prepared to go up and mount it on the roof (Which I'm not...Don't do ladders !), then it will struggle to be accurate. Good value at the price I paid on Amazon

Works as described, my son 11 loves to tell us the weather forecast, he has learnt about high pressure and concepts like wind chill thanks to this unit. My only complaint would be you seem to have to scroll a lot to see all the information - probably unavoidable given the screen size and large amount of data available.