AcuRite 5-in-1 Environment Station

Update Review---------------------------------- It is September 2017. At this point, I have purchased two of these systems. First, the Nov. 2016 unit for our getaway house in Delaware (see Original Review, below), and then a second one in March 2017 for our Maryland residence. The reason I downgraded my review is that the first unit's wind vane's bearings have failed. The wind vane froze, and when I turned it by hand, something inside gave way. Now it turns very easily again, but the shaft is very wobbly. I'm pretty sure a bearing had frozen and disintegrated. The unit is only about ten months old. I didn't expect it to last forever, but this is too short. The second unit is working well after six months. Except for the wind vane in the first one, everything else is okay, as detailed below. Original Review--------------------------------- I have had this weather station up and running for a couple of months now, located at our getaway house at the Delaware ocean. I would not call myself a weather junkie, but I have been building weather instruments since I was a kid (I'm 69 now). We started in the totally analog world; evolved into the digital world using the Commodore 64 and finally into Arduino. Finally, I bought this commercial unit....I'm through building DIY weather stations. It was fun, but it's time to move on. I am generally quite satisfied with the system so far. We will have to wait and see if it proves to be robust in really heavy weather, and if it lasts for more than a "short time." But for a lousy $200, I'm not expecting the moon, if you get what I mean. Having built weather station systems for a hobby for all those decades, I'm a little set in my ways concerning my expectations. For instance, my systems all reported conditions in basically real time. None of these 15 and 30 and 60 second intervals. Personally, I also think the color display is too bright and garish. I can also do without all those mostly meaningless derivative readings: "heat index" "wind chill" "feels like"--ad nausium. Just give me the temperature, wind, humidity and rainfall--I can figure the rest out. The "intelligent" weather forecast feature is a total joke. All that being said, the system seems to operate exactly as advertised. The 5-in-1 unit is easy to install and get level. I made my own mount to attach about twelve feet up a flag pole in the yard, adjustable for leveling. At about 50', range didn't prove to be a problem. The unit connected flawlessly to the color display, and with only a little trouble with the hub. As others have commented, the hub instructions are junk. The online manual was much better, but even it didn't completely accurately describe the linking process. One more thing about the hardware. I also purchase a temperature and humidity sensor to give me remote information about the temperature in the water well shed over the winter. It hooked to the hub quickly and simply. The MyAccurite website is adequate. The Android version is a little better; namely cleaner with less of the fru-fru. The biggest weakness of both is in the charting, IMO. For readings like temperature, where on a weekly, monthly or longer basis, I think simple bar charts would be much better than the way they have done it. And what's this chart for temperature that defaults to plotting every derivative temperature thing from "wind chill" to "feels like" on one chart at the same time. Bad design. Default to temperature and let the user turn on the others if they want. So, in general I am very happy. Most of my issues are personal preference type things. I think you will be pleased. I don't think you should expect the moon at this price, but I think you will find it a good value.