I am wanting a new system that actually has support like this! The large display unit models with ticker will support this firmware and software? I think its 01015?
The product being discussed is the Internet bridge, which has no display. It plugs into your home router by ethernet cable, and relays whatever the outdoor sensor(s) are transmitting up to the Acu-Link My Backyard Weather (MBW) web site for viewing on the web and from smartphones. MBW can be configured to relay periodic (15 minute?) updates to Weather Underground, but not currently in the fast "rapid fire" mode. There is no way (without hacking) to access the data received by the bridge locally. This device was apparently designed with the sole goal of uploading data to the MBW web site. The unique feature that the Internet bridge has in the AcuRite product line is that it can read multiple sensor arrays, so you can have a 5-in-1 for wind/rain/temperature, a pool sensor in your hot tub or pond for water temps, and a simple temperature probe in your basement watching for freezing temperatures. As I said above, the pitfall is that you can only view the received data on the MBW web site without some hacking.
If you purchase a 1025, 1035, or 1525 console, they come with a USB port that can be used to read the data from the 5-in-1 sensor array via an attached PC. AcuRite provides software that uploads the downloaded data to MBW. If you want to anything with the data on your local PC, you will need to pay for the commercial Weather Display (WD) software package that includes a USB interface to the above consoles. WD is the cat's meow, and can upload to Weather Underground, build live web pages, and do more than I personally would ever need to do. The only caveat is that you need to keep a Windows PC running 24/7, and of course that you can only read one sensor array.
The underlying architecture of the Acu-Link wireless system is quite flexible. All of their products tagged as Acu-Link compatible use the same radio frequencies and protocols. The Internet bridge is sensor-agnostic, and seems to more or less upload any sensor signal that it receives to the MBW web site. All of the weather consoles will only display the data from whatever type of sensor they were sold with, but are not locked to the exact sensor that came with them in the box. For example, I have a simple tabletop thermometer that has a wireless outdoor temperature sensor. It does not show up on any of my weather consoles that came with 5-in-1 sensors. You can have multiple consoles read from a single sensor array, such as my single 5-in-1 being read by a 1515, 1035, 1055, and the Internet bridge all at the same time from various rooms around the house.
From a hobbyist perspective, the Acu-Link system architecture as a lot of potential, but is limited by it's inability to read/process multiple sensors locally. I seem to recall reading a web post about someone extracting the radio receiver board from a console and being able to decode the raw sensor data, but have not had the ambition to void my warranty since the MBW web site is meeting my needs for simple remote access and no sharing.....
h