Hi folks,
I thought some might have similar questions to the ones I posed myself on this topic, and hope what I learned below is of use. The extra angle is this post reflects on the pricing, importing etc of gear to Australia. In short, I think the Acu-rite Aculink interenet bridge, 5-in-1 sensor and temp/humid sensors are a great combination. I also found an add-on simple display (the 1010RX) a handy way of checking the 5-in-1 in passing (the display doesn't interact with the bridge or other sensors). The display that comes in the bridge/5-in-1/display bundle seemed potentially lower-quality than the 1010RX, for the same price.
I wanted an easy way to chart and look at weather stats, preferably via web or iphone, without having a computer always on logging the data. There seem to be a few brands of weather stations that will do this directly or through third-party software or hardware, but ease of use and cost suggested the Oregon Scientific (OS) Anywhere Weather Kit or Acu-Rite Aculink internet bridge. I bought the OS and used it for a few days before returning it and ordering the Acu-Rite. I did also look at LaCrosse’s similar system briefly online. I liked the Lacrosse temperature probes on the temp sensors (handy for monitoring a fridge etc). But it doesn’t seem to do web charting, and was quite unclear as to how many sensors each bridge could support.
The OS system has the advantage it can monitor up to 10 sensors simultaneously, but the US retail price for the internet gateway and sensors are much higher than Acu-rite, eg. $50 vs $7.50 for a temp/humid sensor (and even double US retail in Australia). The OS temp/humid sensors do have their own simple display, however. It also has a UV sensor whereas the Acu-rite doesn't yet. The disadvantages are basically that it didn't have Acu-rite's benefits below.
Acu-rite seems to have better charting, exporting, wunderground sharing of one physical sensor (eg. the 5-in-1), and from the forums seems somewhat responsive to customer feedback in software updates. The equipment and sensors are much cheaper (the temp/humid sensors all broadcast their own ID code, unlike the OS sensors which have dip switches to set the code). The disadvantages are they haven't yet updated their software to historically chart more than 3 physical sensors (you can still have more than 10 sensors and switch between them in the web/app though), doesn’t support rapid fire updates to wunderground (or wind gusts as far as I can tell), doesn’t seen to support forecasting on the app outside the US/Candada, or accommodate the fact that the sensor reverses the wind direction in the southern hemisphere...
I don’t think any of those disadvantages are deal-brokers for most people, compared to other similar systems which don’t have the Acu-rite strengths. This wind direction issue is perhaps the main disadvantage for southern hemisphere residents at the moment. It is because the solar sensor has to face the sun to power the cooling fan, and the sensor assumes the solar sensor is facing south (rather than north as it has to in Australia etc). I’m not personally that fussed about knowing which way the wind is blowing, and can always reverse the reading when I check it. But you can either rig up a little mirror for the sun and point the sensor south, or Ryan from Acu-rite suggested on this forum you can pop off the vane, make a small drill hole, and pop it back on in the reversed position. I would hope a software fix at the Acu-rite monitoring end will resolve this without either of the above being necessary.
Perhaps another issue for some is that I understand wind sensors are generally recommended for high installation (eg. above the roof), while temp/rain sensors are recommended for low installation (eg. head height). You can’t do both with the 5-in-1 sensor, so I installed it above my roof line. The aspiration fan seems to keep the temperature accurate – it had very similar readings to a separate temp sensor I had outside in the shade for a few days.
I suppose an issue that might be common to most stations is that it won’t seem to register rain showers that don’t amount to 1mm of rain or more. So it can shower briefly, yet the sensor will report no rain.
Other Acu-rite issues I’ve noticed: one or two badly wrong temperature readings (eg. minus 40 degrees Celsius when it was well above 0); occasional low-battery sensor warnings despite using fresh batteries, which haven’t yet recurred; occasional iOS app errors about sensor data not being available (usually fixed by refresh); quickly fixable graphical glitches with the iPhone app at 2x view on the iPad. I also found the supplied mounting screws and plugs would be fine for installing on a wooden post, but seemed inadequate for installing to brickwork so I used longer screws. The design of the mounting plate also makes it difficult to accurately mark your screw points for a completely level installation.
The Acu-rite bridge works by the sensors reporting via 433mhz up to 100m to the bridge, which connects to your router and reports to acu-link.com. You can make a free account on aculink and see your own or shared data and charts there, or export data to a spreadsheet file. It will share one sensor (such as all the 5-in-1 readings) to wunderground.com.
Other comments from the Australian and other importers perspective are: Acu-rite won’t ship outside USA/Canada so you need to use a mailforwarding company or other method (I couldn’t find it on Ebay at the time, but hear they do come up there at times); there is no problem registering the bridge in Australia; you need to supply your own DC power adaptor for the bridge, which I found on Ebay from Sansai for about $30 delivered.
An enterprising fellow has noted a way to capture the data directly from the internet bridge to your own computer if you run your own DNS server:
http://moderntoil.com/?p=794There are reasonable iphone/android apps for Acu-rite (My Backyard Weather) and wunderground.
Hope that’s all of interest and look forward to comments or questions.
Cheers,
B
