Of course this is a hendiadyoin or tautology - twins are always two (but there a monozygotic, identical twins and dizygotic, fraternal twins).
As different as they look from the outside, the GW1000 and the WH2650 WiFi have to be fraternal twins, obviously. Size-wise not so much as one would expect looking at the pictures at several websites (e.g.
www.froggit.de,
www.foshk.com), but look-wise for sure. Still the WH2650WiFi has twice the surface and twice the height of the GW1000 (not counting the sort of bulky RF antenna of the WH2650WiFi nor the protruding male USB plug of the GW1000).
I conclude that the WH2650WiFi antenna is the RF antenna as the predecessor model, the WH2600 LAN, already had this antenna and the network connection was via an Ethernet cable.
Ooops - yes, for some of you this little bugger looks familiar. You've seen some such thing before. And "some such" is the key word here.
BECAUSE, the WH2650 WiFi is
NOT the same as the WH2600 LAN or Ambient ObserverIP (WS-1400IP, WS-1550-IP).
It's the added 50 in the model number which makes the difference
OLD: WH2600 LAN (comparatively a lame duck functionality-wise) and
NEW: WH2650 WiFi, a fraternal twin of the GW1000.
see the outer differences below:
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Model names and numbers can be confusing as the resellers are not always consistent in their naming ...
](https://www.wxforum.net/Smileys/default/eusa_wall.gif "Brick wall")
That's what we made our clone model etc. matrix for (
https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=40730.0)
![[tup]](https://www.wxforum.net/Smileys/default/thumbs-up1.gif "Thumbs Up")
But let's come back to the original topic ...
The WH2650 Wifi is not part of the Ecowitt portfolio, so you cannot directly order it from them.
Unless you want to buy it from Froggit (under the name of HP2600 PRO WiFi, 868 MHz only, and then only together with a WH65 7-in-1 sensor array), you have to order it directly from Fine Offset who would then ask Ecowitt for the order fulfillment. Ecowitt will then act in the name of Fine Offset, with a Fine Offset email - however still the same Lucy
Order to be sent to:
sales@foshk.com .
The WH2650WiFi is sort of a puristic console - no indoor sensors attached. It therefore comes with a separate WH32B sensor (Temperature/Humidity/Pressure). The GW1000 has its T&H&P indoor sensors integrated, the probes at the end of an attached cable.
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Both consoles have the same functionality and have the same firmware version - 1.6.3 - only the prefix is different.
(EDIT: as per 02-Jun-2021 the actual firmware for both consoles is 1.6.8 )In the WSView app you cannot notice any difference to the GW1000 except for the device name prefix.
Below an example of the live data my actual sensor park displayed in WSView.
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The sensor page looks the same as the GW1000's sensor page.
Except for the T&H&P sensor which is integrated in the GW1000 and therefore not shown in the GW1000 "Sensors ID" page.
All actual Ecowitt sensors are supported.
Including the just released WH45 5-in-1 Temperature/Humidity, CO
2+PM2.5+PM10 combo sensor and the still to-be-released WN34 sensors (L - water variant, S - soil variant).
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On the hardware level, at least for the enclosure, the GW1000 and the WH2650 are fraternal twins, but on the software (firmware) level they are identical twins.
They are using the same API and they can both receive and display (e.g. via the WS View app) all recent Ecowitt sensor signals.
Compared to the elegance of the GW1000, the WH2650 WiFi looks rather somewhat bulky. While the GW1000 comes with elegant curves,
the WH2650WIFi shows distinctive corners and edges. Aesthetically they belong to two different worlds.
So why on Earth would one go for a WH2650WiFi instead of a GW1000 ?
One obvious reason could be the placement of the console and the dependency one undergoes with the GW1000 regarding the indoor sensors. The probes are attached with a rather short (100 cm long) cable to the GW1000.
The WH2650WiFi comes with a separate Temperature/Humidity/Pressure sensor (WH32B) which can be placed independent from the console location.
Another reason which comes to my mind is still speculative - still needs to be verified if viable.
This protruding RF antenna of the WH2650WiFi might provide better reception conditions than the inside RF antenna of the GW1000.
In order to move the before made remark out of the world of speculation onto more solid ground, I would have to make a test like taking both consoles down into the underground garage of the house I'm living in and check if the sensors are still received and, if so, with what signal strength. The rather rough reception indicators of the sensor page of the WSView app could give some semi-quantitative information here.
As it is a 4 stor(e)y [AE/BE] house, the number of walls between the sensors and the console increases with each stor(e)y farther downstairs.
The main challenge for the exercise is maintaining the power supply of the consoles. Maybe I can use a power-bank, at least for the GW1000. For the WH2650WiFi a (very) long extension cord will be needed. Let's see when I find the time and the fitting equipment for this exercise.
I am aware that the signal strength indicators are not very helpful for a quantitative approach ( see
https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=36486.0), but for a qualitative approach they should be usable (i.e. signal or no signal).
EDIT:
In fact they (the little bars) turned out to be useless for this exercise as they don't show signal strength but in how many past intervals data have been received from the respective sensor.
