Oregon Scientific WMS801, Lots of Beeps
| Overall Rating |    |
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Lots of Beeps
This is a great weather station to determine if you will leave the windows open at night or use the AC. I check it before bed and I know what I am going to wear in the morning. I would buy it again.
Things I like:
-Timex indiglo style backlighting. Much easier to read than those without it.
-Nice design. It sits out on my night stand and I didn’t want anything too industrial looking.
-Fairly accurate weather predictions in my area.
-No problems receiving the MSN signals.
-LED changes color and blinks when a storm advisory is in effect. This is more handy than I expected it would be.
-Easy to setup.
-Well built.
Things I don’t like:
-No way to silence the beeping when pressing buttons.
-Very loud alarm. At the quitest setting, it is much too loud to be used as an alarm clock.
-Has some bells and whistles that are more for show than usefulness.
-Fairly large unit. It’s almost as wide as my laptop.
-Have to toggle between indoor and outdoor temp settings. They are not both on the screen at once.
-Too many weather forecast icons.
-User interface could be better, but it is not too bad.
-Weather report scroll bar runs too slow horizontally and is difficult to read.
I also have the weather channel model #WS-9043TWC made by lacrosse. I prefer the Oregon because of the forecasting feature. Of course, you can get the same info from online or tv as well.
Update (2/6/2012): This item is currently on sale here for the lowest price I’ve seen.
The featured review for this product, Oregon Scientific WMS801 Weather-Now Radio Weather Forecaster with MSN Direct Service and Atomic Clock Kitchen Jan 16, 2007, was written by subardude.
The average rating for this item is out of 5 stars, according to 3 reviews.
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Tags: msn direct, recommended weather station, weather, weather direct, weather instruments, weather station, wireless weather stations, y rescue
Posted on: March 22, 2010
Filed under: Reviews
Reviews (3)
Chaz
February 4th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
Was great for a year, then just stopped working
I got this as a Christmas gift in 2006. It worked beautifully as soon as I plugged it in, and I really enjoyed using it. The problem came after a year.
One day it had a message that it had lost the signal from MSN. I tried moving the unit closer to the window, I tried bringing up to the highest point in the house, and it still didn’t work. I thought maybe my area had been dropped from the MSN service, so I called Oregon Scientific. They assured me that my area was still covered, and recommended unplugging the unit for 24 hours. I tried this and the problem still existed.
So, I brought the unit to my work in New York City where coverage is very strong - and it still didn’t work. So I took it apart to see if the antenna was loose - but it wasn’t. So basically something is wrong, the unit cannot pick up the signal anymore, but there is no obvious reason why.
Oregon Scientific customer service was not able to help me further as the warrantee is only for one year, and by the time I had gone through all my trouble-shooting steps it was over a year. So, I am left with a $120 paperweight.
My story may be unusual, there may be units that have been operating for years without issue, but I am definitely disappointed and will think very carefully before purchasing another OS product (at least one with the MSN service).
Gaz Rendar
February 8th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Like having your own personal weather channel
HARDWARE
The WMS801 is a one-piece unit that comes with a FM antenna and AC power supply. There are no sensors to place outside of your home to measure temperature, humidity, rainfall, etc. However, since there are no sensors, the unit downloads all of this information from digital FM broadcasts via the MSN Direct network. These digital broadcasts are hidden among radio channels and provide all the local weather info your WMS801 needs, and it updates several times an hour. The information comes from the same MSN weather service that you can access on the web. But in order to get this FM information, you need to first goto the MSN direct webpage and see if there actually is an FM signal in your neighborhood. Most decent sized cities have it (it works in Chicago and Madison, WI). The service is free with the purchase of this unit, but if you are not within the FM range of MSN Direct, then DO NOT purchase this unit.
The unit also comes with a built-in sensor to measure your indoor temperature and humidity, and comes with a clock that sets itself automatically. All of the buttons on the edges of the device are easy to hit and make sense. You access the different features of the WMS801 much like it was a watch. Hit the “mode” button to access the different categories and then hit the “select” button to cycle through the items within that category. Relatively simple.
SCREEN
The screen is a standard LED type with a nice indigo blue background light you can turn on in the dark. It’s highly visible and the font sizes are large enough that you can see it from a reasonable distance (about 0-9 feet). The one downside is that you cannot display both the indoor and outdoor temperatures at the same time. It only takes one button press, but still, it would have been nice to see both temps simultaneously.
WEATHER INFO
The WMS801 has everything you need about the outdoor weather: temperature, barometric pressure, rainfall, UV index, humidity, wind speed and direction, wind chill or heat index and chance of rain. Also, it gives you a three day forecast for the next 3 days with the hi and low temps plus the chance of precipitation. Some MSN Direct locations may not offer all of that info, but I can only say that I receive all those data in Chicago and Madison. Finally, the weather station has a scrolling ticker at the top that tells you the visibility, air quality, and warnings. For example, if there is a tornado warning, the bottom of the unit has a light that flashes red while the ticker at the top will say “Tornado Warning in X,Y, and Z counties until 9:55pm.”
PROBLEMS
Hardly any to speak of. I do wish it displayed the indoor and outdoor temps simultaneously, but it changes from inside to outside with one button press, so it’s not that big of a deal. The only other downside is that there are 2 blue LED lights on the edges of the screen that are always on. I have the unit in my bedroom, and when I goto sleep, the room is dark and those two lights seem incredibly bright. My solution to this dilemma was to place two thin strips of black electrical tape over the lights to block them out. Problem solved.
Overall, as long as you are within a MSN Direct FM broadcast area you can’t beat this unit. It’s like having the Weather Channel always on in your room. You can wake up, see the forecast for the day and the next three days and plan accordingly…all without turning on your computer or TV. It’s highly convienent and I highly recommend it.
subardude
March 11th, 2010 at 7:55 am
Lots of Beeps
Rated 4 stars.
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