There’s no shortage of apps that can give you at-the-moment weather conditions in your area, but if you want to get super-precise—like, your backyard—and dig into the data and trends, then you can install a home weather station to track the condition.
Home weather stations range significantly in terms of size, features, and price, from simple offline sensors to modular online options with Wi-Fi smarts. Here’s a look at some of the top weather stations worth bringing to your home.
Keep it simple
If you’re just looking for something straightforward and entry-level, this La Cross Technology color wireless forecast station is a strong option that won’t require a big invesment.
It has a compact wireless outdoor sensor that’ll transmit data from up to 300 feet away, letting the station show you details such as indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity levels, as well as the forecast ahead and comfort rating.
A bit more detail
Willing to invest a bit more for something that’s more robust? AcuRite’s Pro Color weather station should do the trick. This station serves up temperature, humidity, and wind speed readings and uses a larger outdoor wireless sensor.
The AcuRite sensor also serves up daily, monthly, and all-time record highs and lows, for interesting little milestones, and a history chart delivers a 12-hour breakdown. Choose from full-color and dark theme screen options.
Expandable and intelligent
Netatmo is definitely the outlier here as a broader smart home tech company that also sells things like security cameras and smart doorbells, but the Netatmo Weather Station has been hailed as one of the best options for its modern tech and modularity.
The Netatmo Weather Station setup includes two cylindrical devices that look much like an Amazon Echo: one for outside and the other for inside. Between the two, they can send your smartphone app all sorts of data on outside and inside conditions alike, including temperature, air quality, and even indoor noise levels. You can even add further indoor sensors to monitor the whole house, as well as optional anemometer and rain gauge accessories.
Minimal and modular
This modular Wi-Fi system from ECOWITT is intriguing, as you don’t have to spend much to get up and running with the weather station gateway and indoor and outdoor sensors. From there, you can add further sensors, including a self-emptying rain gauge sensor and even soil moisture sensors. ECOWITT’s app-driven option is a lot more affordable than Netatmo’s Weather Station, and with 4.2 stars on Amazon, customers really seem to like the modular approach.
An all-in-one option
Ambient Weather’s WS2902B Wi-Fi smart weather station is one of the best all-around options for a home weather station. It not only has a wide array of built-in sensors, including temperature, wind speed/direction, and rainfall, but also Wi-Fi compatibility for reading data via an app and tracking it over time.
This system isn’t entirely app-driven, however, as it also comes with an LCD panel for easy at-a-glance information inside your home.