I bought mine through eBay for $159.00.
Here is my unbiased review based on 4 months of ownership. Video is below.
More points not mentioned in video…
It seems to work better when the weather is cooler. Maybe the heat makes it produce bad wind speed data. I wonder if it will resume working better again when summer is over.
Other reviews are at Costco. Most of the reviews agree with my experience. Here’s a sample:
“was fabulous while it lasted, but started to have too many problems after 6 weeks. wireless sensors did not connect anymore. replaced batteries, tried the adapter, moved everything around to less than 15 feet distance, nothing worked. got tired wasting my time on this unit and returned it for refund.”
“I’ve purchased 2 of these units over the past 3 years. The first time, it was the outdoor components that failed, primarily the wind gauge. The bearings seized and the company was not at all helpful in providing a solution to repair or replace them. In the unit I own now, the indoor wireless receiver failed, and looking back it was never right from the beginning…beeping randomly in the middle of the night, flashing display in the middle of the night, followed by complete blank screen and eventual total failure. Expect to use your unit for 6 months, then expect it to fail. I will not waste my time contacting LaCrosse, I will just purchase another brand next time.”
“the La Crosse failed after a few weeks, I returned and exchanged it at costco. The replacement also failed after approx 6 months, I could have returned it again but, I decided to simply toss it and not buy this brand in the future.”
Conclusion
I do not recommend this unit, mostly because it failed after just three weeks of use. Other people have had the same trouble, so there must be a design and/or quality issue with these La Crosse weather stations. I am looking at other brands now.
Matt says:
Well I too havn\’t had great experience with Lacrosse units. They\’re so flimsy and cheaply built. I have owned Oregon scientific units that have proven to be the better deal. Of course the wind sensors to them arn\’t wired to a main transmitter like Lacrosse units are. They are independant with no wires. Unless you want to break out a latter or take the wind generators mast down, battery changes would be challenging. And some models have solar but the solar only works during the day and doesn\’t charge the batteries. You could go with a Davis but they can be expensive and setup is complicated. Ambient Weather makes some nice weather stations too. I geuss it depends on your preferences.
November 21, 2010, 3:35 pmEarl says:
Thanks for your input on the different brands. I agree that Oregon Scientific is better quality. I have a couple sensors made by them that are still working.
My next weather station will be home-built using microcontrollers and sensors. When that day comes, I’ll post my results on this site.
November 22, 2010, 11:43 amBarbara says:
Earl,
Thanks for posting this great review. I bought the WS-2316U on ebay also, and put up the all but the anemometer about 2 years ago. I think I have problems with the transmitter or receiver or both. No longer get atomic time reception.
I downloaded WUHU so that I could set up a weather station on weather underground. The LaCrosse reception became very erratic, but I was somewhat lead to believe that the station might be getting noise from the serial port that causes it to act flaky. I think I have minimized this problem by a) updating my heavyweather software which now outputs a file for WUHU, b) set WUHU to read the output file instead of the console, and c) did several master resets to the console (pressure + wind simultaneously for 5 secs.)
Just a week or two ago, I bought a Zephyr pws-1000td. It is up and running with all the sensors. The numbers are so different between the two systems that I don’t trust any of them.
We decided to mount the La Crosse anemometer, but the bracket disintegrated. I ordered a replacement bracket.
So, soon I will have 2 complete systems (different frequencies), with data that I don’t trust.
So what did you finally use to replace your system, and what do you think of it?
January 30, 2011, 5:03 pm