For weather geeks, horticulture hobbyists, and outdoor enthusiasts, having accurate and hyper-local weather information is essential. The $695 Weather Box, from Davis Instruments, is a bundle that claims to provide accurate weather data from your own weather station, online and on your mobile phone. And though I found Davis’ offering to be quite respectable, a number of caveats hold it back from being a truly great product.

Inside the Weather Box
The Weather Box is actually a kit containing three pieces of hardware. The first piece is the Vantage Vue outdoor sensor array. This is a plastic, pole-mounted device that sits outside your home, gathering temperature, wind speed, wind direction, humidity, UV radiation, barometric pressure, and rainfall data. The array has a fairly rugged design, and is rated for -40  to 150 degrees Farenheit. An integrated solar panel recharges an onboard battery for up to three years (after which you’ll need a new $6 cell(Opens in a new window)), or eight months without sunlight.

The second piece is the Wireless Weather Envoy receiver. This is a black plastic box with an attached antenna and Ethernet ports that make it look a little bit like a very small Wi-Fi router. Like a router, it can sit on any flat surface or be mounted on a wall. The Envoy’s main job is to talk with the sensor array, but it also has sensors of its own to measure indoor temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure.

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The final piece is hard to find, since it’s attached directly to the Envoy at the end of a short cable, looking more like an adapter. This is the WeatherLinkIP datalogger, and it’s the device that send your weather data off to the Internet.

Before you can deploy your kit, you’ll have to do some assembly work on the Vantage Vue sensor array. The detailed (if wordy) instructions guide you through the whole process, which is pretty painless. The tipping spoon assembly, which measures rainfall, fits snuggly into its slot and is easily secured with an attached thumbscrew. Installing the wind cups and weather vane requires an included allen wrench, and that the Vue be held in a very specific way. When I added the included rechargeable battery, a nearby LED shone, making it clear that the device was powered and ready. Though it was relatively easy to put together, the Netatmo Weather Station ($179.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) requires no assembly, aside from a few batteries.

Once assembled, I was able to see that the Vue is very well made. Its black-and-white plastic housing feels sturdy, though it probably won’t win any awards for beauty. Putting one of these in your yard is nearly the same as erecting a neon sign on your roof that reads “I am a weather nerd.”

In addition to the Weather Box kit, Davis Instruments sent me a mounting pole, which fits into the bottom of the Vantage Vue and is secured with a c-shaped metal ring and bolts. Mounting the pole, it seems, is up to you, as there is no included tripod. The Vue’s onboard battery is for providing power through the night, and is recharged by the integrated solar panel. That means the solar panel must be pointed south.

While the Vue is well-built, the Envoy is less impressive and feels quite cheap. Looking at the ports on one side of the device, I could see that an internal circuit board was not seated properly, and that the plastic casing was bulging on one side. Thankfully, you probably won’t have to spend much time looking at it. Note that the Envoy requires AC power from the included adapter.

This Is Not a Photograph, It’s the Weather
The first thing I noticed about the Weather Box is that it’s not Wi-Fi compatible. The Envoy and datalogger need to be connected to the Internet via an Ethernet cable, which limits where the Envoy can be placed, which, in turn, limits where you can install the Vue. According to the Weather Box documentation, the Envoy can communicate with the Vue over a theoretical range of 1,000 feet, though 200-400 feet is the practical limitation. The Envoy had no trouble communicating with the Vue through a thick, skyscraper window and several drywall walls. However, your mileage will almost certainly vary.

While I don’t like that the Weather Box requires a wired connection, I was shocked by how easy it is to set up. Once the Envoy is plugged in and powered, simply create an account on the barebones Davis WeatherLink website, then enter the information on the side of the datalogger. That’s it. The Envoy automatically connects to the Vantage Vue sensor array, and data will start appearing on your personal WeatherLink homepage immediately. You can disconnect the Envoy and reconnect it in another location without having to change any settings. It’s surprisingly simple.

While the Davis Instruments hardware looks modern enough, the WeatherLink(Opens in a new window) site looks like something out of 1995. The public page is something I would expect to find on a late night public access cable. That said, it gets the job done; my information was correctly displayed and updated at frequent intervals. From one screen, you can see the current temperature, daily high and low temperatures, wind speed and direction, humidity, rain accumulation, and current barometric pressure. Your Summary page includes more information, like the current indoor temperature and humidity recorded by the sensors inside the Envoy.

After three hours of data is collected, your Summary page will even display a custom forecast using your weather data. For the avid gardener or outdoor sports enthusiast, this is likely a must-have feature. However, the Weather Underground WunderStation iPad app displays all of your weather station’s information in a much more beautiful interface and uses the same weather prediction model used by The Weather Channel to deliver a custom forecast.

Your weather data also syncs with free iPhone and Android apps, the latter of which I tested. It is clearly a port of an old iPhone app, and one that was not made very well in the first place. Page elements did not display correctly on my Nexus 7 ($64.95 at Walmart)(Opens in a new window) tablet, and those that did were too difficult to use. 

If WeatherLink isn’t your style, you can have the service send your information to Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (G.L.O.B.E.), The Citizen Weather Observer Program (C.W.O.P.), or the aforementioned Weather Underground. It only took a few seconds to enroll my new weather station on the Wunderground website, and then add my station ID and password to the WeatherLink site to get the two services talking. It was painless, and I’m greatly impressed with WeatherLink’s flexibility. Once hooked into Wunderground, you can view your weather station in the Editors’ Choice-winning Weather Underground for iPhone or Weather Underground for Android apps.

Along with the hardware, the Weather Box includes a CD with special software from Davis. The software is allegedly compatible with computers running Windows XP or later (sorry, OS X), and while I had no trouble installing it, I was able to do little else. The interface could politely be described as Byzantine, but even with the help of the instruction manual, I was unable to link my weather station to my computer.

Escape Your Certain Fate and Predict Your Own Weather
The Weather Box has everything you need to get started with a home weather station. The outdoor Vantage Vue sensor array is rugged, easy to assemble, self-sufficient, and capable of gathering a wealth of weather data. The Envoy and datalogger are easy to connect to the WeatherLink website, which in turn can communicate with a number of worthy weather services and apps.

By comparison, the Netatmo Weather Station is entirely wireless, which makes it much easier to set up and to install. But Wi-Fi is a fickle thing, and I’ve had a lot of trouble keeping Netatmo devices in sync with each other and connected to the Internet. The Netatmo also lacks many of the sensors included with the Weather Box, though additional Wind Gauge and Rain Gauge modules are now available. The Netatmo is significantly cheaper at $179, and less of a hobbyist device.

With its self-contained, sleek, spherical design, the BloomSky Solar Powered Weather Kit is much easier to install and more attractive than the Davis system. It uses an internal Wi-Fi radio, meaning it requires no indoor base station, although the setup process can be hair-pullingly annoying. It has more sensors than the Netatmo station, but lacks any wind detection. Its killer feature is an integrated camera that posts live images to the BloomSky social app, and compiles an impressive timelapse video at the end of each day.

The closest analogue to the Weather Box I’ve yet tested is the Ambient Weather WS-1001-WIFI Observer ( at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) . As the name implies, this device connects to the Internet via a Wi-Fi base station, making it easier to install than the Davis system. It has all the same sensing capabilities as the Vue, but includes a base station with a full-color LCD display. With it, you can see the data flowing in from your internal and external sensors, as well as explore historical data, and some handsome graphs. The base station also accepts an SD card to easily export your weather data. That said, the Observer’s interface is arcane at best, which is a major barrier for novice users.

Unfortunately, all that Davis Instruments offers in the Weather Box doesn’t add up. The components are very expensive, and the kit does not include a graphical base station. Though relatively easy to set up, requiring a wired data connection makes placing the Weather Box components difficult, as you’ll have to take into account the location of your available Ethernet ports and the distance to the external sensor array. Lastly, the mobile apps and WeatherLink site are just not up to snuff.

If you’re looking for something simple and pretty, the BloomSky and Netatmo Weather Station are both capable and attractive. If you’re in need of more detailed information, the Ambient Observer is the way to go. As of writing, there is no Editors’ Choice in this category, though I hope to find one soon.