Review: Vantage Vue Wireless Weather Station

Weather equipment is no longer the purview of meteorologists or restricted to inexpensive, inaccurate devices. Instrument maker Davis makes one such affordable and sophisticated weather station for home use, the Vantage Vue, and I recently had a chance to review it.

The Vantage Vue consists of 2 main parts [pictured]: the sensor array that you mount outside your home and the wireless display unit. Along with 2 of my friends, we were quickly able to fully assemble the sensor array in about 10 minutes by following the easy to follow, detailed manual.

On the console, I entered some basic info such as date and time and my house’s latitude, longitude and elevation which I snagged from Google Earth.

Davis graciously sent the tripod assembly along with the test unit for the sensor to sit on, and that assembly was also a short 5-minute process with a spanner. If you chose to place the array on a roof or another relatively unshielded location, the unit would be completely powered by the built-in solar panel. Otherwise, there’s a 3V Lithium-ion battery to keep it powered.

Over the next few weeks I became used to having breakfast and fiddling with the Vue’s console before work. There were a couple of cool features that come in very handy if you live in a cold climate. They are the wind chill, forecast and the wind speed features. This lets a New Englander such as myself determine which winter-wear is appropriate based on current and forecasted conditions, and in particular local conditions.

The Vue updates the console readings every 2.5 seconds via data that it’s getting wirelessly from the sensor array, so you should have no fear of having outdated information. And apart from more layman readings such as humidity and barometric pressure, the Vantage Vue has features that would impress the most seasoned weather watcher. For example, the Vantage Vue has 50 on-screen graphs for comparing weather trends. There are 22 alarms based on your parameters to warn of inclement upcoming weather. There is even optional software that provides the expert weather watcher more opportunities for additional analysis.

All in all the Davis Vantage Vue is a very versatile piece of equipment. The needs of both the expert and novice weather watcher will be met with the Vue. The price is also very competitive based on other weather stations with the same array of features. If you have any interest in keeping an eye on the weather, this gadget will serve you well.

You can purchase the Vantage Vue from Amazon.com and other etailers/retailers for under $400.