Review: Ambient Weather WS-5000

For whatever reason, dads like paying attention to the weather with useless precision. We’re also notoriously difficult to shop for. The Ambient Weather hardware ecosystem, which shows you everything from daily rainfall to the current UV index via a series of weather-measuring doohickeys, accessories, and screens, is the best thing ever for middle-aged weather nerds.

You can even pool together with family and friends to buy separate components for multiple birthdays or gift-y type holidays—maybe even more if Ambient Weather continues to release new products regularly. It’s a boon for hard-to-shop-for fathers and nerdy types everywhere. My dad got his first one in December, and now he has them in two locations, with one at our family vacation home. I’ll be shopping for accessories for years!

Becoming Al Roker

The higher-end WS-5000 kit I got from Ambient Weather included two large sensors that need to be mounted somewhere with the most representative weather in your yard. The instructions suggest a rooftop or clearing, so I chose the top of my garage, where an easy-to-install pole mounting kit screwed into the peak at the front.

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The two main sensor units contain various science-y tools, like a rain cup and a barometer, to measure humidity, temperature, wind speed, UV, and precipitation. They connect via W-Fi to a small screen that sits on my desk and acts as a head unit for the sensors, displaying all their current readouts. I wish this thing had a touchscreen, but otherwise it works fine for a real-time readout of the data on hand.

According to Ambient Weather, the sensors will transmit up to 1,000 feet line-of-sight, or about 300 feet not line-of-sight, but my family and I have gotten much less range than that. It depends on where you mount the unit, but I suggest making sure it's located relatively close, with power (think more like 100 feet).