Weather Direct – Direct to your desk from the Internet
July 1, 2009 1 Comment Thursday, July 2st, 2009 Netcast 864
This new device, The 4 Day Internet Powered Wireless Forecaster, does exactly what it says. The device provides 4-day accurate weather for over 60,000 locations. It also shows the inside and outside temperatures. You don’t have to worry about setting the time and the date because that’s done automatically. And there’s no subscription required. Set-up takes about 10 to 15 minutes. Be sure to follow the directions. It took me a bit longer because I never looked into the instruction book. I just hooked everything together and then I looked at the instructions to find things like: “don’t put the batteries in yet”, “don’t plug the unit into your WiFi yet, etc., etc. So unpack everything and then follow the Quick Start Guide. I spoke to someone at the company who told me the way to keep the price of a weather 
station down was to have all the weather equipment at the company’s end, and then feed the results to the various units (each unit has it’s own unique ID) across the country and Canada. Once it’s set up, you can pick a very local area as your weather location. You can get 4 day weather for Over 60,000 Locations including your hometown, parks, sports venues, golf courses and more. I picked Riverside Park from the menu because I’m located just half a block away. Temperatures are shown in °F or °C. The indoor temperature is shown constantly on the unit. The outdoor temperature is shown as part of the scrolling LCD weather bar at the bottom on the LCD screen, so you may have to wait a minute or so for it to zip by. In addition to the desk unit, you get a wireless outdoor temperature sender and an wireless interface, which is connected to your router. The company says the wireless range is up to 330 foot. I have the router in my office and I able to bring the display unit two rooms away while still getting weather data. Info also includes sunrise and sunset. If you want you can also monitor your backyard temperature from anywhere in the world with the included Weather Club Membership. There’s no software installation necessary. But you do need a high-speed Internet service, a network router and a computer for the web-based set-up. There are about a dozen different models. I have the WD-3103U and right after I talked about on the Daily Giz Wiz, Leo bought the same unit They even make a talk model which can speak the weather without you having to turn on the radio, TV, or computer! The model WD-3103U is about $60.
The company website: www.weather-direct.com
Hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw863 4
Reader Comments (1)
Cool device but I never cared for the "segmented line" text display. I would rather pay a couple bucks more and have a nice high res dot matrix text display.