Watson W8681 Professional Wireless Touch Screen Weather Center with PC Interface

The W-8681 Wireless Weather Station is made by the Chinese specialist manufacturer of this type of weather product, Fine Offset Electronics Co Ltd, and is a badge engineered version of their WH 1080 model. Their products are sold under various brand names and model numbers; a look at Fine Offset's web site shows the various options and models they manufacture. This model also looks identical to the WH 1081 model - but the 1080 does not have the radio-controlled clock.

This W-8681 is a Watson badged version and, although "Professional" may be a little optimistic, this model will suit the serious amateur weather forecaster nicely. It is pretty good value at between £70 and £80 and not many years ago the features here would have been likely to cost you up to three times as much.

The first thing you will need to do is assemble the outdoor sensor unit which is quite a bulky item - the illustration on the box gives a fair idea! It comes with a two-section stub mast which can be stuck directly into the ground for low level readings or, ideally, mounted on a pole or mast. Bearing in mind that, although the rain gauge is self-emptying, you will need to access the transmitter unit periodically to replace the 2AA batteries which power it. The spec says the batteries should last up to two years - that may be a little bit optimistic.

A set of Phillips screwdrivers and some small spanners will be required to attach the various sensors and measuring devices to the stub mast. All the fixings are provided including cable ties, screws and nuts and about half an hour should have it up and running. The main niggle in connecting up is the "generous" amount of cable provided on a couple of the sensors - this has to be accommodated on the mast somehow! I found underneath the arms supporting the rain gauge and transmitter to be the best places for this. Some of the units interconnect with each other, others direct to the transmitter; all use telecoms style connectors. As these sensor units also work with Fine Offset's other products as well they are not necessarily designed specifically to be fitted like this - build it as you like it yourself and how it best fits your chosen location.

That's the tricky part done, all that is needed now is to put the 3AA batteries into the base unit and you're off. The first thing that will happen is the base will search for the transmitter and this can take a few minutes - don't touch anything while this is going on! The internal readings show as soon as the batteries are put in the external ones show when the transmitter is found. Once that happens you can touch the screen to see how it works - it's all pretty intuitive. You can change measuring units, check weather history and do all the other things by just touching the correct area of the screen; about half an hour should see it mastered.

There are a couple of niggles with the screen - firstly, it soon becomes very grubby unless your fingers are spotless! The touch-screen membrane is fitted over the LCD display so the display has to be read through it - this can make it a bit difficult to see. Don't think that there is a protective cover and try to remove it or you will damage the touch-screen! The LCD contrast is defaulted to 5 (of 8) this needs to be changed to 8 for a better chance of reading it. Touch Time zone once - reads LCD5 - press + three times to change to LCD8. The screen illumination is also pretty poor - four green LEDs that light for about 5 seconds when the screen is touched. Probably the worst LCD screen lighting I have ever seen!

All in all a pretty good product, reasonably priced and with many features which will give the right person a lot of fun. There is even some software provided and a USB cable for downloading the data to a computer for record keeping or sharing with others. This is pretty basic stuff though - the current version (v 6.1) of the easyweather software can be downloaded from the Fine Offset web site if a preview is required. A few niggles but still worth four stars.

I have read a few bad reports on this weather Station. My brother bought one and raved about it so I have done the same. at the time of writing all seems well I have the sensors approx 12 feet up in the clear. I am not using the software that came with it I am using Cumulus and it works very well with this instrument. For the price it is and excellent peice of kit. So I think they may have been improved the past few months maybe. A good buy

I have had the weather station one month today. I am very pleased with it. I was not very happy with the clock reading being one hour out. The literature does not explain about zones very well. I did experiment with selecting a zone change and by selecting a -1 the clock did finally read the correct time. I am assuming that when the clocks go back I will have to reselect the zone to zero.
I have other outside temperature and pressure gauges and they record the same as the diplayed readings on the touch screen weather station which gave me confidence to accept the screen readings.
I am really satisfied with being able to down load (export) the graphs to my documents on my laptop.
Initially the instructions for setting up were confusing especially the number of times you had to touch the screen to reach the "item" you wanted to change but it all came together in the end.
In conclusion let me say that if a 78yr.old wrinkly can set up the station then any body can.