La Crosse Technology S88907 Wireless Color Weather Station Review

We purchased the La Crosse S88907 Wireless Color Weather Station so our expert reviewer could thoroughly test and assess it. Keep reading for our full product review.

The La Crosse S88907 is a basic weather station that tracks and reports trends for indoor and outdoor temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure. It comes with an attractive, animated display that includes icons for multiple types of weather, but its actual forecasting capabilities are extremely limited. We recently set one of these up to see how well it actually works, testing things like how easy it is to set up and use, the quality of the display, and the accuracy of temperature and humidity readings.

Design: Big and light

The S88907 weather station consists of a small sensor unit and a large display unit. When you power them both up for the first time, they connect automatically over a 433MHz wireless connection.

The sensor unit is very utilitarian, made of white plastic, and features a single red LED to let you know that it’s working when you first insert the batteries. The display unit is significantly larger and is designed to be mounted on a wall or set upright on a desk with the built-in kickstand.

While the display unit is quite large, it’s also extremely light, to the point where it feels cheap when you hold it. The bezel around the display is massive, and it feels like most of the device is empty space. The display is big and bright, looking much more modern than other weather stations that use basic LCDs. Despite the massive bezel, the display looks quite nice hung on a wall or set on a desk that has sufficient free space for such a large device.

Setup Process: Easy for the most part, but don’t count on the automatic time setting

Setting up the La Crosse S88907 weather station is a quick and easy process. It starts with plugging in the display, inserting batteries into the sensor, and then waiting for them to sync up. Once the two are connected, you’ll see temperature and humidity readings appear in the remote section of the display.

This weather station includes a clock and calendar, so setup also requires setting the time and date. This is a bit tricky because the buttons are located on the back of the device, so you can’t see both the buttons and the display at the same time.

An additional annoyance is the fact that this weather station has a radio-controlled clock that we weren’t able to get to work. The instructions say to point the device toward Ft. Collins, Colorado, the location of the signal, but we were unable to get it to sync up even when set near a window facing in that general direction.

Display: Bright and colorful LCD screen

The La Crosse S88907 weather station has a big LCD panel that’s quite colorful and pleasant to look at. The time, date, temperature, and humidity are displayed in different colors, making it easy to see what you’re looking at.

It also includes an animated section with icons to show full sun, partial clouds, full clouds, rain, lightning, and snow, for some very basic forecasting capabilities. Additional information includes an indicator to show if the barometric pressure is rising or falling, and an indicator that shows an indoor comfort index based on the temperature and humidity.

The display is also backlit, and the backlight can be switched off or set to two different brightness levels. The highest setting is good enough in everything but the brightest direct sunlight. The tradeoff is that if you want to use this in a bedroom, you’ll find that it’s far too bright for nighttime use, and it isn’t adaptive, so you have to manually switch the backlight on or off. 

Viewing angles are okay from the sides and the top, but terrible when viewed from below. Keep that in mind if you plan on mounting this unit on the wall, as you’ll want it at or slightly below eye level. 

Sensors: Temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure

The sensor unit is compact, nondescript, and houses temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure sensors. It’s designed to be installed on the side of your home that doesn’t face the sun, up under the eaves if possible, and includes a notched slot on the back to make the mounting process easy.

While it includes a barometric pressure sensor, this unit doesn’t actually display barometric pressure. Instead, the display shows a barometric pressure trend. In other words, it shows whether barometric pressure is rising, falling, or holding steady.

The display unit and the sensor unit both include temperature and humidity sensors, which is how it’s able to provide temperature and humidity readings for both indoors and outdoors.

Connectivity: No connectivity

This weather station has no external connectivity, which means you can’t connect it to a computer to extract and record weather data. There is no USB port or any other type of connectivity, so it’s useful only as a moment-by-moment weather station and not for tracking trends.

Performance: Decently accurate for the price

The sensors aren’t tremendously accurate in this weather station, but they’re more or less in line with what you might expect out of an affordable unit. When compared to a high-end weather station, which closely matched nearby NOAA readings, we found that this weather station was off by about 1-2 degrees Fahrenheit, and by about 3-5 percent on humidity readings.

While this weather station isn’t what you’re looking for if you need super precise readings, it performs perfectly well for an inexpensive temperature and humidity monitoring device.

Price: Don’t pay full MSRP for this one

The La Crosse S88907 weather station has an MSRP of $71.95, but it usually sells for about $35 on Amazon. It isn’t worth a buy at the MSRP, because at that price you aren’t that far off from much more capable stations that can measure things like wind speed and rainfall. Priced at or below the $35 mark, it’s definitely worth a look.

Competition: Great for the price, but others have more features

MXiiXM Weather Station: Selling for about $45, the MXiiXM Weather Station offers strong competition. It includes all the same basic functionality found in the La Crosse S88907, including limited forecasting, but the remote sensor has its own basic LCD panel. If you plan on placing your remote sensor in an area where you’ll be able to see it easily, that’s a nice feature to have. Otherwise, the La Crosse 88907 wins out since it’s usually available for a bit less money, and the build quality is also higher.

Wittime 2076 Weather Station: This is another basic weather station with a colorful display that sells for about $45. It measures temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure, and it’s also capable of basic forecasting. Since the feature set is so similar, it isn’t worth paying extra for this versus the La Crosse 88907 unless you really like the design.

AcuRite 00589 Pro Color Weather Station: The AcuRite 00589 usually sells for about $100, so it’s significantly more expensive than the La Crosse 88907. It measures temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, and adds in wind speed, which is where the extra cost comes in. It also adds the ability to show historic sensor reading charts. For about $30 more, AcuRite also has a station that adds in a rainfall meter.

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