freaking ecowitt this has been fun

first off, i bought it off ebay (try to stifle your shocked face)

next, what was sent to me included, i shite you not; a haribrush, mascara, dove deoderant and a gold necklace with the letter H attached.



i said 'oh i know this isn't going to end well.."

sure enough, the wifi base station was missing. i reached out to the seller and said 'i'm just sending the whole thing back' and by the time i got to my phone, i had gotten blown up with like 17 messages from them; as if they were arguing directly with me but without any responses. "ok, you want a discount?" "you can keep it and i'll give you some of your money back" Ok" "what do you think?"

finally i got a message from paypal saying the full amount had been refunded and the seller was like "just keep it".


so i'm good right? this is the ecowitt ws90 which support zigbee..right? i mean i read that online so i'm getting ready to buy a zigbee antenna (since i'm going to need one eventually) and go back & read the fine print..NOPE. no zigbee. you have to get the "shelly version" of the ws90 for zigbee

ok so where we at now? still need a wifi base station..read up and it will work locally using the wifi bridge even w/ WAN down, just wont send stuff to ecowitt site or 'weather underground' (those bastards can fend for themselves..they can't have my GLENGARRY weather data for free) so ok here we go. since the weather station is now FREE..i'm on the clock to minimize purchase of missing parts.

a. the 'universal weather station' mount i bought DOES NOT WORK . apparently its 1 1/4" and ecowitt for some inexplicable reason only support a 1" pipe and there was no way to make the one i bought work..so back to amazon goes the mast.



b. did not come with batteries and it seems everyone says to spend a little extra on Li batteries and they'll last a couple of years instead of alkaline since its supported by solar as well. ok fine; there's another $15 for a set of 4 Li AAs

c. bought a new mast that is 1" and have to wait for that to come in.

d. the wifi bridge was $50 but apparently its pretty good and expandable if you buy any additional ecowitt doo-dads.

so long story short; a $200 weather station cost is now FREE but i still spent almost $100 on crap to install it but better than having to buy all that on top of the weather station itself.


what a pain; this could have been a lttle smoother experience. who sells 2 COMPELTELY different models of the same product under the same product code?