AcuRite Wireless Digital Rain Gauge with Self-Emptying Collector with Rainfall History, Alerts, and Current Date and Time (00899), Multicolor

after calibration, the guage works very well.

I was a little skeptical at first when buying this rain gauge. My dad and I have been tracking rainfall for years with glass gauges (we farm) and I was drawn in by the "self-emptying" part, but also a little leery of how it emptied itself, whether it would freeze in the winter, and whether the design would hold up to years of abuse the way that our plain old tubes did. So, the first thing I did when I got it was take it apart. I have to say, I was really impressed by the design of this thing. Its simple and brilliant, and I think that understanding how it works really helps put you at ease with it. Setup: Two tabs on the side of the white plastic cover allow you to unsnap the white part from the gray part. Inside, you find the measuring unit, which snaps into the gray base. When you unsnap the measuring unit from the bottom of the base, you see the place for the batteries in the bottom of the measuring unit. Once you put the batteries in and snap it back into the base, it covers the batteries to keep them out of the elements. It has two screw holes in the base that will allow you to screw it down so it won't blow away, then you just snap the white part back into the base, and its ready to go. Batteries go into the indoor unit through a flap on the back, very standard. The unit connected right away when the batteries were installed in that order, and didn't lose connection even though there is about 100 yards of space between where the rain gauge is located and where the display is located, indoors. How it Works: Now onto the fun part. The white part of the gauge funnels the water down to a drip point where it drips into the inside of the gauge. The measuring unit is underneath the drip point, and it consists of a see-saw made with two spoons and a magnet on the bottom. The dripper funnels water into the highest spoon until it gets heavy. When it has enough water, it falls, swinging the magnet past the sensor, raising the other spoon to catch water, and dumping its own water out the side of the rain gauge, all in one motion. Then it repeats with the other side. The sensor just measures how many times the magnet swings past. So, there is really only one moving part - the double spoon with a magnetic bottom, on an axis. Nothing complex or easily breakable. It basically measures the rain one tiny measuring cup at a time. And, since the spoon has an open top, holds only a few drops of water, and empties out the side of the base, there is nothing to freeze and crack, so I can leave this gauge outside - no more bringing the gauges in like I have to with the glass tubes. Also, the accuracy of the rain gauge is completely adjustable. It has two set screws underneath the ends of the spoons that you adjust up and down to control how much rain it gathers in each spoon before tipping. So, you can run it next to your favorite rain gauge, and adjust the screws until the reading is dead-on accurate. The inside unit is very similar to other accu-rite weather products. It has a clear display that includes the time and date, and a few buttons. The mode button cycles between running totals. It keeps a total for the latest rain event, the last 24 hours, the last week, and two separate running totals (A and B) that you can use to track whatever you want. ( I use A for the monthly total, and B for the yearly total.) To reset a total, you hold the clear button while you're viewing it. History takes you back to previous readings. It has two alarm thresholds. You can set an alarm for rainfall if you want to be alerted when it starts to rain. You can set another alarm for a flood watch if you want to be alerted when high amounts of rain fall. The set and + butttons are just used to set up the unit. The Bottom Line: This rain gauge uses a simple, accurate, and adjustable method to measure rain. It won't freeze and crack like tube rain gauges, so you don't have to bring it in. It keeps 5 running totals so you can see how much rain you got without having to track it manually. Better yet, you don't have to go outside to empty it after each rainfall. All in all, if you're looking for a rain gauge, this one is a good one.

I can't even comment on durability or accuracy in the real world, I let this sit on my desk for over a month because I knew from other reviews that the calibration process would be difficult and I assumed it was mandatory. They should just include a cup with a hole in it, even though it sounds like a common thing to have laying around. Here's why- My first few attempts involved a generic red party cup with a thumb tack hole punched in the lowest point. It'd drip consistently for a while, then slow down and eventually stop dripping with 10% of the water left. Not enough water weight to force more water through the small hole, surface tension, who knows. Attempts to ever so slightly enlarge the hole didn't solve this, or resulted in the cup draining too quickly. This was all precarious anyway - 1) my pyrex measuring cup is hard to nail 1 cup exactly. I resorted to using a graduated cylinder to fill it with exactly 1 cup / 237ml. It was below the line on my measuring cup. Then I'd transfer to my hole cup 2) I had to balance my hole-punched cup across the top of the unit using pencils. I disliked everything about this after the third attempt, with cups stalling out or draining too fast. Finally saw a video of someone doing it a different way and I put another spin on it. I set a grease-spatter screen across my sink and put a sandwich-type plastic storage container beneath it. I set the rain gauge on the screen and set my faucet at the slowest drip possible. I decided for more accuracy that I would let it drip until the gauge read 3.36", or double what the instruction manual states (1.68"). The water drained through the gauge, through the screen, and collected in the storage container. This took almost an hour. When the screen showed 3.36" (very lucky, I wouldn't expect to nail that perfectly in any calibration setup with 1-minute updates) I WEIGHED the contents of the bin on an accurate food scale. 448 grams. I then asked an AI chat bot thing the following question: "if 1.68 inches (1 cup) = 226.796 grams, and 3.36 inches (2 cups) = 453.592 grams, how many inches is 448 grams?" and the result was 3.32", or 98.8% accurate. I'm not going to even bother twisting the dials and running the test again, that's close enough for me. On my analog rain gauge I wouldn't even be able to make a 1.2% distinction. I'm terrible at math so I guess this is right. Whatever.

Good quality Easy yo assemble Works great Considering buying another one for different location

Down to 1 star. Long story made short: Fiddled with calibration once again, tested the batteries (all good), totally reset the inside unit, and put it back in service. It rained the next day, glass rain gauge showed 2” of rain, AcuRite showed 0.3”. AcuRite gauge now resides in the recycle bin awaiting pick up. I’m wondering if all the people giving glowing reviews really know if the readings they are seeing are at all accurate. Good concept, easy set-up but questionable accuracy & lousy life. I would like to give this 3-1/2 stars, but that's not possible I purchased this rain gauge in January 2003 (which puts it well beyond the return window). I went through the tedious procedure of calibrating it when it arrived and as it turned it was very close to the 1.68” number you are supposed to see so I put it service without any adjustment needed. The outside unit (rain gauge) is about 60’ from the inside display and there was no trouble in the two units connecting. For the last nine months or so, I thought I was getting super accurate readings, but to my dismay, it turned out I wasn’t. Living in Southwest Florida, we get the inevitable afternoon thunderstorms. We had two significant ones last week and my super accurate AcuRite rain gauge said there had been a total of just over 5”. HOWEVER, my next door neighbor who has one of those totally unsophisticated stick-in-the -ground glass gauges said he had over 8”. This prompted me to do two things. One, buy one of those unsophisticated glass gauges that you have to go outside to check which I did for about $13.00, and two, recalibrate my AcuRite gauge. After about five attempts of doing the 20 minute or so drip test, I was able to get it to read 1.70” which is within 1% and I figured that was close enough. The real test came the following day. We had rain and mu AcuRite showed .6”, but the outside glass gauge which is about 3 feet from the AcuRite showed 1”. My conclusion is that there is something wrong in the mechanism (at least mine) which can handle the drip, drip, drip, of the calibration test, but not a downpour that produces an inch of rain in 10 minutes which is not uncommon in our location.. Pros: Easy to set up, like the concept of being able to see rain amounts without going outside, like being able to see today, yesterday, year-to-date etc. Cons: I’m a bit suspicious of the longevity/accuracy per the above. Final update. Just trashed my third unit. Inaccurite, stopped working. New batteries in both units - still nothing. Absolute junk!

Gotta admit, I did not expect this thing to be that accurate, but so far it is surprisingly nuts on. I purchased the Tropo CoCoRaHS gauge at the same time to compare this rain gauge against and calibrate it if / when needed, but so far after two rain events of .17 of an inch and .23 of an inch the measurements have been exactly the same. Actually the .23 was a hair shy on both. I added three drops of water to the AcuRite collection bucket, which caused it to dump and click up to .23 and I added three drops of water to the Tropo gauge, which caused that one to be dead on at .23 of an inch. I'm sure there are variables that will cause some sensors to be accurate right out of the gate vs others, but I can absolutely tell you that this one is so far ridiculously spot on. Who knows if time tells a different story, or if a major rain event produces different results, but I figured I'd let people like me know that this gauge is absolutely capable of reading accurately despite my belief that it was unlikely. I installed it (put in the two screws) before removing the paper piece that releases the bucket tipper, and I also made sure that it was level. Just letting you know what I did in case that produces positive results for anyone else. I purchased the gauge with the vertical display because I preferred the simultaneous readout options over the horizontal display. Anyway, this is one positive experience for this rain gauge after one week of ownership. I attempted to capture the results for your enjoyment, but I realize the darkness didn't help. You can kind of make out the .20 and the three notchess above where the water line sits on the Tropo, which matches the .23 on the AcuRite.

I purchased one of these in 2014, and it has worked well so far. I was annoyed by short battery life in the rain collector, so I attached an external dual D-cell battery holder using short wire leads, soldering the leads to the internal battery contacts (observe polarity!), and removed the internal batteries. Using alkaline D cells, the collector will run for months. I placed the D-cell holder under a small plastic tub wrapped with aluminum foil to reflect the sun and reduce heat loading on the batteries. Use shielded wire to avoid solar degradation of the wire leads. Works fine, lasts a long time! This mod also reduces the likelihood of breaking the tabs holding the upper funnel in place.

I have wanted one of these for a long time. I am not sure of longevity; keeping fingers crossed it makes it thru the winter but it was easy to install & pair. So much nicer than the old plastic tube we still have but are not using. Have been in a bit of droughty conditions lately but have had a couple of rains and like that it is so precise and keeps the info gathered from the day and week . The readout inside is easy to read and using the button on the front to scroll. If I had a suggestion, would be to put the "buttons on the back" in a different location; since my husband keeps picking the device up and hitting those buttons (for programming) these buttons should not be so easy to push by accident. A small suggestion but would be nice to see either slide buttons or push buttons (under a cap) like the battery housing. That way when you pick up the device to scroll thru the readings, it doesn't get messed up.

Like all Acurite products it was simple to install and worked perfectly out of the box. As it connects to Acurite Access we configured our Rachio watering system to read direct from it (via wunderground). Meaning that we are getting accurate water readings right at our location. It also shows up on the Accurite App as a seperate sensor. Plus the LCD display can be placed in a convenient location for quick information without having to open the App. The main benefit is we've found it to be far more accurate than our Acurite 5 in 1 rain gauge. Awesome product at a super cheap price.

Very happy with this item. Just what I needed.

Works well 😁

I had a bit of a trial trying to fine tune the gauge (entirely down to my incompetence), but with hindsight wish I had left it's factory defaults, as my calibrations were a bit amateur. The gauge itself is very easy to use, and easy to adjust if you wish to, I just can't leave well alone. Ever.

Gostei do medidor de chuva AcuRitte. é simples e funciona bem. Único ponto que para mim seria interessante e que disponibilizasse o histórico das medições mais detalhado (dia a dia e mes). Mas é perfeito!