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

High winds blew it off the table once. I put some pebbles (for weight) in a small flower pot and put the gauge in the pot. Very secure now. It was easy to set up. Mostly just required installing batteries. Works very well.It’s rather ingenious. There is a cup at the top with a hole in the bottom. Underneath the hole is a little teeter totter mechanism with a small bucket on each end. The bucket in the up position is under the hole. In the down position it’s tilted to empty the bucket. So rain water is collected in the cup and runs through the hole into the bucket. When the bucket is full, the water weight tips the teeter and then that water is dumped out the bottom. It knows how much water has passed through by how many times the teeter has tipped. It reports the rain data to the display in the house. You never need to empty it. It reports rain data by the event or by the day. It retains a history of the data. To explain the difference between event and day, let’s say it starts raining at 9PM one evening. If you display data by the day, it switches to zero at midnight. Let’s say you got .8 inches up to midnight and .4 inches more before the rain stops at 2AM. The next morning you come to check out how much rain you got. If you select event, it says 1.2 inches. If you select day, it says .4 today. Press the history button and see you got .8 yesterday. It also has an optional alarm to tell you a rain event has started in case you want to close your car windows.I imagine you will need to clean it once in a while. The batteries last a long time, but you will need to change them occasionally. Much less maintenance than a manually dumped tube and it still works if you forget to dump the tube. Easy to see how much rain for the week or month by going through history. Better than trying to keep written records of readings on a tube.Update - I just bought my second AcuRite rain gauge. I didn't read the manual closely enough or forgot what I read and left the rain gauge out all winter. It says to not leave it out in freezing weather. So it was working earlier this spring, but stopped about a month ago. I figured it must be the batteries. So I opened up the outside unit and replaced the batteries. It wouldn't sync with the inside unit. So I opened up the outside unit again to see if maybe I put a battery in backwards. I noticed a little crack underneath the teeter mechanism. Well guess where the electronics are. With the spring rains, some moisture must have got through the crack and toasted it. I won't make that mistake again. This is a really great little machine. I never have to empty it or keep a manual log to see the history. Just have to remember to bring it in, like hoses before the first freeze. I did turn off the rain alarm. It's kinda loud at 2AM.

This rain meter was easy to set-up out of the box and basically only requires 5 AA batteries and you’re ready to go. I mainly wanted this system to warn me of an upcoming storm when I am out RV’ing so I can roll my awning in before it starts raining too hard. The first night I received the device, we had a storm. The rain alarm function worked as designed as the alarm sounded as soon as it started raining. The collection and measured amount of rain is accurate as well. The rainfall indicated by the weather channel was the same as what was indicated on my monitor. Overall, after only having it for one day, I am very satisfied with this device!

My first time using a self-emptying rain guage and I find it so much more convenient than my old manual one! I like that it saves data for a week so I can get accurate rainfall info when I come back from a trip. It was relatively easy to assemble and works well. I just wish AcuRite would build a rainfall recording app for this so that it automatically updates the rainfall info. That would make is so much more useful as I could install several in properties that I only visit occasionally but would like to track rainfall patterns for.

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 wanted to use it as part of an irrigation system but have just bought a Rainbird wireless rain sensor instead after wasting too much time. The AcuRite display started going blank with random reboots. I reported this to AcuRite, and was asked to go through the usual 'take the batteries out' wait 5 mins, put back in, wait 20 mins and send a picture. I did all this and support responded 'send a picture with the batteries installed!' This in spite of my first message about the screen going blank. I did spend some time with a 433 MHz radio, decoding the signal successfully as I like the tipping sensor, but I'm done.