Over the past several years, the number of home weather stations available to Canadian weather watchers has increased dramatically. Several top US brands, including AcuRite, Ambient Weather, Davis, and Tempest, are now available directly to Canadian consumers, as are quite a few stations from international weather station manufacturer Ecowitt. So, what are the best home weather stations in Canada?
Visits from our friends north of the border account for most of our international traffic, so we’ve created a list of the nine best home weather stations available.
The HP2553 is Ecowitt's top-of-the-line weather station, and it shows.
The WS-5000 is Ambient Weather's top-of-the-line home weather station, and it shows.
The WeatherFlow is still a great option, although a shorter lifespan than other stations in its price range.
Best Home Weather Stations in Canada
After much research, including comparing stations to their counterparts (or competitors) in the States, we’ve created this list of Canada’s best home weather stations.
Ecowitt HP2553 Wi-Fi Weather Station
The HP2553 is Ecowitt's top-of-the-line weather station, and it shows.
The Ecowitt HP2553 is the company’s high-end weather station (and sold as the Ambient Weather WS-5000 in the US). Our tests of the American version of this weather station were stellar. With practically nothing different — save for the lack of smart home support — we had no reservations about making this our top pick.
The HP2553 features a redesigned sensor suite from previous models and an ultrasonic anemometer, drastically reducing the number of moving parts. This should extend its useable life as the traditional anemometer requires ongoing maintenance to ensure trouble-free use. The sensors are more accurate in our tests than in previous Ecowitt stations, and you can add additional sensors, including air quality, soil moisture, water temperature, and lightning. The brilliant colour, easy-to-read LCD console looks great just about anywhere.
The company’s made it easy to share your data publicly through Weather Underground, Ecowitt.net, and many other networks, which is a nice touch and view station data from the Ecowitt app.
The WS-5000 is Ambient Weather's top-of-the-line home weather station, and it shows.
The WS-5000 features a redesigned sensor suite, including an ultrasonic anemometer. Eliminating the cup anemometer found on other weather stations drastically reduces the number of moving parts and can measure wind speed as accurately as the cup-and-vane. This should extend its useable life as the traditional anemometer requires ongoing maintenance to ensure trouble-free use.
The Ambient Weather WS-5000s sensors were much more accurate in our tests than the WS-2902 and WS-1965, which use slightly lower-quality sensor suites. Thanks to expandability and a wide array of optional additional sensors, you can add just about any sensor you can think of, including air quality, soil moisture, water temperature, and lightning, all of which send data to the console in as little as every five seconds.
The company has made it easy to share your data publicly through Weather Underground. Its smart home connectivity is best in class, offering IFTTT compatibility to connect your station to your smart home system. Of course, there's the Ambient Weather Network and the Ambient Weather app to view your personal weather stations' data remotely on your mobile device or through the web app.
- Great full-color console
- An impressive list of optional sensors
- Smart home connectivity
- Improved barometer and rainfall accuracy (from WS-2902 series)
- Cumbersome console setup
- Some sensors had to be reset to connect to console
The WeatherFlow is still a great option, although a shorter lifespan than other stations in its price range.
WeatherFlow is a relatively recent entrant to the home weather station market, although it has years of experience. Its coastal network of professional weather stations has been delivering vital information to meteorologists for years and has proven useful (and durable) in landfalling hurricanes.
The Tempest Weather System is WeatherFlow's first attempt at a wireless home weather station. For the most part, it's a good start. It's the only one of our stations with built-in lightning detection, one of Tempest's standout features, and operates entirely on solar power.
We found that the real-time lightning data matched better with historical data than from professional lightning detection networks. It regularly detected distant lightning faster than any other station we've tested. In addition to lightning data, the Tempest measures indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity, barometric pressure, and UV and light intensity.
Wind is measured by a sonic anemometer which we found to be fairly accurate. And up until the Ecowitt Wittboy, the Tempest Weather System was the only home weather station to use a haptic rain sensor.
See our review for a way to save 10% off your next purchase from WeatherFlow.
- Super quick setup
- Outstanding lightning detection
- Fairly accurate instrumentation
- Ready for the smart home
- The haptic rain sensor doesn’t measure rainfall accurately enough
- No expandability
Ecowitt HP2551 Wi-Fi Weather Station
If the HP2553 is too expensive, consider the HP2551 instead.
The Ecowitt HP2551 isn’t sold in the US under the Ambient Weather brand, but its feature set is similar to the Ambient Weather WS-2000. While you won’t get the accuracy of the HP2553, it is significantly cheaper and measures everything its more expensive sibling does. The nice console you get with the HP2553 is paired with Ecowitt’s base instrument suite.
This Tempest look-alike doesn't have all its features, but is significantly cheaper.
The Wittboy is Ecowitt's latest Wi-Fi weather station. It doesn't have lightning detection or smart home capabilities (that we can tell), but it does pretty much everything else the Tempest does.
The outdoor sensor contains a haptic rainfall sensor, light and UV sensors, an ultrasonic wind speed sensor, and temperature and humidity sensors. Ecowitt also includes its Wi-Fi hub, which allows you to send your data to Weather Underground.
- Decent accuracy
- DIYer-friendly
- Local storage
- Haptic rain gauge is no better
Ecowitt WS3901 Wi-Fi Weather Station
The WS3900 is very similar to the AcuRite Notos, but with a much better console.
The Ecowitt WS3901 is similar to the AcuRite Notos in the feature set (measuring only temperature and wind). This is one way to save if you don't need rainfall readings. The console is also bright and readable, which we rarely see on weather stations this cheap.
Another bonus? It connects to Wi-Fi and ecowitt.net to enable the sharing of your data just about anywhere.
- Inexpensive
- No rainfall readings
AcuRite Iris Wireless Weather Station with LCD Display
This often on-sale model offers internet connectivity at a low price.
One of AcuRite's lower cost Iris models, this particular model comes with a lower-end LCD display, however still supports myAcuRite for online access.
- Inexpensive
- my AcuRite is well designed
- Low-quality display
- Accuracy issues
Ecowitt HP3500 Wi-Fi Weather Station
The HP3500B is Ecowitt's entry level Wi-Fi compatible weather station, but it isn't expandable.
The Ecowitt HP3500B is the company’s cheapest weather station that doesn’t require PC software to share your weather data online. The console isn’t as flashy as the HP2551 but is still readable from a reasonable distance and can display graphs on its screen, something the cheaper WS2320 cannot do.
You do lose the capability to add additional sensors, which may be a reason to opt for any of the above three models if expandability is a concern. But the savings make the HP3500B a contender if you want to save money.
On the cheaper side of things is the WS2320. We'd recommend this particular model if you're looking for a large display - the WS2320 has one of the largest we've seen in a home weather station.
- Large display
- Display isn't the greatest
Wrapping Up
Once again, thanks to our Canadian readers for your support. After seeing that many of our station recommendations weren’t available outside of the US (or were too expensive after shipping), we thought a list of the best home weather stations in Canada was the least we could do. Now, pass the poutine.
(Sorry, we couldn’t resist at least one Canadian joke!)
