I just received my two orders of these weather forecasting alarm clocks from thingfling yesterday. And after having spent a day and a night with one, I am so very pleased, that I just felt the need to share my opinion and experience with these.
This clock weather forecaster is so much more than it is advertised as really. There were so many features I discovered while setting it up that surprised me. Especially given thingfling's excellent price on these.
In the box you receive the clock, the remote temperature sensor, and an AC adapter for the clock. The clock plugs into the wall--so no need to worry about battery use. The remote sensor requries two AA batteries which are not included. I believe that the batteries most likely will last for a while and will not require frequent change.
The clock itself is round, while flat at the base. Most of the setup controls are on the bottom of the clock. There are only two buttons on the upper part along the back side: the alarm clock button and the temperature button. There is technically a third button on the top part of the clock, which is the snooze. But this is not really a button, it's a virtual button. To activate you simply need to touch the very top plastic of the clock lightly. (though note that it only seems to be sensitive to activation when you are not holding the entire clock in your hand. That had me scratching my head for a while until I put the clock back down on my dresser)
The LCD on the front of the clock is round, and although small given that the clock itself is small, it is quite readable in the opinion of my generally bad eyes. At any given point the LCD displays the current time, current temperature, the current weather forecast (in animated pictogram form), whether or not the alarm is set, and whether or not the clock is receiving a good signal from the remote sensor.
But of course the highlight of this clock and the point which probably drew most to it is the fact that the bottom half of it lights up in various colors to indicate the current weather forecast. And this works very very well. The light is full and evenly distributed through the clocks translucent plastic base. I do not know for certain what kind of light sources are within the clock, but the clock stays cool to the touch. There is no noticeable heat generated from the light source. That and the look of the light leads me to believe they are probably LEDs--which if is the case also means they should last a good long time (which is good because there is no readily provided way to "change bulbs"
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The remote sensor is rectangular, it provides a notch on the battery cover at the base which makes it east to be stood up vertically if you are going to be simply placing it ona ledge of some sort. It also has a mounting key-hole on the back of it for if you wish to wall mount it in some way. Within the battery compartment are two controls, a reset button (accessable with a ball point pen press) and a channel switch. The reset button is used during the initial setup process with the clock to establish communication between the two. The channel switch gives you the option of setting the receiver to channels 1, 2, and 3. Which means that if you were to have more than one of these clocks in range of one another you could set all the receivers to different channels to prevent interferrance.
The remote sensor is not weather proof, and the instructions indicate that it should not be subjected to water and moisture, nor should it be placed in direct sunlight. This was not a problem for me, I simply placed it in between the screen panel and glass of a nearby window that doesn't ever usually get direct sunlight. The clock and remote sensor communicate via radio frequency, and it is stated that they can be seperated by up to 98 feet and communicate properly.
Now for the very nice things abotu the clock that surprised me: The LCD has a green blacklight---it is not lit all the time, and can be activated by touching the "snooze button" area for about 5 seconds. It's bright enough to make the LCD readable in the dark, but not too bright. The clock ALSO has an internal thermometer which means that it can give you indoor temperature as well as outdoor temperature(if you're using the remote sensor). It will only display one temperature at a time, but you can quidckly toggle between which temperature you want to see by pressing the temperature button on the back of the clock (which is placed in such a way that it just requires you reaching/wrapping your hand around the clock and pressing). Also too I mentioned earlier the LCD also displays an animation of the current weather forecast atop the time--which looks very nice, and also is handy until you learn what the colors mean, OR if the color lamp is off, which leads me to my next point: The lamp has a switch amongst the other setup buttons on the bottom of the clock. There are three positions: off, on, and auto. This is just excellent, it gives you full control to do as you wish. Off turns and keeps the lamp off as you might assume, on keeps it on continuously, and auto sets it so that the lamp turns ON and turns OFF at times of the day that you can specify yourself. Which means that if you're using this clock in your bedroom, and the light would keep you awake, you can set it to auto and set the times so that the lamp automatically turns off at your bedtime and turns back on at your wakeup time.
So all that is good and fine, but what about the accuracy of the clock and the forecasting? I am even more pleased to say that I've had excellent results with the clock in this way too. My outdoor temperature monitor is usually +/- 1 to 2 degrees off from the outdoor temperature that I get from online weather sites. (That's in Fahrenheit. Oh did I forget to mention that you can also set the clock to C or F at will?) So far the forecasts have been spot on for me. Here in VA it's been mostly partly cloudy and as such my clock has been showing pink all of yesterday and most of today. It just turned blue not to long ago, and yes indeed we have rain in the forecast coming very soon. I have not seen any clear explanation of how the clock gets its forecasts, but I am tending to lean towards the forecast over radio signal explanation that was offered earlier in this thread. Either way, for me, so far, it's been spot on! An important thing to remember is that the color displayed and weather condition displayed is pertinent to the impending future forecast. Keep that in mind, it's not the current weather, and it's not tomorrows weather. It's basically what -will be next-.
This clock I think would also be most excellent for the young people. It'd be a great nightlight, and educational in a way as well! I have mine in my room, and I have the lamp permanently on, and I slept through the night with it on last night. The lamp did not personally bother me at all, it's strong, but not too strong.
I'm very pleased with this clock, seems I ended up writing a review. I have no idea if thingfling ever intends on bringing this item back to purchase, but if they do---I highly recommend it! This, as far as I'm concerned, really was indeed a steal!