Ambient Weather 2902 (C/D) Review
The Ambient Weather 2902 is a very popular weather station for home users. It however operates on a 915 Mhz frequency which is not a legal ICASA frequency in South Africa. This however does not mean they don’t work in South Africa as they do work absolutely perfectly.
Ambient Weather 2902 C or D ?
The Ambient 2902C was actually the best model by far that Ambient ever released, stable, reliable and absolutely no sensor failures.
The same cannot be said for the 2902D as many owners have experienced sensor failures. The thermo-hygro sensor is the most common sensor to fail and is rather costly to replace. It’s an annoyance regardless especially when this happens just a few months after purchase. Not sure what Ambient’s manufacturer (Shenzen Fine Offset Electronics) did on this model, but any such change would have been requested by Ambient.
Ambient 2902 Display Console
As far as display consoles goes the Ambient 2902 range certainly has the most boring one compared to other brands on the the market, but it’s simplistic and some people are perfectly ok with that. This display is almos identical to the Ecowitt WS2910 Display except that Ecowitt made their look better after they first made all the others for Ambient Weather 🤣
The Ambient Weather Osprey Sensor
The Ambient 2902 outdoor sensor suite called the Osprey sensor gives you wind speed, wind direction, temperature (indoor and outdoor), humidity (indoor and outdoor), Rainfall, Barometric Pressure, UV Index and Sunlight readings which are handy for solar panel owners. The Osprey sensor is certainly not a unique design whatsoever. It’s design comes from Shenzen Fine Offset Electronics of course. Shenzen however does not use this design in their own Ecowitt product line except for just one sensor called the WH65LP which is a specialised RS485 sensor. Other than that Shenzen Fine Offset sticks to their WS69 sensor which beats anything else on the market in this segment.
Is the Ambient 2902 a clone or not?
Well, yes it is. The original weather station that the Ambient 2902 is based on is called the WH2900 made by Shenzen Fine Offset Electronics in China. Shenzen is the largest original manufacturer of weather stations which are cloned / branded by companies like Ambient, Bresser (I’ll enlighten you on Bresser in another article) and others.
Below you can see the original 2900 design by Shenzen which then was branded as Ambient and started as the original 2902A which is now in its latest release 2902D. Shenzen manufactures them for Ambient to their specifications, this includes modifications to the firmware which restrict the Ambient 2902 range to only be used on the Ambient Weather network website and app.
If you compare the below display console to the one Ambient supply with the WS2902 range you will notice it got slightly shorter in height and things got moved around on the screen, altogether leading to a more boring console in my opinion.
The Original WH2900
The Ambient 2902 – spot the similarities 😉
The verdict
Shenzen fine offset no longer sells this weather station design on their retail outlet Ecowitt. So, if you like the Osprey sensor layout you are limited these days to only buying it from Ambient Weather. Personally the WS-2000 is a much better buy but it’s also a clone. Watch for our next article on the WS-2000.