Weather Instruments

Reviewed by Bill S

The Kestrel Drop 2 Datalogger is a tiny sensor that links with your iPad or iPhone to provide environmental measurements remotely. It is handy for checking the temperature when you are comfortable inside your tent or snow shelter and sleeping bag or for monitoring fresh food you carry for the first few days of a backpacking trip.

Background: Have you ever been nice and cozy inside your tent and wondered what temperature awaited you outside your tent? Or, on the other hand, been roasting inside your tent on a humid summer’s day and wondered whether exiting the tent would put you in cool air or still have you roasting? Have you wanted to pack some fresh food that had to be kept cool to have the first couple of days on the trail, but worried that it might get too warm and spoil? Some of my friends have bought inside/outside electronic thermometers intended for automobiles, usually finding out that the batteries ran down quickly or that they gave very wrong temperatures, besides having long wires that got tangled in everything.

Read more: Kestrel DROP D2 review (1)

Featured review by Vladimir Gorbunov

Excellent weather instrument for all users of wireless-capable Garmin units.

I've been using this sensor since its appearance in 2012 with my Garmin GPSMap 62s and now I continue using it with GPSMap 64s (see my review). I remember that in 2012 it was like a dream come true—wireless temperature sensor with log recording and making the graphs in Garmin Basecamp on PC! My temperature-equipped bike computer was very nice, but ability to record the data to track and review it later was amazing. Here are its official specs from Garmin support: The unit is water resistant to 32.9 ft (10 meters).

Read more: Garmin Tempe reviews (2)

Reviewed by Twig

The ThermoDrop is a key-chain or zipper-pull digital thermometer that's useful for gathering temperature data in the backcountry. Such statistics help me in better understanding my tolerances and gear needs. It's also fun for bragging rights/telling stories about my backcountry adventures.

Background: I'm fond of factual and actual numbers when it comes to backpacking. There's just so much that's subjective and tailored to individual needs and perspectives, especially when it comes to temperature ratings and ranges. There have been many times when I felt exceptionally cold or hot but wondered, were the ambient temperatures really that extreme? Wouldn't it be helpful to know the exact temperature at any given time or how cold it really got overnight? There are watches and phones that claim to be able to record temperatures, but I never trusted the readings.

Read more: ThermoWorks ThermoDrop review (1)

Reviewed by Nick Mesarhakis

My portable weather heads-up.

One of those things that never left my hip belt since I bought it. Accuracy. What is a weather station if it's not accurate? Fortunately this little guy's maximum deviation is 0.3 Celsius and 4% humidity compared to a traditional mercury thermometer. So it's super accurate in by book! And I tried a lot of weather stations over the years (although not a single portable one) for home usage and none delivered that accuracy. You also get alarm clock with snooze function, date, moon phase, day display? (I don't know how to write this down so..), weather trend depending on how fast temperature/humidity shifts and last but not least illuminator function with high contrast when the batteries are good (very handy inside a freezing tent at night).Also...

Read more: Oregon Scientific Handheld Weather Forecaster with Alarm Clock review (1)