AcuRite Thermometer & Hygrometer with Humidity Gauge, Magnetic Only

UPDATE - 8/23/2015 OK. I've had this for a few days now. As before, the hygrometer seems to be working well enough for what I intend to use it for. Which is just making sure I'm not saturating my room with the humidifier. It continues to agree with the other analog hygrometer I have within a couple of percentage points. Practically exact unless you need absolute accuracy. The thermometer, I'm still not sure about but it rarely reads below 77, even though it often feels colder. My thermostat (which is located in the hallway) generally disagrees with this unit with about 5 degrees. So I'm gonna recommend if you need an absolute accurate thermometer, you should probably look elsewhere. I doubt it's that hard to find for about the same price. I just wouldn't trust this for temperature readings in a critical setting. ----------------------- PREFACE - OK. Let's get this out of the way first. I just received this meter earlier today and have been watching it and comparing it to a cheaper analog hygrometer (Made by Best Air) I already had just to see what kinds of differences I would see. Let me say first off I am judging this product MAINLY based upon it's price. This thing sells for less than 10 bucks (US). It's obviously NOT intended to be a fine scientific instrument (even if the name might lead you to believe so). I also bought this mainly for the hygrometer function. The Thermometer function is nice to have (assuming it's accurate) but since I intend to use this in a bedroom where the temperature pretty much stays in the 70s all year, I don't have much use for that. MY EXPERIENCE - The first thing I noticed when I put the battery in was that it's nice that it runs on AAs. Kudos to them for making it run on AA batteries instead of some kind of button battery or something. Seems like such a small thing but honestly. AA batteries are so ubiquitous that it just doesn't make sense to use some kind of less common button battery unless size and weight is really an issue. With a device like this, who cares? The size and weight of a AA battery is not really going to matter on a meter that sits on your desk all the time. Anyway, I guess I just felt I needed to mention that since I just had to replace TWO of those button batteries in other devices I own in the last couple of days. It doesn't seem like such a big deal until you realize that people (generally) don't keep as many of them around. OK. The next thing I noticed. I put the battery in and sat the meter on my desk right beside the analog Best Air hygrometer and left them there for about an hour. The humidity readings were very close. By that, I mean within a couple of percentages. (I know this is not a reliable scientific test but bear with me). Next thing I tried was I opened my window and sat both of them right by the window. about a half hour later, the readings between the two were drastically different. The analog meter was reading somewhere in the 70% range (which was what the weather channel says the humidity was for this are) and the AcuRite was reading somewhere in the 50% range. So I took them both back to my desk and sat them both there for a while and they soon were (again) very close. And they have been reading (generally) the same since. The only explanation I have for this is the AcuRite was apparently only designed to measure indoor humidity. I'm not a weather scientist and I don't know why that might be (Which is why I bought a cheap meter instead of an insanely expensive one) but that's the only thing that makes sense to me. Temperature readings seem to be reasonably accurate no matter what (I'm not going to complain if a ten dollar meter is off within a few degrees). Humidity only seems to work well indoors (and presumably, well away from any open windows you might have). Since it says right on the screen "Indoor Humidity" I think it's reasonable to conclude this probably wasn't designed to measure outdoor humidity levels. That said, I understand there is a salt test you can do with hygrometers by putting them in a sealed plastic bag with some salt and water for a period of time. I believe I will try that within the next week or so and see what the results are. I would like to be reasonably confident in the humidity readings from this meter at least within a small room. If that works as it's supposed to, I will say this is a great deal for the purposes I intend to use it for (Simply making sure I'm not overdoing it with my room humidifier). I have to say though that for the price (About $5 locally) I'm very surprised the analog Best Air unit seems to be pretty accurate under pretty much all conditions. I didn't expect that. Which is the reason I bought a second hygrometer to start with. At any rate, this has been a good purchase. 1. It wasn't expensive at all. 2. It's probably a pretty good digital thermometer even if the hygrometer is not entirely reliable. 3. It looks nice. 4. It's not complicated. It has one button to switch between %F and %C. Although it's nice to be able to calibrate a hygrometer, that's an advanced procedure and is probably more trouble than most people would go to on a ten dollar meter. I am impressed that you can get something this decent for so little money. 5. If nothing else, I am now reasonably sure the hygrometer I already had is pretty accurate. So if you put the price of the two together, I paid less than $20 for a reasonably accurate way to know my room humidity level. You could easily pay more than that for one meter and still have to calibrate it. And many of the more inexpensive hygrometers are apparently intended for cigar humidors. I don't know how much that matters but since this whole humidity thing seems to be hard to get right, I would not be surprised if there's a pretty big difference.

UPDATE June 10, 2015: This is still running along like a champ. It keeps on telling me how truly warm our bedroom is, even with the A/C running! (Right now, it is 82 degrees at 2 in the morning, with the A/C, a ceiling fan and a box fan running. Eww!) In fact, after a few days of looking at the really high humidity in here as well (the roof of the little house turns black when it gets higher than it should be), I am back on Amazon, shopping for a dehumidifier. (We rent, so we cannot just get a new A/C unit etc.) By the way, we have not had to change the battery since we bought in three years ago, so it doesn't suck through the batterie either. Great little unit! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I have to say that I really wanted the blue one, but the tightwad part of me said to save a few bucks and get the black one, in case it doesn't really work. There are a lot of mixed reviews on this item, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I wish I had had it during our recent extreme heat wave (over 100 for two weeks in a row, with killer heat indexes).Of course, it might have been even more depressing to see what the inside temperatures REALLY were like! We have a temperature gun that has the point-n-shoot laser that gives instant feedback on the temp of any given surface. It works great, but it's my husband's maintenance toy, and I couldn't keep it all the time. So, I looked for my own toy. This one certainly fills the bill. I kept his gun up here for about a week to double check the temps on what it said vs what the monitor said. It was very accurate. Now, I didn't have a way to measure the humidity with his temp gun, but I can tell that by how swollen my ankles are! ; ) So far, it works like a champ. If I was to change anything at all, it would be to have some sort of hole to thread something through to hang it up. Right now, I don't want the magnet around my computer equipment, so have to watch where I put it. I have nothing metallic to attach it to, so it is sitting up on my desk, away from my CPU. The display is large and easy to read. It started working immediately upon putting in the batteries. (It takes only one (1) alkaline AA battery. Of course, no clue how long it will last yet, but only one is great!) Bottom line: I'm glad that I got it. I like to know the basic temp/humidity level in the bedroom where I have it. Our older-than-dirt apartment has almost no insulation, so whatever it is outside, we are usually just a little bit cooler inside, thanks to a black roof and brick sides that retain the sun's heat. Great job, Acu-Rite - it works like a champ! UPDATE 07-23-12: I do have one bone to pick over this item. Having used it a little longer now, I now see that the highs/lows to the right of the temperature or humidity level are only for the LAST 24 HOURS!! Instead of showing the highest temp in the room or lowest, it is only the high/low for a one-day period! That kind of stinks. I realized what it was doing when we hit a high of 92 in the bedroom (with the A/C running, ceiling fan and box fan - I hate this heat wave!), and that temp disappeared when it cooled off over the weekend a little bit (to a temp of "only" 81). Now both the high and low are 81. That part isn't pleasant, but I wanted to mention it, in case anyone was trying to track how hot/cold it gets in a particular area. You'll only see a max of 24-hrs of info, and your old data will disappear. You'll have to track temp changes manually. The temps do seem accurate, but the lack of actual high/low storage is a bit disappointing.

I bought one years ago and it held up so well in the basement. I got another for garage. Well worth the money. Nice magnetic. Easy and works and durable

Before I properly review this product, there is one important piece of information about this device i must mention. This device reads indoor temperature in a very bizarre way. When the device needs to update the temperature displayed, it will do so in increments of two. Which means, if the temperature was 71F degrees in the room before, and the device updates, it most likely would read 73F instead of maybe 72F. While this isn't the biggest flaw in the world, it makes the temperature imprecise. When I use this product, I compare the temperature to the nearby thermostat, it almost always reads as one off the temperature on the thermostat. Sometimes however, the temperature will update properly, going up by one number as intended. Although most of the time, it will go back to going up by two for a bit. This doesn't affect the hydrometer at all. It updates properly. It seems to only affect the indoor temp gauge. This flaw automatically brings the product down by one star. Its quite a shame really. Other than that anomaly which seemingly affects almost everyone, its quite accurate and precise, even to rival thermometers and hydrometers. Its precise and doesn't deviate by a large margin at all, making it quite good for everyday use if the temperature gauge was, too, precise. Apart from that, this device has some other things to note as well: -The High and Low data for the day resets AT THE TIME you put the battery into the device. If you put the battery in at 12pm, the High and Low data will reset at 12pm. If you don't want it to reset during the day, you'd have to put the battery in either before bed or way later in the day. Annoying, but expected. -Trying to adjust it might just make it fall over. -The arrows that show whether the current humidity and temperature trends are kinda useless. Not because they don't work, but because theyre rather small. You hardly notice them. If the temperature reading wasn't so strange, this would easily be THE thermometer and hydrometer to get for everyday use. Its really good for the price. Keep this product in mind if you can't find another temperature/hydrometer gauge that suits your fancy.

I use these in three separate tanks for my land hermit crabs. I have purple pincers and they need to be around 75 to 85 for both humidity and temperature. I do have a thermostat for my heat mat but this is good to know that the temperature is within the right range, and that the humidity is in an acceptable zone for their little gills to be breathing properly. This was especially helpful during the immediate post purchase adjustment phase. The crabs come from an environment that's less than ideal between the beaches where they're taken to the pet store where we purchase them to our tank at home and so we have to adjust their climate slowly just like somebody moving from the lowlands would need a couple months to adjust to a very high altitude. it takes a while for their bodies to adapt to new environment and making sure that we have constant and accurate temperature and humidity readings helps us while they physiologically adjust to their new home. They update pretty frequently, I think when going in or out of the tank they'll give a new reading about every 10 seconds until they are reading the new environment accurately so it could take a few minutes to go from an 80% humidity environment to a 50% humidity environment for that reading to adjust all the way down and stabilize. I had bought a six pack of some cheaper little hygrometer/thermometer gauges, and it was clear those were not accurate and took a long time and still didn't really adjust to what I thought was a reasonably accurate reading. You know for basically maybe one or two dollars more I'm definitely getting a device that I trust a lot more with this thermometer gauge than other ones that I've used. When you compare these to the ones marketed toward terrarium and reptile humidity and heat gauges, these digital ones are just such better quality and so much more reliable for literally maybe $2 more . The health of your pet isn't really something that you want to skimp on $2 for to make sure that they're getting what they need to breathe and be healthy properly.

Update November 2025: Still working perfectly! I've had this over a dozen years now. I have another thermometer now from a different brand, and I recently sat them side by side and ran a hair dryer nearby and watched them change at almost instantly equal times. It does show 75, as pictured, but skipped over a couple of other numbers on its way up to the 90s. I still highly recommend this because you can't beat its longevity, but I wonder if they have fixed the issue with skipping about 1 number within every 10 degree section. Honestly, though, this thermometer has been dropped, thrown in suitcases for multiple trips, boxed up for multiple moves, I have no idea where the battery cover is for the back because it got lost a few years ago after getting dropped and the cover and batteries flew everywhere (Don't ask me how. I don't know. Kids🤷‍♀️ I don't just have one kid anymore!😂)... and this thermometer still hasn't wavered. It was worth me coming back and updating again. Update January 1, 2020: Still working well! I still use this thermometer almost seven years later now and it still works great! April 19, 2013: I bought this soon after my son was born, who is now almost 16 months old, and we have been relying on it constantly over the last 15 months. I am one of those parents who worried obsessively about the temperature in the room and this eased my concerns. Every time we have traveled I have taken it with us, even to two other states and on an international trip to Asia. It has held up well and we've only had to replace the batteries once, after we'd had it for about 9 months. The temperature gauge is set to Celsius as some have mentioned, so it doesn't read every number but it is extremely close- never more than one degree different if in Fahrenheit. My thermometer does read both evens and odds when in Fahrenheit mode but skips some numbers. It will tell me 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 77, 79, 81, 82... It is not a big enough concern to me that it skips 76 and 78 that I would want to replace it with a different thermometer. Like I said, it wouldn't be a skip larger than one degree- if the actual temperature is 76 this will show me 77 or it could show 75. It does take about 10 minutes or more to make large temperature changes that are sudden but quickly notes those that are small. What I mean is that if my AC comes on and currently the temp is 74... Very soon it will change to 73 then 72 as my AC is on. Then my AC clicks off and soon I can see the numbers going back to 74 and then my AC clicks back on... The thermometer works as it should. But if I go stick the whole thing in the freezer it takes longer to read the larger temperature drop, which does make sense. Overall, I've been very pleased with this thermometer. The only small drawback to me is that it doesn't have a backlight for seeing it in the dark, but for some people that is preferable that it doesn't. It's not a bad thing. They sell thermometers with night lights if you want to pay a higher price. ;) For this price, this one is absolutely perfect. It has held up well over the last year+ and gives me the correct temp with a max of one degree missing occasionally, but you will know what those numbers are. It's been a necessity for this worried/obsessive first time mom!

I think I am going to like this little device. It arrived today in the mail. Note: Does NOT come with a battery pre-installed, you gotta go buy ya own, sisters and brothers of the world. Not a big deal. Once I had the Energizer bunny running around my house with a large bass drum I could begin to employ the services of this gauge. I've gotta tell you, if the national news services were to begin playing any darker music than they already are about the current flu epidemic of the winter 2012/2013, I am going to begin to believe that the population of Americans is getting decimated by the flu, that maybe we'll drop to 293 million instead of the current 308 million. I, for one, wish to stay alive and well and healthy and go to work to eventually pick up a paycheck so I can consider buying a better humidifier. So anyway, back to this temperature/humidity gauge, that's the thing, this product works startlingly well. I was shocked that there was only 25% humidity in my bedroom. That is crazy for the wintertime. I live in an apartment and, for reasons I cannot arrive at, the builders of this townhome decided to put the furnace on the 2nd floor. As a result of the design and simple lack of force of air, most of the warm air created and pumped out of the furnace comes out of the registers and essentially rises to the 2nd Floor immediately. I know, it is classic. However, I do have a little used humidifier that a family friend gave me about 9 months ago (had no clue what I was going to do with it back then, ain't that something?). I have the humidifier on as I write this and now I know that I have brought my humidity up by 22%. I guess I don't feel in the dark anymore. I am curious if the high/low features on the side of the screen of these gauges will be a helpful thing. It is nice to know where I am coming from and where I am now with the current humidity reading. Regardless, this little Acurite device helps me calibrate accordingly so that my skin doesn't get so dry, nor my nasal passages whilst I sleepest like MacBetheth. It's a very Shakespearean time here now that I know how bad the humidity level can get in my apartment. At least now I can make the proper changes and improve my own little biosphere (I call it Biosphere 3). Gotta fight this flu, dontchya know? Would I recommend this other to prospective buyers? Absolutely, it's changed my perspective on indoor living. Final Note: inside the battery compartment, and I am certain other reviewers have mentioned this as well, there is a way to view the display in Celsius or Fahrenheit. There you go. Next time you decide to up and leave and follow your dreams or whatever and move to Izmir, Turkey, you can bring this with you and you'll have all of the indoor weather information you could possibly desire, all in Celsius. Buy it, you'll love it. "And that ain't no lie, Ritz" - quote from William Bailey in 1988 at the New York Ritz Theatre, live on MTV.

I bought this little unit ten YEARS ago, and it still works amazingly well and is used every single day. Battery lasts forever. The temperature is still quite accurate based on comparison to two other temperature measuring devices in the house and while I can’t guarantee exact accuracy of the humidity, based on feel alone it seems quite accurate. GREAT PURCHASE! The price really hasn’t gone up hardly at all in that time based on what it is selling for today, which is a plus. If I ever need another one, I will definitely buy it again.

Compré tres, dos para mi, uno que puse en la cocina y otro que puse en mi cuarto, los compre debido a que quería saber la humedad y temperatura constante de mi casa ya que a mi roomie le afectaba la humedad y quería saber si ella era muy sensible o realmente había mucha humedad, me ayudo a descubrir que si hay bastante humedad en mi casa, a mi no me afecta debido a que provengo de una zona húmeda; se soluciona manteniendo las puertas y ventanas abiertas por un par de horas (en mi caso pero puedes comprar un des humidificar que es más efectivo); sobre la temperatura puedo decir que en mi casa es bastante agradable ( entre 19 y 20 C ya sea día o noche); pero más baja de lo que acostumbro por lo que siempre es bueno estar un poco abrigado. El otro que compré fue para una amiga, que tenía el mismo problema que mi roomie con la humedad de su casa, descubrió que efectivamente tenía humedad en su casa y que la temperatura de su casa varía mucho más que la mía (entre 16 y 22 grados). En resumen creo que puede ser un indicador importante para prevenir enfermedades a personas sensibles tanto a temperatura como humedad, algunas veces pensamos que las enfermedades son causadas por otros motivos y nos medicamos cuando la solución puede estar en el exterior en que estamos.

Item excelente! Agora consigo ver e buscar controlar a umidade do ar, além de deixar o quarto dos bebês entre 20 a 22° C na hora de dormir, que pelo que pesquisei é o recomendado.

Bought two working great for more than a year. Only if had time also. Magnit glue came off for one of them.

Delighted with it, its clear and easy to read and of course very accurate

This does exactly as described. It seems accurate, and provides data like temperature, humidity... and tells you the lows and highs since midnight. It can also be changed to Celsius. Wish it had a clock though.