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Nice idea, poor execution

Pros:
- When it’s working, the MR683 is a nice little device. The base unit detects temp and humidity, but the included remote unit detects only temp. Nice touches are the atomic clock (nice to have when you consider the cons below…) The LCD shows a basic little temperature ‘trend’ arrow that is simple but surprisingly useful when trying to gauge whether or not to open up the windows at night vs leave the a/c on.

Cons:
- Button placement and utilization is horrible! Had to read the manual twice to figure out how to get the thing set up the way I wanted. 4 control buttons are flush-mounted on the side, and 6 are mounted on the back.

- Shows only one sensor at the time (have to find the button to switch between inside and outside temp.) Dure to the poor UI, you have to fumble with it a bit to make sure you hit the right button to swap sensors.

- After about 6 months, it stopped listening reliably to the external sensor. Swapped the batteries - didn’t help. Only thing that works is resetting the base unit. It does this about once a day, maybe when it’s syncing up with the atomic clock. I keep a paperclip handy to reset it.

- Time is lost when you reset the device (necessary due to the above con) and it takes a half a day for the clock to sync back up, so basically it’s now pretty useless as a clock most of the time…

Update (5/19/2012): This item is currently on sale here for the lowest price I’ve seen. I also found some auctions for this item here.

The featured review for this product, Oregon Scientific RMR683HGA Wireless Indoor/Outdoor Thermometer with Self-Setting Atomic Clock, White Kitchen, was written by Andrew Hoffman.

The average rating for this item is 2.3 out of 5 stars, according to 3 reviews.