The island place has fiber optic internet service. It’s great, but the Zyxel access point supplied by the ISP leaves a lot to be desired. Its WiFi seems brittle, and seemingly innocuous things like starting a synchronization session can cause the WiFi speed to drop to dial-up rates and stay there until the access point is rebooted. Rebooting the access point causes the internet to disconnect entirely until the access point is rebooted again, so it’s time-consuming and a pain in the butt. I used to really like Zyxel gear, but this thing is garbage. It might be defective, but getting the ISP to replace it seems like a major challenge, since it passes all their tests once it has been rebooted (twice).
Rather than fight it, I just added my own WiFi access point (running openWRT) downstream of the Zyxel (which is also the fiber modem so can’t just be replaced). All has been well since, except for times the Zyxel seems to get in a bad WiFi state and ends up jamming even the new access point. So everything was working well and it was time to turn off the offending radios on the Zyxel. Piece of cake. Clean spectrum now (the neighbors are too far away to see unless I use an external antenna outdoors).
I discovered three devices, though, that I had never migrated to the new WiFi. The Brother printer could be reconfigured from its front panel, no problem. The last remaining Wyze device I own could be reconfigured from their app.
The Ambient weather station was a disaster.
First, RTFM, right? But the fricken’ manual says that you have to use an app downloaded from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. No such app. Apparently, they had discontinued support for it long before I even bought the weather station.
Next, I tried searching. The only official instructions online are in a YouTube video. I find videos to be a horrible way to convey instructions. The people who make videos instead of writing clear directions are lazy or illiterate.
After the long, boring, self-serving, and totally information-free intro to the video, you finally get to the part where it says to hold down two buttons on the weather station’s console until the WiFi symbol flashes, then join the network that the console creates. What the video doesn’t reveal is that the network requires a password to join, and none of the obvious default passwords seem to work. What follows the video are dozens of comments saying “but it asks for a password?!?” There are no responses from Ambient, who posted the video. There are a few from apparent fanbois who claim that it must be the users’ fault, since the console would never ask for a password. But it does. The fanbois blamed the users’ devices (which included iPhones, Android devices, Linux computers, and Windows computers).
Several commentors tried to be helpful. Some said to contact Ambient, though the original poster said they had done so, but were promised a call back a week ago and have heard nothing since.
This same general pattern occurred in many online forums. Zip from Ambient. Multiple would-be users stuck with unconnectable devices. And multiple “have you tried turning it off and on again” comments (doesn’t work) and “you need to call Ambient support” (also doesn’t work).
One helpful commentor actually contacted the company that manufactures the station that Ambient re-sells, and they admitted that they had released firmware that adds a password to the WiFi that survives a “factory reset.” But they don’t know what that password is! And, yes, they’re considering rolling back that change since it has apparently bricked a lot of devices.
That was enough to clue me in that, when you set a password for the administrator log-in, it’s probably also adding that password to the temporary WiFi interface. So if you have your log-in password, that will actually work.
If you forget your password, or otherwise don’t have it (one poster had purchased an “open box” product from a retailer), your device is now a particularly expensive brick. Apparently there is no way to access it.
So this company just burned a couple of hours of my time (and that of dozens of other users) because of their inability to properly support their product. If you’re looking at weather stations, and an Ambient product looks like a good buy, remember to factor in that at some point you’re likely to burn a couple of hours trying to work around problems that they’re too lazy to document.
—2p
addendum 20250106
In case you’re stuck with an Ambient WS-2902 and can’t re-configure the WiFi:
- Hold down Wind and Pressure buttons on the console until the WiFi logo blinks.
- Connect your phone or computer to the WiFi network the console creates (“AMBWeather…”) and ignore warnings about not being able to access the internet.
- Use the password you set as the administrator log-in as the WiFi password (which Ambient insists is blank despite all evidence to the contrary).
- Browse to 192.168.4.1
- Log in with “admin” and the same password, above.
- Use the Scan button to find your new WiFi network and enter its password.