Davis Classic Stations – Overview

PLEASE NOTE  Production of all Davis classic stations has now ceased. The Weather Monitor II model was discontinued by Davis in 2004 and stocks of WMII stations are long since fully exhausted. The more basic Wizard III model has only been discontinued more recently and there is still a small amount of stock in the supply chain. Spares such as anemometers and rain gauges for the classic stations are still, by and large, readily available – please contact us if you need these – but a few items such as the 7859 temperature/humidity sensor are now completely unobtainable. We will leave these WWIII and WMII pages online here for the time being, for reference purposes only.

The generation of weather stations with which Davis first made its name is now referred to as Davis ‘classic stations’ and these were mostly made during the period from the mid 1990’s to around 2004. There were three main categories of classic station, the most recent models of each being:

  • Weather Wizard III (WWIII) – one or two units may still be available to order – see the Wizard III page for details;
  • Weather Monitor II (WMII), which was probably the most well-known and best-selling classic station;
  • Davis Advanced Stations based around the WMII design but with certain additional application-specific sensors and appropriate model names, specifically:
    • GroWeather (agricultural applications);
    • Health Enviromonitor (health-related – sunburn etc)
    • Energy Enviromonitor (applications related to energy consumption and generation);

Because it was discontinued only recently, we are continuing to carry information here on the Wizard III station. The Wizard was the most affordable of all the Davis stations (because of its older design and relatively limited capabilities), even with the introduction of the newer Vue station. In a sense, the Wizard and Vue did complement one another as more affordable models, since the Wizard is a cabled-only station while the Vue is wireless only, but Davis have clearly decided that continuing to manufacture the Wizard model was not cost-effective.

Classic Station Spares

Because the WMII (and also the Advanced Stations) have now been obsolete for some years, some replacement parts are becoming very difficult to source. For example, it is now impossible for us to get any new consoles or 7859 Combined Temperature/Humidity sensors for the WMII stations. However some classic accessories such as new anemometers, radiation shields and rain gauges are still readily available and we continue to keep these items in stock. If you’re looking for some classic spares then please get in touch with us – we’ll be able to let you know what is and what is not still available.

Upgrading Classic Stations

Regrettably there is no practicable upgrade path from the Davis classic stations to more recent models such as the Vue and Vantage Pro 2 – the general design of the modern stations has moved on considerably and, for example, the physical and electronic design of the Vue/VP2 data logger is completely different from the 7862 classic model. However, a couple of the main WMII sensor components, namely the anemometer and the rain gauge are still available and are plug compatible with the Davis VP2 stations. So, for example, if you had a working WMII anemometer that was installed in a well-exposed but perhaps rather inaccessible position then it would be possible to connect that cable to a VP2 ISS and to continue to use the data from that anemometer. (You would of course also receive a brand new anemometer as a standard part of the VP2 station pack, but that could be put aside as a spare for use at some later date.)