Weather-monitoring firm hangs dark cloud over customers’ heads by forcing new app - Ars Technica
Overview
Weather-monitoring firm hangs dark cloud over customers’ heads by forcing new app
Newer Acu Rite Now app lacks some features but has a subscription option.
Details
Weather-monitoring company Acu Rite is forcing device owners to use a new companion app on May 30, frustrating some long-time customers.
Acu Rite, which sells devices such as weather stations, indoor thermometers, and rain gauges, began emailing customers last month that they’d soon have to control their devices with the Acu Rite Now i OS and Android app. Acu Rite first launched the app in June 2025 to control a new weather station, the Acu Rite Optimus. However, owners of Acu Rite devices had still been able to use the My Acu Rite app, which launched in 2016.
Soon, however, My Acu Rite will no longer be available, making Acu Rite Now the only official app for controlling Acu Rite devices. The website for the My Acu Rite app currently reads:
As part of our continued investment in delivering smarter, more connected solutions, the My Acu Rite app will be winding down. To ensure uninterrupted access to your weather data and to unlock even more capabilities, all users should transition to Acu Rite NOW before May 30th, 2026.
As part of our continued investment in delivering smarter, more connected solutions, the My Acu Rite app will be winding down. To ensure uninterrupted access to your weather data and to unlock even more capabilities, all users should transition to Acu Rite NOW before May 30th, 2026.
Per the website, Acu Rite Now “works with thousands of products” in Tuya’s Smart Life Io T ecosystem, including third-party fans, thermostats, light bulbs, plugs, cameras, and motorized blinds.
Some Acu Rite customers are upset about losing access to My Acu Rite because they think Acu Rite Now is an inferior app.
Those customers have complained online about being unable to use Acu Rite Now to rename multiple temperature sensors, difficulties uploading data to weather sites, and the app only reporting temperatures in whole numbers. An Acu Rite support page says that Acu Rite is “hoping” to add the ability to organize on-screen sensors and rename multiple sensors to Acu Rite Now, as well as a desktop version of the app, “soon.”
One popular feature of My Acu Rite was the ability to share data from Acu Rite devices with Weather Underground, a real-time weather service. Acu Rite Now also supports this feature, but users have to pay a subscription fee that starts at $2 per month. The subscription, dubbed Acu Rite Now+, also includes more data storage (365 days of history instead of 30).
Other complaints center on Acu Rite Now’s layout. For example, a Reddit user named epicfailphx said last month that the app “looks like a bad joke.”
“The old app was clean and just did a good job, while I don’t know what this new app is trying to do,” they said.
Another Reddit user, ssemos, complained that the new app shows less data on-screen than My Acu Rite does and doesn’t use most of the display.
Since Acu Rite said it’s shuttering My Acu Rite, Acu Rite Now has received numerous one- and two-star reviews on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, resulting in ratings of 1.4 stars (based on 183 reviews) and 1.3 stars (based on 131 reviews), as of this writing. It’s worth noting, though, that My Acu Rite had 2 stars (based on 429 reviews) on the App Store as of February and 1.9 stars (based on 1,330 reviews) on the Play Store as of January, per the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
Ars Technica reached out to Acu Rite, its parent company Primex Family of Companies, and Acu Rite Now’s developer for comment but didn’t hear back before publication.
It’s possible that Acu Rite’s shuttering of My Acu Rite aims to simplify the company’s technology stack by allowing it to focus on updating and maintaining one app rather than two, which could also save money. Acu Rite Now’s support of Smart Life products could also be beneficial and drive app usage. The new app could also be more accommodating of new and upcoming features and allow Acu Rite to charge a subscription fee for premium capabilities, helping diversify revenue.
Still, forcing loyal customers with complex hardware to switch to a new app on a couple of weeks’ notice is a gamble. Acu Rite risks polarizing customers who don’t like the new app, especially since it is missing some features that the old app has. Charging a subscription fee for a feature that was previously free could also push customers to explore rival products. Updated software can bring new life to gadgets, but as we’ve seen before, forcing long-time users to use new software perceived as inferior can have disastrous effects.
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Key Takeaways
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Weather-monitoring firm hangs dark cloud over customers’ heads by forcing new app
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Newer Acu Rite Now app lacks some features but has a subscription option
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Weather-monitoring company Acu Rite is forcing device owners to use a new companion app on May 30, frustrating some long-time customers
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Acu Rite, which sells devices such as weather stations, indoor thermometers, and rain gauges, began emailing customers last month that they’d soon have to control their devices with the Acu Rite Now i OS and Android app
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Soon, however, My Acu Rite will no longer be available, making Acu Rite Now the only official app for controlling Acu Rite devices
