Looking for a small (relatively) inexpensive hygrometer

[Brian B]

Was on Amazon looking for something else and one popped up in the suggested items, which made me look further.

Looking for something small enough to tuck in the case of my '48 L7N. The reviews on this one look good, and it's certainly small enough. But is there something you folks think would be a better product?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C5NR1XX...detail_5?psc=1

TIA.

Brian

[GNAPPI]

I've bought a variety of hygrometers and without doing a towel" or "salt test" on the one you buy I found you may as well guess the humidity.

Salt Test - Cigars International - Cigar 101

[Brian B]

I've bought a variety of hygrometers and without doing a towel" or "salt test" on the one you buy I found you may as well guess the humidity.

Salt Test - Cigars International - Cigar 101

That's a VERY useful link...thanks for sharing.

Cheers!

B.

[DRS]

I found a discarded small Honeywell unit without a battery door.
Put a new battery in it and tested it. 3% low. Close enough. Keeps me in the safe zone as too dry is more a problem than too humid here.

[Max405]

Brian, I have 2 of these. The battery has lasted forever.
very good units. I think it is very accurate. $8.00 at Walmart.

[va3ux]

I highly recommend the AcuRite 01083. I have 2 of them along with some other hygrometers. It can be calibrated, it holds it's calibration well, and it's actually fairly accurate for humidity values well away from it's calibration point (which is usually 75% if you use the "salt method"). I have a lab-grade sling psychrometer that I've used to check the accuracy of the AcuRite in winter when RH values are approaching the low 40's in the house and the AcuRite is within a few % points. This is amazing for such an inexpensive unit.

Most electronic hygrometers do not have a calibrate feature. This means that if the displayed reading is off by 10 or 15 or 20 % (and it could be off by that much, or more) from the true reading, there's nothing you can do about it. And it will probably get worse over time.



I had an expensive, calibrated Abbeon hygrometer here for about a year and the AcuRite tracked right along with it.

[va3ux]

I've bought a variety of hygrometers and without doing a towel" or "salt test" on the one you buy I found you may as well guess the humidity.

Agree 100%. Further, I can tell you that damp towel calibration method isn't worth a damn either. I've tried that with 4 different hygrometers and all it does is make them reading accurately at 95 - 100% RH. But at typical ambient RH (40 - 60%), they were all off by a mile. I have a lab grade sling psychrometer that I use as a reference so I'm able to accurately measure the ambient RH in a room and compare the reading. If you want accurate readings, don't calibrate with the damp towel method.

[Brian B]

I highly recommend the AcuRite 01083. I have 2 of them along with some other hygrometers. It can be calibrated, it holds it's calibration well, and it's actually fairly accurate for humidity values well away from it's calibration point (which is usually 75% if you use the "salt method"). I have a lab-grade sling psychrometer that I've used to check the accuracy of the AcuRite in winter when RH values are approaching the low 40's in the house and the AcuRite is within a few % points. This is amazing for such an inexpensive unit.

Most electronic hygrometers do not have a calibrate feature. This means that if the displayed reading is off by 10 or 15 or 20 % (and it could be off by that much, or more) from the true reading, there's nothing you can do about it. And it will probably get worse over time.



I had an expensive, calibrated Abbeon hygrometer here for about a year and the AcuRite tracked right along with it.

Perfect. The ability to calibrate it is a definite plus, and it's right about what I was hoping to spend. Its in my Amazon cart, hopefully I can find the one last thing I need (non guitar related) and place the order later today.

THANK YOU!

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[starjasmine]

I highly recommend the AcuRite 01083. I have 2 of them along with some other hygrometers. It can be calibrated, it holds it's calibration well, and it's actually fairly accurate for humidity values well away from it's calibration point (which is usually 75% if you use the "salt method"). I have a lab-grade sling psychrometer that I've used to check the accuracy of the AcuRite in winter when RH values are approaching the low 40's in the house and the AcuRite is within a few % points. This is amazing for such an inexpensive unit.

Most electronic hygrometers do not have a calibrate feature. This means that if the displayed reading is off by 10 or 15 or 20 % (and it could be off by that much, or more) from the true reading, there's nothing you can do about it. And it will probably get worse over time.



I had an expensive, calibrated Abbeon hygrometer here for about a year and the AcuRite tracked right along with it.

Funny, I bought two of these Acu-rite units from Amazon a couple years ago, with abysmal results.
- Both were incredibly slow to respond. I went from indoors with forced-air heat to a foggy day outdoors, literally 100% humidity, and ten minutes later both had barely changed.
- I got two because the first was so slow to respond. I sent that back and kept the second, which died after just about two years of sitting on a shelf in my office. Probably changed batteries once a year. Incidentally, the bad unit is not unresponsive - it just displays hieroglyphics, like parts of the LED display are bad. But the dead parts change... so I don't think it's actually the display that is the problem.

I wish I could find another tiny Chinese one like the one I bought on eBay about ten years ago. It was about the size of two quarters, fit in the case easily, never had any problems, and battery life was excellent. Till it went belly up, too. But I got so many years out of it that I can't complain.

I would never buy another product from Acu-Rite again. Your mileage may vary.

[starjasmine]

Funny, last time I looked on Amazon (when the Acu-rite failed a couple months ago) there wasn't much that appealed to me. Today, I found many more options.

This one needs no batts and is specifically for instrument use:
Chienti - Thermometer Hygrometer Humidity Temperature Meter

This one has a probe that goes into the f-hole, which sounds like the humidity one would really want to measure, although I doubt there would be much difference between inside the body and the interior of a closed case:

Dilwe Violin Guitar Ukulele LCD Hygrometer Thermometer Practical Temperature Humidity Meter(White)

Unfortunately, neither of these have any user reviews. There are a ton of other small, cheap hygrometer/thermometer combos, too. At least one of the cheapies is negged harshly for being way inaccurate.

=====
UPDATE: bought both of these, will let you know how it turns out. The mechanical one will be here in a couple days; the one with the probe will take a couple weeks. Guess those boats [from] China are still slow ;-)

[sgosnell]

The boats aren't slow. Customs is slow. Stuff can clear quickly if the company pushes it, or slowly if not. It's the boat to China that's slow, don't you know. At least according to the old song.

[v281]

I´ve got a couple of the Musicnomad ones ( Access to this page has been denied. ) and they appear to work quite well (at least they seem to match the humidifier which is set to maintain humidity in the 45%-50% range in the room, so I'm happy).

[va3ux]

Funny, I bought two of these Acu-rite units from Amazon a couple years ago, with abysmal results.
- Both were incredibly slow to respond. I went from indoors with forced-air heat to a foggy day outdoors, literally 100% humidity, and ten minutes later both had barely changed.
- I got two because the first was so slow to respond. I sent that back and kept the second, which died after just about two years of sitting on a shelf in my office. Probably changed batteries once a year. Incidentally, the bad unit is not unresponsive - it just displays hieroglyphics, like parts of the LED display are bad. But the dead parts change... so I don't think it's actually the display that is the problem.

I wish I could find another tiny Chinese one like the one I bought on eBay about ten years ago. It was about the size of two quarters, fit in the case easily, never had any problems, and battery life was excellent. Till it went belly up, too. But I got so many years out of it that I can't complain.

I would never buy another product from Acu-Rite again. Your mileage may vary.

That is unfortuanate but that hasn't been my experience at all. Perhaps your's were part of a bad batch ? I just brought one of mine back into the air conditioned house after being outside all day (89F & 73% RH at present). Within about 20 seconds the indicated RH dropped to 63%, then 55% 20 or 30 seconds later, and over the next 2 min it settled in at 49%. That's pretty much how it should behave. But if I'd had the same experience that you have, I wouldn't buy one either.

[starjasmine]

This one needs no batts and is specifically for instrument use:
Chienti - Thermometer Hygrometer Humidity Temperature Meter

Pro: no batts, small, elegant-looking.
Con: Numerals on the thermometer are large enough to read with a squint, but numerals on the hygrometer are impossibly TINY! If you don't have 20/20 vision you probably won't like this. I don't, and I literally can't read the hygrometer without a magnifying glass, although I can get an idea of RH by looking at the position of the needle.
Unknown: accuracy of hygrometer. Will have to do the salt test. Thermometer is within one degree of all others in the house, so I think it's OK.
========
UPDATE: The pics on Amazon either use a 3/4 size guitar or perhaps are composited... here are a couple photos of the hygrometer against my early '70s LP Deluxe. Notice that the hygrometer is bigger than the neck at the nut but certainly NOT at the body join as the Amazon pics imply.

[starjasmine]

This one has a probe that goes into the f-hole, which sounds like the humidity one would really want to measure, although I doubt there would be much difference between inside the body and the interior of a closed case:

Dilwe Violin Guitar Ukulele LCD Hygrometer Thermometer Practical Temperature Humidity Meter(White)

The probe-style hygrometer arrived; it was poorly packed (no padding whatsoever) but intact, batteries already installed and running. Contacted the manufacturer to ask whether there's a way to make it display F instead of C. Otherwise, seems to agree with what my faltering Acu-Rite seems to be trying to display.

Did the salt test with Acu-rite and the mechanical, watch-style hygrometer over the weekend. Both were within a couple points of each other while in the bag with the capful of damp salt, but outside the bag, when right next to each other on a tabletop, the mechanical one often disagrees with the Acu-rite by as much as 12 points. That's really odd... I'm going to try to redo the salt test when I have a bit more time.

[Midnight Blues]

I have three different brands, including the one that Max405 posted (can't remember where I got that one?) and all three ALWAYS, have different readings from each other.

[WillMbCdn5]

Good to have an accurate one if you are paying attention and being RH compliant. If you suspect your measuring tool is not overly accurate then watch out for shifts/big changes and adjust your room levels to compensate and keep things stable. While a specific RH might be optimal what you really want is a stable, controllable RH environment. It is the shifts +/- in RH that cause the problems.

Will

[zdub]

These are nice & small for guitar cases.

https://www.amazon.com/Inkbird-Thermometer-Hygrometer-Temperature-Humidity/dp/B0140UC9XQ/

Did the salt test (which, btw, tells you NOTHING about how accurate it is over the whole range) and it was more accurate than my Acu-Rite. Still no biggie, I just add 5% and figure it's in the ballpark.

Or just go for the Boveda Humidpak.

[starjasmine]

I have three different brands, including the one that Max405 posted (can't remember where I got that one?) and all three ALWAYS, have different readings from each other.

Indeed! I did the salt test three times with all three hygrometers in the same bag. Mixed results overall, but, in the end, all three seem to perform reasonably well (putting aside the fact that the display on my Acu-Rite is nearly indecipherable nowadays.

Because this is long, I have to post it in pieces. Apologies...

For the first test, I used the cap from a water bottle, which may have been too small. About five hours in, the Chienti and Dilwe were showing 75 percent, and the Acu-Rite was reading about 15% higher (90%). But the page that described the salt test suggested that it took 8 hours; by the time we reached 8 hours the humidity in the bag was down to 50% (according to the two meters that agreed) so I figured that maybe I needed to redo the test with a larger amount of wetter salt.

Here's a pic of the start of the second test; the cap from a Gatorade bottle held a lot more salt than my first attempt did:

[starjasmine]

I figured that maybe I needed to redo the test with a larger amount of wetter salt.

Here's where things get weird. When the test began, the Chienti and Dilwe agreed and the Acu-Rite read about 15 points higher. I wrote down the readings every few hours:

Time	Chiente (Gold)	AcuRite	Dilwe (Probe)
1522	50%	65%	50%
	80F	82F	29C
1900	65%	66%	74%
	79F	82F	28.3C
2222	67%	65%	75%
	78F	77F	25.7C
unknown	68%	68%	75%
	75F	76F	24.8C
0015	68%	64%	76%
	75F	76F	25C
0900	68%	66%	75%
	74F	74F	24.1C

Notice the following:

• The probe (Dilwe) gets to the neighborhood of 75% within a few hours and pretty much stays there for the duration of the test. Neither of the other meters ever read 75%.
• After a few hours the Chiente and the Acu-Rite pretty much always agree. But in the first test, the Chiente and the Dilwe always agreed.

[starjasmine]

After a few hours the Chiente and the Acu-Rite pretty much always agree. But in the first test, the Chiente and the Dilwe always agreed.

This made no sense. I decided to take the meters out of the bag and see what would happen if they all just sampled room air. I proceeded to get a day's worth of readings in which none of the meters ever agreed.

I decided that perhaps placement made a huge difference, especially considering the differences in design of the meters. So I did one last test, in which I flipped the Chiente on its face so that the hole in its back would be fully exposed to the air (figuring that maybe when in a "normal" orientation on a flat surface (covered with plastic too) not much air could get to the hole and maybe that was affecting the readings. I also put the probe into a little cardboard holder that would keep it suspended in the air. And I stood the Acu-Rite on its base so that all its vents were exposed to the air.



I flipped the Chiente over only to read it. For quite a while ( a couple days) the Chiente consistently read about 4-6% higher than the Dilwe and the Acu-rite continued to read 15 points higher than the Dilwe. In this pic, the Acu-Rite reads 65% RH, and the Dilwe shows 49% RH.

As another experiment, I tried to blow into the hole in the Chiente and into the probe - both consistently read high for quite a while after that. After a few more days, things stabilized again. I can only presume that unimpeded air circulation is not inherent to the design of any of these meters, and that artificially raising the humidity by blowing on the meter or holding it over some steam (tried that too; I have a warm mist humidifier) will raise the humidity inside the meter for a LONG time, causing inaccurate readings till the interior atmosphere of the meter stabilizes.

After leaving all three meters in the same position for something like a week, they got back to the original relationships between readings: the Chiente and the Dilwe both agree, and the Acu-rite is high. So, I've now calibrated the Acu-Rite to agree with the other two. It'll be interesting to see whether they still agree (to the extent that I can read the defective display on the Acu-Rite) in another week.

Bottom line: artificially created situations aside, all three seem to be reasonably accurate. If you have good vision, the Chiente is pretty, small and requires no batteries. (Unfortunately, I literally need a magnifying glass to read it precisely.) The Dilwe is easy to read, accurate and quick to respond to changes, but it shows temp in Centigrade only. (I confirmed this with the manufacturer.) This is a minor inconvenience at best; it's easy to find the temp on any of a number of other thermometers nearby.

Putting aside the fact that my Acu-rite is a lemon, I think you wouldn't go wrong with any of these, just a matter of preference.

Cheers,

SJ

[icr]

Maybe I'm old fashion, but I avoid any electronic or mechanical hygrometers. Maybe the new ones use batteries that don't corrode and are ok. However, I'm still using my sling sychrometer I got in the early 1990s. No batteries to replace. Nothing to calibrate.

[Merak]

Be careful about condensation, many of the inexpensive hydrometers use a piece of paper as part of the sensor. If it gets wet the sensor fails.

[Fat Fingers]

Wow what luck i was just going to log in and ask about this. I became wary of my hygrometer and seemingly for good reason. So in the last few weeks I have purchased several different hygrometers and they are very different from each other. 71%, 57%, 54%, (digital ones) and two analogs that agree on ~60%.

All of these hygrometers are in the exact same place. It is very frustrating.

Questions,
Has anyone ever tried these calibration / accuracy test kits from Boveda?

https://www.amazon.com/Boveda-One-St...1-770fba025c6f

What is the best range for guitars to be in (I heard 40-60% but that seems like a very wide margin) ?

Does anyone use the little humid-a-packs that you just throw in the case (like the one below)? Do they work well?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...C28GSC458&th=1

[starjasmine]

What is the best range for guitars to be in (I heard 40-60% but that seems like a very wide margin) ?

When I asked this question to the manager of a well-respected local guitar shop years ago, he told me that Gibson periodically checks their dealer stores' temp and humidity, and will actually revoke a dealership if it is not within range. According to him, Gibson requires their guitars to be stored at 70 degrees F and 30% RH. IDK what amount of variation from that ideal they tolerate, nor do I know whether this is what you should do. After all, Gibson puts silicone in their guitar polish and they've been known to do a few other not-very-bright things, too. But those are the numbers I got. This particular shop has a really nice vintage collection, so if those numbers were off, I would have expected this manager to tell me what he thought was correct. However, he did not disagree with the Gibson temp/rh specs, and I know him well enough that he would have told me if he thought those numbers were bad.