I have a similar scenario. I'm just trying to get a simple visualization of logged temperatures. I use
data = Normal[TimeSeries[Databin["91DkM20b"]]["temp"]]
Then I see a list of dates/temp values like you would expect ( pretty sure they are numbers not strings) :
{{December 16, 2015 2:46 pmGMT-8.,32.0625},{December 16, 2015 2:46 pmGMT-8.,32.125},{...etc...
But when I use DateListPlot on data, I still get a plot that is scaled from 0.0 to 1.0 on the Y axis and 00:00:00 to 00:00:01 on the X axis, as originally described by this question asker. Any ideas?