What we have here is an update to their Bluetooth enabled motion sensor, but with a few additions aside from the obviously welcome Thread update. So, if you’re in the market for a beefed up motion sensor, with a nice trick up its sleeve, read on.

PACKAGING | CONTENTS

As you can see from the packaging, this is a Thread device, which is a welcome change from Bluetooth, although the latter is used for initial pairing and as a backup, should your Thread network go down. It’s also only HomeKit compatible, so Google and Amazon users are out of luck until the company deem to release a Matter version.

In addition to Thread and the standard motion detection, the SMS2 includes both temperature and humidity sensors, as before, but also contains a rudimentary light sensor that can distinguish between light and dark. This isn’t exposed to HomeKit, and can’t give you light measurements – even in the Onvis app – but it can still be used in some circumstances, as I’ll explain later. What makes this product stand out in some ways is the option to schedule detection. The SMS2 can be used in scenes to turn off it’s motion sensing capabilities, based on the status of other devices or as part of a larger automation, which can be a lot easier than setting up ‘conditions’ in third-party HomeKit apps for you other motion sensors.

As with the SMS1, the new model still uses two AAA batteries (which are thankfully provided), that should give you around a year of average usage, depending on how busy the sensor is. The SMS2 is designed for indoor use, with an upcoming outdoor version in development.

The dimensions of the SMS2 remains the same, at 64 x 50 x 37mm (2.52 x 1.97 x 1.46″), so not quite as petite as some motion sensors, but certainly on a par with the Eve Motion sensor.

In the box there’s the SMS2, a manual with an instance of the HomeKit QR code, a SIM pin for resetting the device, and a spare adhesive sticker, as the back comes with a n adhesive patch already in place.

The SMS2 has its main motion sensor window on the front, with most of the rear taken up by the easy-to-access battery compartment.

Users of the original model will notice that the company has taken their advice and significantly reduced the size of the Onvis logo on the front. Fair play! You can see the approximate difference between the two above.

As this is a HomeKit device, there’s a QR code on the side which is also home to the reset hole. The rear battery cover opens easily enough, which you wouldn’t think would be an issue for most devices, but still is for some.

The top and bottom are home to a series of vents for the humidity and temperature sensors, with the top also hiding a small light sensor, as seen above.

As with the original SMS1, due to the nature of the shape of the device it makes placement a little limited. So, if you choose to have it high on a wall, it’s going to struggle to pick up motion that’s quite close, so some form of plastic wedge would have been useful. That said, if it’s on a shelf or similar, it would probably work well enough to pick up pretty much all the motion required, whilst avoiding motion events from pets, so it really depends on a few different factors.

INSTALLATION

Adding the SMS2 is pretty easy, and as it uses Thread you don’t need to worry that you’re connected to a 2.4GHz WiFi band. This was also the case with Bluetooth, of course, but with Thread you’re going to get better range (as long as you have Thread Routers if this is placed far away), better and more consistent response times, and hopefully better battery life, although the batteries for my original Bluetooth model lasted for ages, and a lot longer than the twelve months suggested for this model. As it has additional sensors, you can name these as you like too.

All three sensors are exposed to HomeKit as though they were individual devices, so they can be used in automations, as standard. Each sensor will also display the battery life, which is good. All sensors are also visible via the room the SMS2 is located in.

A quick look at the Thread network in the Eve for HomeKit (and Matter) app shows the SMS2 listed and is confirmed as an ‘endpoint’ device. This means whilst it can connect to either a Thread Border Router or a Thread Router device (essentially a repeater for the Thread network), it can’t extend the Thread network itself.

THE ONVIS APP

The Onvis app is useful for customising various options for the SMS2, even if the design leaves a lot to be desired. This includes an option to have the motion active or inactive (more on that later), show the status of the light sensor and other sensors, and even allow you to set the cooldown period for the sensor, which is the time from when it detects motion to it resetting it’s state for the next motion event. You can set it as low as zero seconds, though I don’t see much benefit in doing so, or as high as just a second under three hours. There’s a log section for quick access to recent motion events in a list format, although you can access more details in a different manner via the hard to see icon labelled ‘Stats’ which is just a bit below the HomeKit icon. Both the temperature and humidity sensors also have their own pages, as well as log data.

Further customisation options are available, which includes turning a small LED on or off that is triggered by motion, an option to link motion event triggers with the state of the light sensor, a schedule option that allows you to set times for when the motion sensor is either active or inactive, and a pretty useful pair of options for calibrating the temperature and humidity sensors, by allowing you to compensate for any discrepencies between these sensors and ones that you know to be accurate. To cap things off, you get details on battery life – an overall rating and battery levels.

ACTIVATE/DEACTIVATE THE SMS2

The one feature that does sort of set the SMS2 apart from other sensors – at least as far as I’m aware – is that you can automate whether it detects motion or not. So in this case, the ‘active’ feature is exposed to third party HomeKit apps, like the aforementioned Eve app, the state of which can be used in a scene. I’ve created two scenes here, one to activate the motion sensor, and another to deactivate it.

These scenes are then automatically exposed to the Apple Home app for use in automations. In the instance above, if the ‘Cove Light’ turns off, then the SMS2 is set to be active. The Cove Light in question is situated in the living room, and when it’s on, the corridor (where the SMS2 will eventually reside) is light enough that you don’t really need to turn the corridor lights on. With the Cove Light turned off, it’s too dark in the corridor, hence the need for activating the SMS2, which in turn will then be ready to turn the corridor lights on when motion is detected.

Some might argue that with a workaround, this can be achieved with any motion sensor, which is true; you only need to set conditions in an Eve app automation, but generally speaking, when conditions are used in automations, they tend to slightly slow the automation down – not by much, but enough that something like a motion automation lags slightly, which isn’t great for a motion sensor, where speedy reaction times are crucial, in my opinion. You can also do all of this in the Home app using an automation and ‘Convert to Shortcut’ but once again, this does slightly slow the reaction times down. The option presented here allows the sensor to simply turn on or off dependent on the state of another device. So far, in my testing, it has been incredibly responsive.

SUMMING UP

Even with the original model using Bluetooth (not ideal), i found it to be pretty reliable, and along with the extraordinary battery life, it was hard to knock. Now with the added features of Thread, the light sensor (should that be ‘lite’ sensor’…?), and Active mode, this takes things considerably further. The boxy design isn’t great if I’m honest, which does make placement more of a challenge in some circumstances, but, so far, I haven’t encountered any issues, either with missed motion events, dropping off the Thread network or even any false triggers, so I once again find it hard to knock.

The Onvis app is useful for updating the app and customising the settings for the SMS2, but it’s far from a daily driver, so install it but just try not to look at it! All in all, it’s commendable to see a company like Onvis taking a step above some others, which is hard to do with sensors of most types these days, so good on them. Recommended.

The post Onvis Smart Motion Sensor w/ Thread (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

PACKAGING | CONTENTS

If you’re in possession of the company’s other Thread-enabled device, the Airversa Purelle (video HERE, review HERE), you’ll be familiar with the Apple-like packaging, which pretty much everyone seems to do these days. Still, the box gives you pretty much all the info you need;

• 5.5l water tank
• Dual mist streams
• Essential oil tray
• suitable for large rooms up to 500 sq ft
• BPA free
• Apple Home compatible
• Auto-humidity
• Smart ring light
• Touch control
• Sleep mode
• Scheduling
• Humidity and temperature tracking

As with the Vocolinc Flowerbud and almost all the products that followed it, the Humelle utilises colour LEDs that can be used in a variety of ways, which I’ll go into in more detail later. It’s probably worth pointing out that the Humelle is offered in three finishes for the water tank, with Pebble Grey, Crystal Clear, and Arctic Blue being the current three options, although the latter of these won’t be available until later in the year.

The Humelle, or AH1 as I’ll forthwith refer to it, is pretty futuristic looking, with a large glass-like water tank taking up around three-fifths of the unit, surrounding a central funnel. The bottom two-fifths are made up of the mechanics, which are largely hidden from view until you remove the water tank.

Aside from the Humidifier, you get a power supply designed for your region (if supported), a manual in English with QR codes inside that link to the manual in other languages, a brush for cleaning some parts of the unit, and a couple of ‘aroma pads’. These, as you’ll see later, are designed for use with essential oils. Whilst many smaller aroma diffusers allow you to add essential oils directly to the water, this is not the case with the Humelle, with the oils only designed to be used with these pads.

THE HUMELLE

The front of the AH1 features two touch-sensitive buttons for the mist and the LED ring, in addition to three LEDs to indicate different working states. The rear is home to the HomeKit QR code, some slats hiding the temperature and humidity sensors, and the coaxial port for the power supply. The Upper and lower sections can only fit one way, with two small arrows to show how the two parts line up.

The top section of the AH1 has a removable mist nozzle, which has two sausage-shaped holes for the mist to be directed outward. This nozzle, which is actually more plate-shaped, is adjustable to allow the mist to go in other directions, and can also be removed, giving access to a carry handle, which is useful when the tank is fully loaded with water.

The large top section which is the water tank, is filled from underneath, so you have to remove the water tank, flip it upside down, remove the water tank cap, and fill it with distilled, demineralised, or purified water.

The bottom section stores a percentage of the water fed from the water tank, where the nebuliser breaks it up into a fine mist.

One of only two moving or moveable parts in the bottom section aside from the nebuliser, is the water level sensor. I assume this works with the use of a magnet within the foam ring, so once the water level is low, the ring (and magnet) make contact with another magnet hidden inside the base, which in turn triggers a notification that the water level is low. The stem and the ring are both removable for cleaning, as indicated by the lock/unlock icons.

The other part that can be removed and cleaned is the essential oil tray. As already mentioned, you can’t add oils to the water tank, so instead you add a few drops to the aroma pad that sits inside the tray, which itself sits in a holder below a vent for the built-in fan. The fan blows air just above the aroma pad, which then sends the essential oil smells and the fine water mist up through the central ‘funnel’ in the top section, and out to the room. The underside of the bottom section is home to an LED ring light, which we’ll look at in a bit.

Summing up my initial impression, the whole package – so to speak – looks and feels great, from the glass-like plastic water tank, which I really like the design of, to the understated design of the touch-sensitive buttons and internals. All feel well-made and sturdily put together.

IN APPLE HOME | HOMEKIT

If you’re an Apple Home user, you’ll probably know the score as regards what’s generally exposed to HomeKit, so in the case of the AH1, you get two devices – the humidifier and the LED ring. You can display them as separate tiles like I have pictured above, or combined. As the AH1 has temperature and humidity sensors built-in, you can see them listed at the top. Pressing on the humidity icon brings up the current humidity, but also brings up the AH1 again, which I guess is due to it being a humidifier.

As standard, there’s a slider for the humidifier, which doesn’t control the strength of the mist as such, but instead sets the target humidity level. If it’s set to 100% humidity, the AH1 will simply keep pumping out mist until the tank empties, as it’s virtually impossible to reach 100% humidity for this device. Below that is a simple on/off button.

The settings page also gives you access to the fan speed, which essentially controls the strength of the mist output. When it comes to the LED ring, even though it’s capable of multiple colours, in Apple Home it’s not possible to access multiple colour controls, so solid colours and brightness levels via the slider are the only options here. All standard stuff, basically.

In the ‘Eve for HomeKit’ app, you can see the AH1 shows up via your Thread network as not only a Thread device but also as a Thread Router, which allows it to be a sort of Thread ‘access point’ for Thread endpoint devices (mostly battery operated) in the absence of a full Thread Border Router.

IN THE SLEEKPOINT APP

As you can see from the first screenshot above, I’ve already got the Airversa Purelle (review, video), and the Holomarq HK1 (review, video) in addition to the AH1, in the Sleekpoint app. The bottom section gives you access to a few different areas – schedules, charts, power, light, and settings. The rest of the main screen for the AH1 offers a large amount of control and information, including the current temperature and humidity, with the latter primarily taking up the top section of the screen. You then have three mist streaming modes (manual, auto, sleep) along with a nicely designed rotating knob to adjust the mist stream strength.

Speaking of the streaming modes, when you select ‘Sleep’ you get a further three sub-options; Whisper, Quiet, and Default, with Whisper being the quietest of the three sleep levels. Even though you can set on/off times directly in the Home app, or most other third-party HomeKit apps, the Sleekpoint app goes the extra mile when it comes to recurring options that also include the use of the LED ring, as well as what mode and mist strength should be applied, so in this regard it’s pretty powerful.

If you’re a bit of a devil when it comes to monitoring temperature and humidity levels, you can check out records for each of these metrics via the Charts section, where both are broken down into 24 hours, 7 days, or one month. It doesn’t seem as though you can export this data, however. The general settings tab covers the basics, like the product name, timers, Fahrenheit or Celcius, feedback sounds, and plenty more. There’s also a device cleaning reminder, that prompts you to clean the device every three days by default.

Onto the settings for the LED ring, which are also quite extensive; The AH1 comes with a series of preset ‘themes’ that are collected into groups – Ambience, Fantasy, and Energy – with more to come hopefully. All of the themes can be saved to a favourites section which can then be quickly accessed via the button on the front of the AH1. Each of these themes can also be customised and saved as new themes by the user if desired.

There are slightly different lighting options depending on the theme selected, so the top section will change and offer different options according to the theme. Either way, you’ll almost always get access to changing colour via the colour wheel, RGB sliders, or even by typing in a specific hexadecimal number. You can also save your colours here for recall later. The only option that doesn’t offer up the colour wheel is ‘RT Humidity’ which automatically changes the colour of the LED depending on the humidity levels, with blue when humidity is high, green when humidity is acceptable, and orange when humidity is low.

As already mentioned, the options change depending on the theme, so in the case of the ‘Jellyfish’ preset, you can choose the brightness, the speed of the animation, and the colour, as well as sync the colour to the humidity levels. ‘Gradiant’ (sic) Offers the same first two options (brightness and animation speed), plus tying the colours to the humidity levels, but also has a ‘DIY’ button that allows you to select your own collection of colours with a maximum of eleven in total.

In the case of the ‘Wheel’ preset you initially get only the animation speed option, along with syncing the colour to the humidity levels as before, but you also get an option to change the direction of the animation, along with colour options (DIY). This preset offers two colours divided into two segments – Base and Top – so along with the animation, the segments give the appearance of a moving wheel I guess. When you select the ‘top’ option, you can also adjust how many sections the wheel preset is divided into, with a minimum of two segments and a maximum of twelve segments.

Even though these animations can’t be directly accessed in the Apple Home app, some third-party HomeKit apps, like Controller for HomeKit, can access your favourites created in the Sleekpoint app, and then be included in Scenes, which will then show up and be accessible within Apple Home. To see this in action, you can check it out via the video below starting at 7’13”;

HUMELLE IN USE | WRAPPING UP

As I pointed out at the start of the review, there’s very little call for humidifiers here for much of the year, but from the tests I have performed, the results are more than adequate in the more controlled ways I was able to test it for humidifying purposes. Even then, due to the climate where I live, the results can be slightly skewed. I did find it would struggle with anything more than 70% humidity, but anything over 60% is not advisable in normal home use, so that isn’t actually an issue for the vast majority of people who will only need it during the winter when humidity levels can get pretty low.

The mist stream appears more powerful than previous humidifiers I’ve tested, and with the adjustable mist nozzle, you can direct the stream away from potentially problematic areas without having to move the whole device.

It does work much better as a humidifier than a diffuser, given that essential oils are not designed to be added to the water tank, so if you wanted this for making the room smell nice more than for humidity, you might be better of with one of their non-smart waterless aroma diffusers.

In terms of connectivity, it has been exemplary so far, which doesn’t come as a surprise to me, as the Aiversa Purelle and the Holomarq HK1 are just as reliable in this regard. I generally don’t have issues with my Thread devices, but if I do, the issue usually centres on the HomePods, not the Thread devices themselves.

It has been argued in the past that Thread isn’t necessary with a permanently powered device, but as it is powered, it gives your home another means for an endpoint Thread device to connect to, so to me it’s a definite bonus, whilst also being one less device bogging down my WiFi network.

The design itself, whilst not perfect in some ways, is to me the best-looking humidifier out there right now, especially when you look at offerings from other HomeKit manufacturers like Meross, Vocolinc and Switchbot, all of which look a bit dated and just not very stylish really. It also has the largest tank compared to other HomeKit-enabled humidifiers, with the Vocolinc MistFlow coming at 3.0 litres less than the Humelle with a paltry 2.5-litre capacity. The Smartmi Rainforest Humidifier, which I recently reviewed, is a real thing of beauty in my opinion, but only has a slightly larger water tank at 3.0 litres. Nevertheless, the Rainforest is more than twice the price, and as it uses evaporative humidification, it does take longer to reach the set level. It doesn’t trigger PM2.5 sensors though, which is an unfortunate side effect of diffusion-based humidifiers like the Humelle.

the one thing to take into account is that it does require regular cleaning maintenance – every 3 days is recommended in fact – so this could be a chore for some. You should also use some form of filtered water, which isn’t something everyone has easy access to, even if they should.

All things considered, whilst the AH1 is more expensive than most of the HomeKit humidifiers available, it uses Thread not WiFi (a big plus), it does have the largest water tank, and it comes with the potentially very useful multicolour LED ring. The design may or may not be to everyone’s taste, but with the very clear view of your water tank on display, I think it looks very cool. I just wish I could make use of it for more of the year!

The post Airversa Humelle Smart Humidifier W/ Thread (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

UNBOXING | CONTENTS

As with the P1, the Air Purifier 2 (herein referred to as the AP2) comes in a decent box to protect it from being damaged, and in my case, this seems to have been shipped halfway across the United States, before being sent over to Hong Kong, and finally Taiwan, with no damage at all, thankfully. The box did look a bit grubby, but that’s ok. The box tells you pretty much all you need to know, including compatibility (Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple HomeKit), along with features and specifications.

The AP2 is a bit of a sight to behold, with a metallic blue/grey colour and gold base, with the air vent at the top matching in a slightly darker blue/grey. Whereas the P1 came in two colour options, the AP2 only comes in the one finish, but it looks great, so no complaints there. Aside from the AP2 and an included filter, there’s really just a power cable and the manual in English and Spanish.

In terms of size, it’s 200mm (7.87in) taller than the P1, at 563mm (22.17in) tall, compared to 362.5mm (14.27in) for the P1, with the AP2 being slightly wider/deeper than the P1. With the extra size comes a new filter, and of course more capacity to clean;

AP2 vs. P1

• Pollen CADR – 208CFM (353m³/H) | 150CFM (250m³/H)
• Dust CADR – 196CFM (333m³/H) | 130CFM (220m³/H)
• Smoke CADR – 196CFM (333m³/H) | 130CFM (220m³/H)
• Room Size – 279~484 sq ft (26~45m²) | 180~320 sq ft (17.5~30m²)
• Rated power – 40w | 30w

Another difference is in the materials used for the main body of the device. The P1 uses a metal shell, whilst the AP2 is in plastic. This does make sense, as using the same materials as the P1 would make the AP2 considerably heavier.

THE AIR PURIFIER

Speaking of weight, to replace the filter in the P1, you would have to lift and turn it on its head in order to access the filter for replacement. Not so with the AP2, which has a door on the rear, which is opened via an easy-to-operate latch. This removes the door entirely, enabling you to pull the filter out with relative ease. This is also where the one and only instance of the HomeKit QR code can be found.

For power, the AP2 can be used anywhere, with it accepting 100-240VAC @ 50/60Hz. The provided cable, which in my case uses the North American type A plug, comes with what I typically describe as a ‘cassette player’ power lead – one that you would also find used with an Apple TV. However, the one provided here comes with one half of the plug squared off, so you can only plug it in one way, which I assume is the whole reason for the design.

The back section is rounded off with a laser particle sensor designed to measure particulate matter (PM2.5/10). Next to that is a small hole that houses temperature and humidity sensors. These are not exposed to HomeKit unfortunately, so you only really see them in the Smartmi Link app. Above that is a button that can set the display to one of three levels – Light (full brightness), Shimmer (low brightness), and Off (only the two buttons remain lit). Above the button are four small holes that house the TVOC Sensor.

The top of the AP2 is where all the action is, with the combined control panel & display sitting bang in the centre of the outlet fan, just like their original air purifier, and the P1. With the control panel/display you can both see data for the surrounding air, as well as control the AP2 itself;

• Around the edge of the display is a colour LED ring designed to give you an overall view of general air quality (combined VOC and PM2.5 levels). This changes colour depending on these levels, with;
  • green – excellent air quality
  • yellow – good air quality
  • orange – moderate
  • red – unhealthy
• A ‘pollen’ icon, designed to do much the same as the LED ring, but more focused on PM2.5 and PM10, which includes pollen.
• Below is a readout of the actual PM2.5 levels;
  • 1~20µg/m³ – excellent
  • 21~35µg/m³ – good
  • 36~55µg/m³ – moderate
  • >55µg/m³ – unhealthy
• Directly below that is a strip to specifically show TVOC levels. Under normal circumstances, a little square will show, but as the VOC levels get higher, one, two or three bars will reveal themselves in one long strip.
• Either side of the previously mentioned two sections is buttons.
  • The left button cycles through three different modes;
    • Sleep mode – the lowest fan setting
    • Manual mode – the fan spins at the speed you set it at in HomeKit or the Smartmi Link app
    • Auto mode – the fan spins and changes speed based on the air quality readings
  • The right button is merely for power, however, pressing and holding both buttons will reset the device.
• Below that is an icon to show which mode the AP2 is set to;
  • A ‘Moon’ icon for Sleep mode
  • An ‘A’ icon for Auto mode
  • A ‘Heart’ Icon for Manual mode
• A WiFi icon to indicate that the AP2 is connected to your home WiFi network. The AP2 only connects to the 2.4GHz WiFi band.
• A temperature reading – The temperature is shown in ºF or ºC depending on your settings in the Smartmi app.
• Finally, a UV icon to let you know if the built-in UV light is active or not.

When you first plug the AP2 in, or re/place the filter, upon powering up, the screen will briefly display the filter life in terms of a percentage.

It’s hard to fault the control panel (aside from the ºF vs. ºC issue), as it gives you almost total physical control of the AP2, as well as giving you pretty much all the info you need, to the extent that it would barely be noticeable if it wasn’t a smart device as such, in many ways. The one aspect you can’t control is the speed of the fan in Manual mode. To control the fan in this mode, you need to use a HomeKit app or the Smartmi Link app.

One possibly interesting find is that when you adjust the fan speed in either Smartmi Link or Apple Home/HomeKit, you can adjust in 1% increments. This might seem normal, but in actual fact, some air purifiers can only change speed relating to the specific preset speeds they’re designed with. So in the case of the Vocolinc PureFlow, it has 5 speeds, which means when you adjust the slider it will snap to 0% (off), 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, or 100%. The 20% – 100% steps directly correlate with the 5 speeds available on the device. If you try to get Siri to set the PureFlow to 55%, for example, it’ll round up to 60%. The AP2, on the other hand, can be set to 55% – or any other speed – without any problems.

Unfortunately, Smartmi decided to remove two useful features from the display that are found on the P1, namely an option to cycle through three different preset fan speeds (plus Auto), as well as a feature to set the AP2 to run for 1, 2, 4, or 8 hours before automatically shutting off. These can still be achieved from within the Smartmi app, but not the control panel/display. Whilst that might seem a shame, we are talking about a device designed to be used as part of a smart home ecosystem, so in reality, setting automations to do much the same things is sort of the point, with physical control almost a secondary option, so it’s not as big a deal as it might seem.

In HomeKit and the Home app, you get the one tile to represent the AP2. A long press reveals the standard on/off toggle switch and a slider for the fan speed. Scrolling further down reveals the settings page, revealing two ‘accessories’, which I guess could be described as services.

The two aforementioned ‘accessories’ are for the AP2, and air quality details, so for the AP2, you get a repeat of the basic controls we see initially, namely the toggle switch and slider for fan speed. If you scroll down, this reveals a little more, with separate buttons for manual and auto modes, as well as a horizontal slider for the fan speed, and details on filter condition and filter life.

The Air Quality tile, once pressed, reveals overall air quality, which is a combination of VOC and PM2.5 levels, and a specific reading for PM2.5 density. What you don’t get are specific numbers for VOCs, temperature levels, or humidity levels. Ultimately this isn’t a big deal for me, as I prefer to keep an eye on TVOC levels with an independent device, which is also the case for temperature and humidity levels, especially given that I have devices for these readings dotted about the house anyway.

As is usually the case, the native app for Smartmi offers more, although personally, it’s of little use without better automation options, which I’ll mention later. The main screen for the AP2 shows you an animated device (if it’s on) with a ‘sliding carousel’ control bar that allows you to select Auto, Sleep and Custom modes (Why is it described as Manual on the device, but Custom here?). Custom mode allows you to increase the fan speed, although in this case it’s reflected in terms of the size of the room it needs to cover – the larger the living space, the faster the fan, basically.

You also get to see the temperature and humidity readings from the on-device sensors I mentioned earlier that aren’t exposed to HomeKit.

Pushing up on the temperature/humidity section reveals a lot more; from there you can check the filter life, adjust the screen’s brightness, set timers for the device to turn on or off, and select delayed off presets (1, 2, 4, and 8 hrs). You can also turn the UV lamp on or off, deactivate system sounds (I recommend doing so, as the ‘beep’ is quite loud), and deploy the child lock function. On the home page screen, you can also check which devices within the Smartmi app are linked to HomeKit.

At the top of the home page, there are three icons, the latter two of which, once pressed, reveal rudimentary graphs for TVOCs and PM2.5, respectively. Whilst it’s nice to have these, aside from the colour of the lines, you don’t really get an idea of the numbers for these readings, so you have to just treat them as rough historical data.

There’s a lot to like with the AP2, one of which is the ability to remove the top grille in order to give the inside a bit of a clean. The grille itself is held by a small screw on the rear, and once removed still sits tightly in place until you rotate it anti-clockwise. They probably don’t need the screw, to be honest, and as I was removing the small screw for the first time, I thought to myself, I bet this drops to the floor and will be a bugger to find. No soon had I thought of it, than it happened! So, you’ve been warned.

In a time when certain viruses are at the forefront of many people’s minds, the included UV light is a welcome, timely arrival. As I stated at the start, there’s no way for me to test whether bacteria and viruses possibly trapped in the filter are being chemically dismantled by the UV interaction, but it’s unlikely the company would make such claims without the proof to back them up, and as this technology is already proven to work, I feel I can rest assured that it’s certainly not hurting to have it turned on.

WRAPPING UP

Despite a couple of shortcomings, I have to give some credit to Smartmi for pushing HomeKit to this latest device. It looks really nice – nicer in fact than the model it’s an upgrade from, with a larger display, better intake design (albeit very subtle), and the increased display screen. I like the choice of colour too, and this has already replaced my Vocolinc PureFlow in the bedroom (the PureFlow resides in our living room now). Speaking of the PureFlow, I recently replaced the pair of filters, which came to US$80 plus shipping, so I’m looking forward to having just one filter at around half the price for a while. It’s also a lot more budget-friendly than the now slightly ageing PureFlow, which looks a tad old-fashioned.

What’s lacking is at least some of the features that are accessible within the Smartmi Link app. I appreciate that not everything can be exposed to HomeKit, but I think the display should be able to be turned off via an automation, which isn’t even possible within the company’s own app as an automation, and only by turning the display off via the button on the rear.

There is one major bug that I’m sure is fixable via an update, where the device detects VOCs and shows less than clean air via the Smartmi app and the AP2’s display, however, in my tests, the VOC levels in HomeKit never reflected this, always showing ‘Excellent’ regardless of how bad the VOC levels were. This definitely needs to be fixed, as there’s currently no way to create an automation using this sensor to trigger the fan. You’re probably wondering, why I don’t just have the AP2 on Auto mode. Well, that would make sense, but in my tests, unlike high PM2.5 detection, which would send the fan to a fast speed, when the AP2 detected high VOCs, the fan would increase its speed by only a little amount. This is ultimately why I think it’s best to use external sensors to detect things like this and via automations take the appropriate action.

If Smartmi can fix these issues, this would make Air Purifier 2 the device of choice for larger rooms.

Full disclosure: Smartmi provided HomeKit News with Smartmi Air Purifier 2 for the purpose of this review. No other compensation was made, requested or has not in any way influenced our opinion of this product.

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• Wide Coverage & Improved Performance: Our smart air purifier 2 features Nanoguard Technology and 360° air intake. It is also equipped with a filter that is capable of refreshing air 3 times per hour in rooms as large as 484 ft² / 45 m². It effectively removes airborne particles 0.08 micrometres in size with a CADR of 380 m3/h, and also purifies rooms with Volatile Organic Compounds(VOC) and large pollutants. You can now say goodbye to impure air at home.
• Multiple Levels of Purification: One of the first-ever allergies air purifiers with TÜV Rheinland “Allergy Care” Certification. The H13 True HEPA Filter works alongside the Pre-Filter and the High-Efficiency Activated Carbon Filter to capture 99.98% of airborne particles, such as dust, pollen, pet dander, smoke, odour, etc., ensuring that everyone, especially people with asthma and allergies, breathes safe, healthy and pure air. (CADR: Dust 224 CFM, Pollen 206 CFM, Smoke 224 CFM).
• Additional Layer of Protection: The built-in, short-wave UV-C light kills germs, bacteria, and viruses that are airborne and trapped in the filter for deep and thorough cleaning. The UV light disinfection provides an added layer of protection and can be turned off anytime via the app. It’s your great choice of our air purifier for home.
• Quiet and Efficient: This smart air purifier consumes 40W of energy and is whisper-quiet, with noise levels ranging from 30dB to 64dB. You can choose from 3 modes: Auto, Favorite, and Sleep. The nighttime option in Sleep mode is the lowest setting that operates in virtual silence, and with panel lights that can be completely dimmed at any time, it ensures you can sleep in a noiseless, comfortable environment all night long. Fan speed in the Favorite mode can be adjusted manually.
• Easy App Smart Control: With the free Smartmi Link app, you can control your Smartmi Air Purifier 2 from anywhere. Adjust settings while you’re in another room, at work, or out walking the dog. It is also compatible with Alexa, Google Assistant, and Homekit. Please refer to the product guide and video on the page for instructions on connecting to the app. Additionally, you can always contact us via Amazon if you need any assistance.

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• 414 ft² – 710 ft²
• NanoGuard Technology
• TVOC Clean Air Delivery Rate  (250m³/hour)
• Clean Air Delivery Rate (550m³/hour)
• Air quality monitor and capitalized display

Detailed specs

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• 334 ft² – 581 ft²
• NanoGuard Technology with UV Sterilization
• TVOC Clean Air Delivery Rate  (150m³/hour)
• Clean Air Delivery Rate (450m³/hour)
• Air quality monitor and capitalized display

Detailed specs

• Type – UVC Air Purifier
• CADR – CADR 450 m³/h | TVOC CADR 150 m³/h
• Room Size – 334 ft² – 581 ft²
• Filter Type – Jya NanoGuard Technology
• Smart Sensors – Laser Particle Sensor/Gas Sensor/Environment Sensors
• Display – OLED / Touch Screen
• Air Quality Monitoring and Display – PM 2.5 / PM 10 / TVOCs / Temperature / Humidity
  • On-screen numerical display
  • Air Quality Indicator Light
• Additional Features – UV light sterilization | Hidden Omni-directional wheels
• Maximum Noise Level – < 66 dB(A)
• Smart Connectivity – Works with Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Smartmi Link
• Dimensions (mm) – 290 * 260 * 535 mm
• Rated Wattage – 48W
• Weight (kg) – 6.5kg

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Today’s product, the QingPing Air Monitor Lite, does indeed detect both PM2.5 and PM10, but it’s also one of the few devices to measure C0² or Carbon Dioxide. We breathe out C0², but C0² can easily build up in confined spaces over a period of time (which I’ve found out myself since testing this device) and can lead to some less than ideal side effects. Most of these in almost all cases aren’t life-threatening, but at a minimum, can lead to difficulty in concentration, mild headaches, and general fuzziness, for want of a better description. Ok, so you know what we’re looking at today. If this interests you, read on…

PACKAGING/UNBOXING

Having already covered the company’s E-ink temperature and humidity sensor, I knew felt comfortable expecting this to be a decent product, which judging by the packaging, already hints that this will be the case. The box protects the contents really well, being that they use a really solid card. Although I’ve got the Chinese version, hence the Chinese text on the back, the version that is now available on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and Amazon.de is exactly the same. The packaging clearly states that the Air Monitor Lite (henceforth referred to as AML in this review) contained sensors for temperature, humidity, PM2.5/PM10, and Carbon Dioxide (Co2). Below are the specs;

• connectivity – Wifi 2.4GHz & Bluetooth 5.0
• Screen type – OLED
• Screen size – 59.9 x 49.9mm / 2.36 x 1.96in
• power input – 5V/1A
• Power connection – USB-C
• Battery – lithium

As you can see, the AML uses both Bluetooth and WiFi. I’ll get to that later, but to put you at ease, this is a WiFi device in terms of basic connectivity.

In the box, you simply get a manual, a USB-A to USB-C cable, and the device itself. The manual comes in Simplified Chinese and English, although there may be more languages that come with the internationally available version. The manual comes with one instance of the HomeKit code.

THE DEVICE

Although I first reported on this device last year, I wasn’t fully able to appreciate the design of the AML until I got it in my hands. To me, this really does exude Apple in terms of the minimalist approach and the modern – yet also retro – design. I’m already very impressed with the look and feel of it before it’s even plugged in, basically! In the hand, it feels really solid, with no hit of loosely put together parts. the AML has a decent weight to it, which belies the size of the device – 55 x 64 x 46mm / 2.17 x 2.52 x 1.81in (H, W, D), and coming in at just 147g / 5.91oz.

Although the front appears to be ‘all screen’, only a small portion of it contains active LEDs, but due to the OLED technology, when it’s on, you can barely notice where the border ends and the screen begins. The pixel density isn’t particularly high, and so you can easily make out individual pixels when you look close enough, but the designers have chosen to make this work in their favour, using square text and a rather 70s style font for the main readings, that is more than a little reminiscent of the numbers you might see on the back of a soccer player’s shirt.

At the top of the display, you get a WiFi strength indicator on the right, and a series of five dots indicating the sequence of the five sensors the AML displays. To the left is a battery icon, which will show an additional symbol when it’s being charged or plugged into mains power. The centre of the screen is taken up with the number for the relevant sensor, and directly below this is the name of the relevant sensor. At the very top is a thin LED strip that changes colour to indicate how good or bad the readings are for a particular sensor.

As you can see from the images above, the levels for PM2.5, PM10 and Carbon Dioxide are all good, which is not only indicated by the numbers but also the green LED above the display. This colour strip will display a different set of colours depending on the particular sensor;

PM2.5 & PM10

• ► Excellent, ► Good, ► Slightly Polluted, ► Moderately Polluted, ► Heavily Polluted, ► Severely Polluted

Carbon Dioxide

• ► Normal, ► Slightly High, ► High, ► Very High

In the case of the images above, you can see that the temperature is deemed ‘slightly high’, and the humidity level is ‘humid’, with the LED colours for the strip corresponding to the readings (Taiwan is hot and humid for much of the year).

Whilst the readings can be viewed from a reasonable distance, the colour strip is also viewable from a good distance, so it’s great that they’ve included this as an extra visual indicator.

Temperature

• ► Low (< 20ºC), ► Slightly Low (20 – 23ºC), ► Suitable, ► Slightly High, ► High

Humidity

• ► Very Dry, ► Dry, ► Suitable, ► Humid (60 – 80%), ► Very Humid (> 80%)

As with many of the recent devices I’ve reviewed, the AML comes with a USB-C port. It may not seem like a big deal, but given this can function using its built-in battery, you’re going to find yourself plugging in the cable at some point, and so anything to make that as quick and easy as possible is welcome, which is something you get with USB-C.

Alongside this port is a small power button. This can both turn off the whole device, or simply turn the display on or off. Completing the back section, and something that is indeed pretty much all of the back section, is a grille that allows the surrounding air to be taken in and sampled for the purposes of PM2.5 and PM10, for example.

With the AML having five sensors, it was wise for QingPing to not attempt to cram them all onto one display (something the Koogeek air monitor is guilty of). Instead, the device allows you to switch between any one of these five sensors with the help of the touch-sensitive control surface at the top. Essentially, this control surface takes on the appearance of a shallow groove in the main body of the device, with a line going from one end to the other, capped off on either and with a dot. To switch between the displays for each sensor, you can either slide your finger left to right (or right to left) or simply tap on either of the dots. It’s incredibly simple and easy to use, and also very responsive, which once again is a great testament to the designers of this product, and what they’ve put together. Overall, the only way I can describe the design is that to me it’s reminiscent of a piece of furniture you might have found in Habitat in the 1970s – but in a very classic, and not ‘badly aged’ way.

QINGPING+ | HOMEKIT | MI HOME

QingPing is a provider of smart products to Xiaomi for their Mijia/Mi Home platform, and whilst that continues, QingPing does have its own app that works with their products as well. I touched on the QingPing+ app previously when reviewing their aforementioned E-Ink Temperature and humidity sensor, and it’s possibly one of the nicest looking, most well thought out apps on my iPhone. I don’t tend to use it a lot, but whenever I do open it, I’m always impressed.

Their HomeKit compatible E-Ink sensor didn’t work with Mi home, so you could only use it with their app and HomeKit. In the case of the AML, it can work with HomeKit, Mi Home and QingPing, although there are a few caveats; First of all, if you want to use it so that it can trigger devices in Mi Home (eg a Mi Air Purifier), then once added to Mi Home,it won’t be exposed it to HomeKit or the QingPing+ app. If you add it to the QingPing app, you can also use it in HomeKit. I mentioned earlier that it uses both WiFi and Bluetooth 5.0, and there are a couple of reasons as to why. In all cases, it uses WiFi to transmit data to/from any of the three apps, and for general connectivity. If you add it to Mi Home, Apple Home or QingPing+, it uses Bluetooth for initial pairing. However, the AML does have an additional function if you use the QingPing app, which allows it to act as a Bluetooth Gateway for its other Bluetooth products. If you utilise this option in the QingPing app, it ceases to be able to work with HomeKit, so unless you’re solely going to use this device within the QingPing app, and also have their other devices, then this functionality is pretty limited in scope and usefulness. Still, it’s good to see a company adding ostensibly useful functionality to a device.

On the main page of the QingPing+ app, you get an overview of conditions for your local city, or any city you choose. Below that (in my case) are ‘overview cards’ for each device connected to the app. You can see the AML at the top of this list, with three of the company’s HomeKit sensors below that, in addition to their Mi Home sensor at the bottom. Delving into the AML page, you get a slightly more detailed overview of the five sensors, followed by recommendations based on the device’s readings.

Below this overview are sections for each sensor that cover twenty-four hours at a time, with the sensor readings split into 15-minute intervals. Each of these 15-minute lines can be selected to show the relevant measurement, which is displayed in the upper right-hand corner.

You can also get a more broad picture with the option to view data over 30-day period, with each slot representing a day, with the high and low points for the sensors on that day. Once again, if you click on one of these 1-day slots, you’ll get the lowest and highest reading for each relevant sensor.

There are quite a few options to customise the appearance of both the device and the app, including options for a screensaver, auto-off (in battery mode), scree auto-off schedules, an option to switch to either Fahrenheit or Centigrade, and more. You can also switch between the two most common Air Quality grading standards – China or the US.

Moving over to the Home app, and general Air Quality details can be found in a tile that also houses the sensor details for PM2.5 and PM10. Temperature and humidity have their own separate tiles. The C02 sensor is kept separate for some reason and is lumped together with my Carbon Monoxide sensor section, presumably as it’s a gas, and as such is deemed worthy of being used for alerts.

within these tiles, you then get access to more details, as can be seen above, so the particulate density for PM2.5 and PM10 are listed, whilst C02 is shown in Parts Per Million (PPM). Temperature and humidity are shown in degrees and a percentage, respectively. All of these pages also show the battery level, as well as whether the battery is being charged or not.

PERFORMANCE

When I initially installed this device via the QingPing app, everything seemed fine – for a couple of minutes. However, after that, I noticed that the device was showing up as ‘no response’ in the Home app. I checked for an update, of which there was one, and which I tried to apply, but I kept getting a note saying the device was ‘offline’…

I then thought about adding it to Mi Home, which also worked. I also then had an update waiting, which I was able to implement. Once I’d updated it, I removed it from the Mi Home app, reset it, and went about re-adding it to QingPing. There seemed to be another update available, but once again, it said the device was offline, so I couldn’t update. Quite frustrating. I already read about this issue, so I simply kept trying to update it by turning the device off, then on again. Eventually, the device appeared online long enough for me to update to the latest firmware. Whilst it was an unacceptable hassle to go through, once it was fully up-to-date, it didn’t lose connection at all and has behaved itself, thankfully.

So putting that to one side, is it accurate? Yes, after pitching it against a couple of other devices that show the same kinds of data (Kaiterra Laser Egg 2, Mi Smart Multi-Sensor), I was able to see that the sensors were fairly accurate. The humidity sensor was a little higher than the others, but temperature and PM2.5 sensors seemed to be in tune with the other two devices.

I don’t have another C02 sensor to test the accuracy of the levels, however, I did notice that our bedroom experienced high levels of C02 when we were sleeping, as, besides my wife and I, we also have both dogs stay in the room, and with the windows and doors closed, the little amount of ventilation we did have, was not enough to prevent these levels from climbing. When levels get high in the daytime, which they can do, opening the window results in the C02 numbers drop noticeably.

If you watch the accompanying video to this review, you’ll see I did a quick and simple PM2.5 test by lighting a match, before putting it out so that the resulting smoke would trigger the sensor, which it did almost immediately, with the numbers zooming up rapidly, along with the LED strip changing colour to match.

I’ve also tested the device in a location where it was reasonably far from the WiFi signal, and it still managed to pick up a signal, which is more than I can say for some of my remaining WiFi-based devices.

Whilst it’s sort of a shame that all sensors in the Home app are lumped together, forcing you to delve deeper to see the relevant levels, it’s good that the display is clear enough that you don’t really need to do that.

WRAPPING UP

I think in this day and age unless you’re lucky enough to live in an area where pollution isn’t an issue, PM2.5 sensors are an important part of a smart home. Whilst there are a few options nowadays compared to what was available when I purchased my Katierra Laser Egg, back in 2018, the one thing I also like about the QingPing Air Monitor Lite is the C02 sensor. I spend a lot of time indoors in front of a computer and due to a variety of factors, I don’t always have a lot of windows open, and so the build-up of C02 does occur. It’s only since getting the AML that I’m able to really notice it in black and white (no pun intended).

It’s certainly cheaper than the Kaiterra model (roughly half the price) that has a C02 sensor  (Kaiterra Laser Egg+ Co2 – US$199), although Kaiterra’s own Live Air app is also very good and nicely designed. One thing that the AML has over the Kaiterra is that you can schedule the display to turn on and off at set times, which is something you’re unable to do with the Kaiterra. I do prefer the design and display of the AML, and assuming it behaves itself, I can not only definitely recommend this product, but for peace of mind in terms of what you’re breathing, it could be deemed essential.

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The Aqara TVOC Air Quality Monitor has three built-in sensors that are developed via advanced electrochemical and semiconductor technology solutions to ensure stability and accuracy. The temperature and humidity compensation algorithm can effectively reduce the influence of environmental change and the reading resolution can be refined to 0.01 mg/m³.

Specifications.

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What are VOCs?
Volatile organic compounds (VOC) are organic chemicals that have a high vapour pressure at room temperature. High vapour pressure correlates with a low boiling point, which relates to the number of the sample’s molecules in the surrounding air, a trait known as volatility.

VOC’s are responsible for the odour of scents and perfumes as well as pollutants. VOCs play an important role in communication between animals and plants, e.g. attractants for pollinators, protection from predation, and even inter-plant interactions. Some VOCs are dangerous to human health or cause harm to the environment. Anthropogenic VOCs are regulated by law, especially indoors, where concentrations are the highest. Most VOCs are not acutely toxic but may have long-term chronic health effects.

You would typically find that sources for VOCs in the home are from fresh paint when you redecorate, cleaning products like polish, rubbing alcohol or bleach, or even new furniture, where chemicals have been used in the processing of the fabric or wood.

Aqara isn’t by any means the first company to make a TVOC sensor of course, with both Kaiterra and Eve making devices that either contain a TVOC sensor or are have a TVOC sensor as the core of the product. I’ve had the Eve Room (V1) for a few years now, which gives data for VOCs, temperature, and humidity and it has served me well, even though it does get through batteries like Alan Partridge got through Toblerones (Google ‘Alan Partridge’ and ‘Toblerone’…). The Eve Room V1 also has no screen and uses Bluetooth, so two disadvantages are clearly evident here. To see what the Aqara TVOC sensor brings to the table, read on.

PACKAGING

The TVOC sensor is, for what you get, quite reasonably priced (it’s currently on Amazon.de for just under €50) and can be found in a few online stores in Sweden. By contrast, the Eve Room (v2), is selling for practically double the price, and as of the time of writing, still uses Bluetooth. Putting that topic to one side, the version I have here today is the Chinese version, hence the packaging sporting most of its text in Simplified Chinese.

As with all Aqara products these days, the packaging outlines the features with neat little icons.  This includes the device using Zigbee 3.0, intelligent linkage (as it’s smart), different mounting options, temperature & humidity sensors, an E-Ink display, and a TVOC sensor. So, just like the Eve Room, the TVOC sensor’s E-Ink screen provides excellent contrast between the text/imagery and the background, compared to a standard LCD display. The display can also be read at much more acute angles than a typical LCD display.

The contents of the box all centre around the sensor itself, being the parts to help you mount it, although it can just be stood on a shelf if you prefer. Aside from the sensor is a manual in Chinese (there is one in English too), you get a magnetic plate and a matching double-sided adhesive sticker. The magnetic plate can be fitted to a wall with either the sticker or the two included pin-tacks. The circular magnet sticks to the back of the Sensor so that it can attach to the magnetic plate.

THE TVOC SENSOR

I’ve had the sensor for around 5 months now, but when it first arrived, I was actually quite surprised at how small it was, which I’d describe as roughly the size of two boxes of matches lined up side by side. The official measurements are 41.6 x 76 x 14mm / 1.64 x 2.99 x 0.55in (H, W, D). Aside from the clear plastic screen, the rest of the device is white plastic. The screen itself is a lot smaller than the main body, at 48 x 24mm / 1.89 x 0.94in (250 x 122 px), and is surrounded by a large white border, with just the Aqara logo at the bottom. It may not matter to many, but I’m happy to see Aqara placing their logos on their products in a much more subtle way than some companies do. After all, it’s not like you need to advertise the brand in your own home.

The screen shows a standard set of information, which can be switched to one of three different display modes by simply double pressing the button at the top of the device. one of the modes has the top portion of the display showing the TVOC readings using five instances of a ‘leaf’ icon, with 5 ‘dark’ leaves being excellent air quality and five ‘clear’ leaves reflecting the worst-case scenario. The second mode shows much the same information, but the icons have been replaced by numbers for the TVOC density. The third mode simply shows the temperature and humidity, with no mention of the TVOC details.

To the left of this information, there’s a small icon that shows that the device is linked to an Aqara hub and functioning correctly. In the first two modes, the bottom half of the screen is made up of the temperature and humidity readings. Somehow I feel the TVOC readings should be more prominent than the latter two, as its main role is to report on VOCs. So, if I had a say, the TVOC display would take up two-thirds of the screen, with the temperature and humidity numbers relegated to the top 1/3rd of the screen.

The sensor uses two CR2450 coin batteries, which should last at least twelve months. To get to the battery compartment, there’s a small slot on the base that can be pulled open by hand – unless you have no nails like me…

Both sides of the sensor feature slats that allow air in, so as to permit the sensors to monitor the temperature, humidity and air quality. The top of the device features a button, although its main purpose is to pair the device to an Aqara hub, change the display mode, or confirm its link to said hub. That’s essentially it in terms of its appearance!

IN HOMEKIT AND THE HOME APP

The TVOC sensor in HomeKit is much like most other sensors in that with the arrival of iOS14, practically all sensors were removed from the tile section of the Home app, and placed above and collated into sections. This unfortunately means seeing the readings involves going into the relevant ‘circle’ and tracking down the appropriate sensor to check its readings. I can still see the logic, but I’m not sure it helps when you have a heap of sensors throughout the home. This is not the fault of the sensor of course.

When you do get access to the individual tiles, you can dive into them and get a little more detail. Each of the three sensors shows the battery level for the device, and show the relevant basic data – temperature levels, humidity percentage, and Air Quality along with VOC density.

If you’re already familiar with HomeKit, you’ll be aware that as of iOS 14, the Home app still doesn’t make it easy for you to create automations based on temperature or humidity levels. The TVOC sensor (and any ‘Air Quality’ sensor for that matter) is an exception. For the TVOC sensor, you can create an automation based on whether the air quality ‘rises above’ or ‘drops below’ a set level. These levels are fairly general, which are broken into five descriptive sections labelled Excellent, Good, Fair, Inferior, and Poor. You would also find this with Air Purifiers like the Smartmi P1 and the Vocolinc PureFlow for example. So, if you have an air purifier with a filter that can remove TVOCs, then an automation telling the purifier to turn on, based on the readings from the TVOC sensor, would be one example of how it can be used with other HomeKit devices.

IN THE AQARA HOME APP

As you can imagine, there’s more to the sensor when viewed in the Aqara app. You get the same basic details on the main page for the sensor, although the battery level isn’t shown in any detail, so I guess the Home app has a slight advantage there. There are the usual set of options on the settings page, amongst which you’ll find details on the device’s Zigbee signal strength.

Where the Aqara app adds value is via the data it accumulates for practically all its devices, so in the case of the TVOC sensor, you have graphs showing readings over 24 hours or 7 days. You can also get a log of any changes to all three sensors on a day by day level. You can also view any of these graphs in landscape mode.

You can set the TVOC sensor to show one of two settings regarding the measurement for VOCs, as well as switch the display to Fahrenheit or Celsius.

Even though potentially high levels of VOCs can’t do much harm in the very short term, you could have an ongoing problem, that the source of the issue hasn’t been identified, so it’s good to keep an eye on things with the options for graphs. However, should you experience sudden high VOC levels, you may want to jump on things to find the source, and a good way to do this within the Aqara app is with push notifications. This saves you from glancing at the sensor’s display every few minutes.

These push notifications allow you to set the conditions under which a push alert is triggered, which includes the levels at which they should trigger, and the time of day or days of the week. You can also set a standard push notification, or set a custom one for yourself.

PERFORMANCE

One thing I’ve generally been disappointed about with my original Eve Room is that due to it using Bluetooth Low Energy, it would only report back to the app roughly every 10 minutes, so even though VOCs in the room aren’t exactly the kind of thing you want instantaneous notifications on (it’d still be nice though), to check the Eve app to see any reporting back of a spike in VOCs is really only a way to look back on what occurred rather than what’s happening. Of course, the Eve Room v2 solved this with a built-in display, like the Aqara, so this is welcome on both devices.

In our home, without going into too much detail, we have two dogs, with one of them a rather elderly Beagle, adopted by us after spending much of his life in a testing facility, and so the combination of these two ‘factors’ means we regularly have to ‘clean up’ after him, which involves using rubbing alcohol. This alcohol spray sends all of our TVOC sensors crazy of course, including the Aqara model, so from this basic test, I know that it definitely works. I’ve got a total of three sensors in the home – the Aqara, the Eve Room v1, and a non-HomeKit device by Xiaomi, which contains all manner of sensors, including a TVOC sensor, and all of them react, although with the Eve Room, I have to check the data in the Eve app (I’ll update to V3 when they finally add Thread…).

Does it compare in terms of the readouts? Yes and no. What I’ve noticed is that the way the TVOC count is displayed in the Aqara app seems to be at odds with the way my Xioami unit shows; so the Xiaomi device might, for example, show a reading of 2.7mg/m³, whereas the Aqara sensor would show the reading as 0.27mg/m³. This suggests to me that somehow, whilst it’s working, there’s a bug that is displaying the readings with the decimal point in the wrong place. I did wonder if it could be that the Aqara sensor was correct, but it’s hard to fully determine, as the Xiaomi device shows mg/m³, whilst the Eve device shows readings in PPM (parts per million), and it’s not clear from a quick Google search if these measurements are comparable (1,400 ppm = 1.4mg/m³). If someone has a simple and definitive answer, please let me know! I can live with that if it’s accurate, and so far it seems to be, when comparing the Aqara to both of the other sensors, with the exception of the point just mentioned.

What’s not working in the app, is that you have the option to switch between mg/m³ and PPB (I assume Parts Per Billion), but the graphs in the app never switch, instead, staying set at mg/m³. This is not the case “on-device”, so the sensor will show either PPB or mg/m³, depending on what you’ve set in the app. It’s only a minor thing to me, but it does need fixing. As regards temperature and humidity, they seem to be almost ‘spot on’ when compared to the other sensors, although when you first install the sensor, it will take a while to settle and start reporting accurate data.

One other oddity is that when it comes to sampling the air for any of the three sensor values, there seems to be no set period of time that it checks; in the early hours of the morning, for example, there was a sample reading taken at 01:49hrs (41.1% humidity), then another at 04:03hrs (40.3% humidity), and third sample reading at 06:47hrs (41.8% humidity). I can only assume that it’s taking these sample readings only when there is a change of at least half a percentage point, in terms of humidity in this case. It’s important to note that the sample points are different for each sensor, so it doesn’t take one random sample reading for all three sensors at the same points in time, which goes closer to backing up my guess that sample readings are taken when the sensors detect big enough changes.

WRAPPING UP

Other than the previously mentioned issue, I’ve not noticed anything out of the ordinary, and if nothing else, the battery life being at 88% after 5 months of use seems pretty good, so the estimated one-year battery life is selling its longevity a little short. As for the design of the product, whilst it fits with the general aesthetic of most other Aqara products, and even seems to have garnered a couple of design awards, I personally find it a bit bland and underwhelming, design-wise, mostly when it comes to the display. It’s not like I’m going to be looking at it all the time, to be honest, but I’m a fan of the colour display of the Xiaomi product, despite it not being HomeKit compatible. I’ve also had zero connectivity issues with this device, which is usually my experience with Aqara’s Zigbee products, so that counts for a lot, although even with a disconnection, the screen will still show you any issues, regardless.

The bottom line for me is that at half the price of the Eve Room (which currently uses Bluetooth until they update it with Thread), the Aqara is probably a better purchase.

The post Aqara TVOC Sensor (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

The Sensibo Air is one such device we’re looking at today, following on in the footsteps of the company’s non-HomeKit Sensibo Sky, making the ‘Air’ the first HomeKit compatible product from the company, which also make an indoor sensor and an Air Purifier (Sensibo Pure). Hopefully, the latter will also gain HomeKit compatibility in the future.

PACKAGING/UNBOXING

In contrast to a lot of manufacturers, Sensibo has gone for the ultra-minimal approach to their packaging, with a plain box with a turquoise colour scheme, coming across a bit like a swatch from a Pantone book. There’s almost literally nothing on the box to indicate what systems it works with, revealing no ‘works with’ type logos at all*. It’s no bad thing as long as it’s made clear elsewhere I guess. Still, it protects the contents, and that’s the main thing, as I almost always make a point of checking.

* I’ve since been told by Sensibo that newer packaging is now being used which includes the HomeKit and other logos on the box.

With the sleeve removed, there’s a card ‘wallet’ that hold the Sensibo Air nicely in place, with the accompanying power cable (micro-USB to USB-A), power supply (Type A, non-polarised, in my case), and a double-sided sticker (not pictured) to mount the device to a wall, although as you’ll see there’s another way of mounting it.

THE DEVICE

To say the Sensibo Air is small is a bit of an understatement, measuring a mere 65 x 65 x 17mm / 2.56 x 2.56 x 0.67in. Effectively it can fit in the palm of your hand and is less deep than a pack of playing cards. So, if you’re looking for something that doesn’t exactly stick out, mostly due to its size, this may be what you’re looking for.

The front is solid white plastic, with a black cutout section housing the IR blaster, and the company’s logo, which lights up momentarily when the Air sends out an IR signal. It will also flash if it gets disconnected from your network, or it’s performing a firmware update, for example. On the subject of connectivity, it’s a WiFi device, using 2.4GHz, as expected, and in the time I’ve been using it, the connection has been rock solid, so that was one less cause for concern. Other than the aforementioned cutout, you only get the company’s logotype on the bottom. The sides are all surrounded by the same black plastic used in the cutout, and although you might think the IR signal was designed to go in all directions via this ring of plastic, it doesn’t, so only the part at the front is used for the signal transmissions. One edge is also home to the sensors – temperature and humidity – with small vents or a grille for the sensors to sample the surrounding air. Next to that is a small pinhole to reset the device, as needed.

The rear of the Air has four rubber ‘feet’ so that it can be placed on a flat surface without slipping around, although I’d suggest the preferred location in most cases ould be to wall-mount it. The rear is also home to another cutout for the micro USB cable to travel along. The cable is approximately 1 metre long. The square section in the middle indicates where the provided double-sided sticker is designed to be placed.

The rear also reveals a QR code, which is NOT the HomeKit code and is only for adding the device to the Sensibo app, although Sensibo have told me that newer production models will come with the HomeKit code directly on the product. At the top is a recess with which to hook a nail or screw, should you want to wall mount it, but not use the double-sided sticker.

ADDING TO HOMEKIT

As already mentioned, the package came with no indication that it works with HomeKit, at least on the package I was sent, so it could have been added to newer packaging perhaps. However, when it comes to a HomeKit code in order to add it to HomeKit, it’s a little more involved, as there’s no HomeKit code, let alone any paperwork for said code to be stuck to.

This is where the Sensibo app is needed, at least initially. Once you download the app….

1. you simply add your first device
2. choose the Air (in this case)
3. then set up a Home and a room* for the Air to reside in.

* The home and room are totally separate from what’s already set up in HomeKit, but that’s ok.

In order for the app to give you information on weather conditions…

• you need to give it access to Location Services
• It will then scan for Bluetooth devices, as the Sensibo Air uses Bluetooth for initial setup
• Then once it has found the Sensibo, it’ll scan for nearby WiFi Networks

• When it has found your WiFi network,  add the details for it to connect
• Then scan the QR code on the back of the device

With the Sensibo now connected to your network, you need to teach it how to control your AC. This is simply done by sending a signal (usually the power button) from your remote to the Sensibo. When I initially tried this, no matter what I tried, the Sensibo wouldn’t pick up the signal from the AC remote, no matter how much I tried. I thought maybe the batteries in the remote were a bit low, so I changed them, but to no avail. I then tried the remote directly with the AC, and it worked fine, so the remote clearly wasn’t the issue.

Eventually, I decided to start over, and so remove the Air, and re-added it again. On the second attempt, there was no issue at all, and everything went smoothly, so I going to put this down to temporary gremlins, and not an inherent issue with the device itself. If anyone else has encountered this issue, please let us know in the comments though.

• Once we were up and running again, I was able to access the settings section, where a HomeKit option was visible
• This reveals a HomeKit QR code, which you can either scan with another device (if your phone is usually the one adding devices to HomeKit) or you can take a screengrab, or note the code itself and add it manually. If you have a newer product, the HomeKit code will be on the device itself, so this step will not be necessary in this instance
• The app also gives you the option to use Siri Shortcuts, which in this case would be largely unnecessary, but useful for other Sensibo devices

Happily, as the device is already connected to your network, adding it to HomeKit was a quick and easy affair.

As is the way with devices compatible with HomeKit, to a large degree, you get the same experience and interface regardless of the manufacturer, which is a great thing. The Sensibo Air is no exception, and provides a tile in the Home app, just like a thermostat or any other AC controller. The tile displays the current temperature whether the device is on or off, and will show the temperature it’s set to reach along with the relevant descriptive phrase (Set to…, Heating to…, cooling to…). The Sensibo does give you the extra ‘Auto’ mode, for what it’s worth, with many other products I’ve tried in this device type generally only offering Heat, Cool, and Off.

You can view the humidity levels in the Settings page for the device, but it isn’t exposed as a separate device in the Home app, although you can still use it in automations via any number of 3rd party apps of course, as well as via ‘Convert to Shortcut’ when creating an automation in the Home app.

In terms of features, that’s pretty much it in the Home app and HomeKit, but the Sensibo app does offer a bit more control, as expected.

SENSIBO APP

The Sensibo app gives you additional control of your AC, such as the louver (the blade that directs the air), depending on how much control your particular AC offers, and even allows for fan speed, which is something that the Aqara P3 AC companion actually exposes to the Home app natively. Additionally, you get a very well featured set of notification options, which can be enabled in addition to any notifications you have set up in HomeKit.

One specific function I do like is the Sync AC Power State option; As ACs only receive commands, and can’t send confirmation back – which is why generally remotes aren’t supported in HomeKit, the Sensibo relies on knowing the state of the AC off the back of when it was last controlled by the Sensibo. If someone comes along and changes the state of the AC with the original remote, it may be that in HomeKit the AC is shown as on, but is in actual fact off, or maybe set to cool, when previously it was set to Auto for example. Normally, you’d have to then turn the AC off, or change in the Home app, in order to get things back to being synced, but with this option, you can simply tell the Sensibo that the AC is either on or off.  Now, this only goes as far as allowing you to switch between on/off and doesn’t go as far as remembering the specific mode or temperature, but it’s useful, nonetheless.

The app also has very simple controls for turning the AC on or off, based on the temperature, as well as change the AC state. This is something you can’t do in the Home app via a simple automation, so this may just be a handy way to deal with things, as long as you don’t mind the automation not being in HomeKit.

There are in fact, a lot more options within the app, some of which are part of the Sensibo Plus subscription option, which can be paid for at a monthly or yearly rate. I’ll leave those for you to dig into, should you get the Sensibo Air. Speaking of which, we’ll next look into how the device has performed in the time I’ve had it on test, and whether it’s value for money.

IN DAY TO DAY USE

Having used this for a few weeks now, with the temperature being uncommonly changeable over that time, has provided me with a lot of options to test out all the modes, including Auto, and it has been very responsive, and fast at sending the signals to my bedroom AC unit. In terms of connectivity, it has been very solid, so no real complaints there, although it does, of course, help to have a decent and sturdy network, to begin with.

The look of the device appeals to me, and it’s small enough to not be a distraction, if you prefer uncluttered walls, although with the cable hanging down if you’ve wall-mounted it, you may want to think of a way in which to hide that. Having tested out a couple of products from Ambi Climate (the AmbiClimate 2, and AmbiClimate Mini), what wins over these is simply the official HomeKit integration. I’ve also had the Tado AC Control V3+ for the longest time, and I’m very happy with it, mostly due to the fact it has a physical interface. Whilst physical control shouldn’t matter in a smart home, there are always times when you need to use your hands, and so this is one thing I miss with the Sensibo, although to be fair, this is so small, it’s really designed to not really be seen, so it’s not really the fault of the device as such.

The only main gripe I would say, if I was looking to buy it, is the price. On Sensibo’s website, the list price is US$169.99, but it’s on sale for $139.99. It’s also listed on Amazon.com for $149.99. To me, this is quite pricy, especially when you consider that the Tado I previously mentioned, is about US$99.00, and comes with physical control. However, the Tado is not available easily outside of Europe, so until they do sell in North America, it’s a case of importing, which is a hassle for some, not to mention the cost of shipping and potential import fees. On the other hand, the Ambi Climate offerings are roughly the same price, but without official HomeKit support, so I’d suggest if Sensibo can bring the price down to $129.00 they’d have a more compellingly priced product.

Despite all this, it’s nice to see Sensibo biting the bullet and adding HomeKit support – hopefully Ambi Climate will do the same one day…!

You can also find more information on the Sensibo Air and the company’s other products on their website.

Full disclosure: Sensibo provided HomeKit News with the Sensibo Air for the purpose of this review. No other compensation was made, requested or has not in any way influenced our opinion of this product.

The post Sensibo Air Smart AC Controller (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.