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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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.

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

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.

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• Know your home: Eve room senses indoor air quality, temperature, and humidity
• Improve your comfort: sophisticated sensor analyzing volatile organic compounds (VOC)
• Gain insights: your personal data by day, month or year
• HomeKit-enabled: unparalleled ease of use and advanced security
• Works with Siri: ask for temperature and humidity

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• It senses indoor air quality, temperature, and humidity

• HomeKit-enabled: unparalleled ease of use and advanced security

• Works with Siri: ask for temperature and humidity

• Truly wireless: powered by long-lasting, replaceable batteries

• Improve your comfort: sophisticated sensor analyzing volatile organic compounds (VOC)

• Easy setup: direct connection using Bluetooth Smart technology, no hub or gateway required.

• The app displays current and historical measurements in ppm. Let users should try to keep air quality at an “Excellent” or “Good” level.

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