• Easy, tool-free installation
• Easily pair to your gateway
• Adjustable sensitivity levels
• Battery life up to 2.5 years (replaceable)
• Completely wireless
• 25-foot detection range

Set off your alarm & get a mobile alert as soon as this device is triggered. Rest easy knowing that if something goes wrong, you’ll be the first to know and it’ll be impossible to miss. This sensor easily covers multiple windows in the same room so you can consolidate your device needs.

• Height: 3.0″
• Width: 3.0″
• Depth: 0.94″
• Communication Protocol: abodeRF/433Mhz
• Battery: 1 CR123A Lithium battery (included)
• Operating Temperature: 14° to 113° F
• Operating Humidity: Up to 85% non-condensing

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So whilst there are plenty of things you could do help mitigate the effects – air purifiers are one example – it’s always good to know when levels get higher than they should, and this is where devices like the Koogeek A1W Environment Monitor can help. It has sensors to pick up both PM10 and PM2.5, as well as sensors for temperature and humidity – high or low humidity left unchecked can cause health problems too in fact. It also has other sensors, which I’ll touch on later, but for now, the unboxing…

UNBOXING
A short while ago I reviewed the Koogeek FL1 Fingerprint lock and I mentioned that a copy of the homeKit code was stuck to the outside of the box, which was a bit strange, to say the least. Well, with the A1W they did it again! I can’t see the logic of doing this when they could just as easily stick it to the inner of the lid, as Vocolinc do. Aside from this anomaly, the packaging for the A1W is much the like the FL1, with the same overall design; product on the front in a minimal way, along with the HomeKit badge, and specs on one side, and bulleted features on the other side, with icons for each function;

• Light (ambient light sensor)
• Sound (sound sensor)
• PM2.5 (sensor)
• PM10 (sensor)
• LED night light
• Temperature (sensor)
• Humidity (sensor)
• Smart Wake (function)
• Real-time monitoring (selling point)
• At-a-glance display (selling point)

I’ll come back to them shortly, but there’s certainly a lot there to sell itself to a casual shopper.

Upon opening the box, as with the Smart lock, Koogeek has wisely chosen very dense, impact resistant foam rubber to totally enclose the device. This is great, considering it’s protecting something a lot more sensitive than a padlock, with a lot of sensors inside. After lifting the small circle of foam rubber, you get the device itself, complete with a plastic film protecting the screen. All good so far!

Underneath the first main level of foam, you’ll find the manual, complete with HomeKit code (the second of three). The manual comes translated into six languages – English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Simplified Chinese. Beneath that is a USB-to-micro-USB cable and a rather bland and cheap looking USB power supply. The A1W has a built-in battery, so you don’t always need it constantly plugged in, but given the number of sensors it contains, the battery isn’t going to last too long, so it’s better to keep it permanently powered if at all possible. Basic specs for the power are as follows;

• Input: 5V 1A
• Battery type: 18650 Lithium-ion
• Battery capacity: 2200mAh
• Frequency range: 2412-2472MHz
• Max. wireless output power: 17.52dBm

THE DEVICE
On first impressions, the device is fairly similar in many ways to my current PM2.5 monitor, the Kaiterra Laser Egg 2, although the Laser Egg 2 has a larger rear section, almost like the old, colour iMacs, whilst this is flat at the back, which is the reason for the kickstand. With the box and the manual each having a HomeKit code on them, the third instance of the code is to be found on the back of the unit, where you’ll also see the micro-USB port for charging/powering the device. The front of the device has the screen, which measures roughly 65mm/2.8in diagonally across. It’s nowhere near retina quality, but it has colour and does the job of displaying the data well enough. The device has a built-in fan that samples the surrounding air through the front around the circumference of the screen, and ejects the sampled air via the vents at the back.

The front of the device is also home to the touch button, below the screen, which when briefly tapped, turns the screen on and changes the main number to switch between the PM2.5 level and the current temperature. The other levels will change around accordingly when you press the button. Above the screen are three sensors, with the sound sensor, a large motion sensor, and an ambient light sensor.

The screen itself shows all the data in one place, so at the top of the screen you have the lux levels for ambient light, the sound levels in dBs, a motion sensor icon that will turn red when detecting motion, the time in 24hr mode, a wifi icon and a battery percentage level along with a colour battery icon. the main number in the middle, as already mentioned, is the PM2.5 level, or the temperature level. At the bottom of the screen (if you have the main number set to PM2.5) you’ll see the PM10 levels, the temperature (in Centigrade or Fahrenheit), and the humidity levels.

If you long press the button, you get access to the settings section, along with settings for a couple of additional features;

• Smart Wake If this is turned on, when motion is detected between 2300 – 0700, the screen will turn on.
• Night Light If this is turned on, and if the light intensity is less than 5lux, when motion is detected or when the Home button is pressed, the night light will turn on.

The other settings are for language, reset to factory settings and the motion threshold, which is the amount of time before the motion sensor resets to ‘no motion. The options for this are 5, 15, 30 and 60 seconds, or  5, 10 and 30 minutes.

INSTALLATION
This was installed directly via the Home app, and afterwards opened in Koogeek’s own HomeKit app to check for any available firmware updates, for which there were none. Once installed, the A1W will produce six separate tiles in the Home app, representing PM2.5/PM10, Humidity, Ambient light, Motion and Temperature, with the sixth tile being the Night Light. That’s comes to only 5 sensors of course, with the sixth sensor being sound, but because HomeKit doesn’t support sounds sensors in iOS12, there’s no tile for it. In the Koogeek app, the sound sensor does produce a separate tile, however, if you press any of the seven tiles that represent all of the referenced sensors, including the night light, you get to the same settings page, which then lists each sensor along with the relevant settings for each one. The sound sensor has no settings that you can change, however, so at this point it seems pretty useless, and even with the arrival of iOS13, there still seems to be no support for sound sensors in the betas that have been released so far, so all that you can gather from the sound sensor tile in the Koogeek app is the decibel levels.

IN USE
I’ve had this on test for about a 10 days now, so I feel I’ve gotten use to the device fairly well. I have made a few observations about the device; First of all, generally the temperature and humidity sensors seem to work fine, and are within an acceptable margin of error when compared to other sensors that measure these two metrics. With the light sensor, it’s hard to know whether it’s measuring the light accurately, although it does react instantly when I turn the lights off or cover the sensor, for example, so I know it’s working. To me, ambient light measurements don’t need to be spot on, down to the individual lux points, so that’s not an issue.

The front of the unit also includes an LED ring of light around its circumference and will turn on (in white) when you press the night light tile in the Home app. This will also turn the screen on, which only stays on for approximately 60 seconds at a time. Pressing the tile turns the light on and off, although turning the night light off, doesn’t turn the screen off. If you want to have the screen permanently on, you simply need to turn the night light on via the individual tile, which will stop the display from turning off after 60-seconds.

This ring of LED lights also serves as a visual indicator of PM2.5 levels; According to the manual, if the levels of PM2.5 are between 0 – 35 the ring should be green, but it never is, and so far I’ve not seen the ring as green once. Between 36-75, it will go to orange, between 76-115 the light will turn red, and for concentrations from 116 upwards it will be purple. Having tested the sensor out, I can say it works, although the reading were different to the Laser Egg 2 in tests. The ring will also turn orange if you have the main display in the centre set to temperature whenever the temperature is 29ºC or above.

As already touched upon, when it comes to the sound sensor, it’s not going to be of much use right now, although you can access the sound sensor in some 3rd party apps, and possibly set up an automation, although I’ve already tried one app and it just didn’t work.

When it came to the motion sensor, I did find it very sensitive, and there seems to be no way to adjust the sensitivity in the Koogeek app unfortunately. You can of course use the motion sensor to work at only certain times of the day, if you’re in need of something that can pick up motion, but I did also find that whilst it can be sensitive, it can also miss motion at times, so I’m not entirely sure it’s of much use other than to turn the display and night light on in dark areas – just make sure you set an automation to not turn the display or night light on when you sleep!

There have been some early reports of people finding the built-in fan to be too noisy, and have returned their units on this basis, and I can say that you can hear the fan, although I personally don’t find it to be irritating at all, but then that’s down to the individual. Where I am, which is next to Keelung river, Taipei, there’s plenty of noise from both insects and humans, and as it’s hot and humid for much of the year, we’ve either got the AC or some fans on at night, not to mention the air purifier, so I really don’t notice it.

SUMMING UP
I’m happy that I bought the unit, if for no other reason than I love my HomeKit gadgets (in case you didn’t notice…), and I already have an Eve Room (1st gen) that can read temperature and humidity, as well as VOC levels, which the A1W can’t, a Kaiterra Laser Egg 2 for PM2.5 levels, and a Mijia multi sensor that covers PM2.5, VOCs, temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide levels, so I’m already well covered. It is another device to get me a better idea of pollution though, and living in Taiwan, this is a big concern unfortunately. If I were to compare it to the most similar product of the other two devices mentioned, it would be the Laser Egg 2. I’ve had this product for nearly 18 months now, and I do like that you can see the average PM2.5 levels for where you are, to compare with indoor levels, and that it has an app that allows you to customise the display, as well as set the Air Quality Index standard (AQI) to either China, US or India, none of which the Koogeek can do. On this point, I would guess that the A1W has been calibrated to Chinese standards, but that’s just a guess, based on the different numbers I see between the two devices. That being said, it’s a fair bit cheaper than the Laser Egg 2, and it has more functions for the price, so it’s a toss up on more sensors for you money or more reliable readings – but only based on my guesses.

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Starting with the box itself, given that this device has a display, you want a bit of protection, and this package has more than enough of that, coming in a nice thick cardboard carton. The box itself tells you everything you need to know right on the front of the box, which while a bit too much in some ways, guarantees that the person knows exactly what they’re getting. The device is on the front, and displayed at ‘actual size’ according to the small print. It displays the 5 different sensors that it contains, which we’ll get to soon, and it even has one of their recommended products listed on the bottom to be used as a companion piece for the sensor, the iSP6X Smart Plug. Most importantly, it display the ‘Works with Apple Homekit’ marque on the front. The big thing to note with most of iHome’s smart devices is that they work with possibly the widest range of smart home ecosystems – Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Samsung SmartThings, Wink, Nest and even IFTTT. All good so far. The rear is more of the same, with some extra specs and a few use cases on how to use this with automations.

On opening the device, everything you need is there right in front of you; The 5-in-1 sensor, the mini USB power cable, and the USB based, branded power supply. Everything is all packed in nice and safely, so no qualms at all with iHome’s commitment to protecting the device.

The device itself is quite light but not unnervingly so, coming in at 145g/5.1oz. It stands at around 107mm/4.2″ high and is designed to be stood up and placed somewhere you can see the screen, if that’s what you want. The front has a large motion sensor, as well as the display screen, and what appears to be either a sound or humidity sensor on the top. On the rear of the device you have the input for the micro USB cable as well as the HomeKit code and a couple or vents. This device connects to mains electricity via the provided cable and power supply, but there’s no internal battery, so if you unplug it, the device stops dead. There are also two physical buttons, one of which controls the brightness of the display, which can be set to high, medium, low and off, or automatic, which in tandem with the ambient light sensor, adjusts the brightness of the screen accordingly. The other button is simply for resetting the device. The device itself connects to your home network via wi-fi.

The display itself is nice enough, with the main upper part displaying the temperature, with a wi-fi symbol to confirm connection to your network. The lower 3rd of the display shows the humidity level, along with icons for motion and sound detection. There’s no symbol or information regarding the ambient light sensor. The display has a blue tint, and it’s clear from a reasonable distance and being LCD, it’s quite sharp too. As this is mains powered, you are limited to placing it where you have a power outlet, but in my experience, this is a device that just stays put, so I’ve had no problem with it being rooted to one location, and if I do want it somewhere else, it’s really not a big deal to unplug it.

As you can see in the screenshot above, four of the sensors have their own tiles; Ambient light, Humidity, Motion and Temperature, with the sound sensor the only one absent. Of these four sensors, only the motion sensor is available for automation, although the other sensors are available for automations and triggers in 3rd party apps and the iHome app.

In iHome’s own app, there are a series of settings for the device, although you do need to set up an iHome account that then allows the monitor to connect with their cloud service, which in turn allows for adjustments. As with any fully fledged HomeKit app, you can see all your other HomeKit devices via this app, although I do prefer to use the standard Home app for day-to-day control of things. out of the five sensors, three of them can have their sensitivity levels adjusted – motion, sound and ambient light, so for this reason, I tend to keep the iHome app to hand.

I’ve had this 5-in-1 sensor for a while now, and while all the sensors work well enough, at the time, I purchase this for just the motion sensor and unfortunately, it’s extremely slow to respond, to the point where I can be standing directly in its field of view, in daylight, waving my arms about and it only finally responds after maybe 4-5 seconds, which is staggeringly slow. Since then I’ve ended up with more motion sensors that I know what to do with, so I now don’t even have to rely on this particular sensor, and so it’s nice to have it as a quick reference display for temperature and humidity. I didn’t pay very much for the device thankfully, so I can live with this one shortcoming and use the other sensors as well.

If you want something that has data that can be read without having to pull you iPhone out, then this is a great product, especially if you can find it for around US$30 like I did, but if you want to rely on it as a motion sensor then I would save your money and buy a dedicated sensor.

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My first impressions are like that of any other Netatmo product I’ve seen so far, in that this French company has a flair for design, and their packaging – and products – reflect that. I did think the device would be thicker and more obtrusive, but it’s not. The device is very sleek and slim.

Once you get it all hooked up to power and you’ve downloaded the Netatmo app, you will be asked to create an account. The app will walk you through how to get the device set up for both using it via their app and via HomeKit. You will be asked for home access first, but it does require a manual wi-fi connection, unlike a lot of other HomeKit-based devices which take your wi-fi information via a much more simpler process. Once connected to wi-fi, you’ll probably be presented with a quick firmware update. You’ll then get connected to your HomeKit ‘home’ where you use the HomeKit code on the device.  

The device uses four sensors to log data in its application and/or send notifications, depending on your settings and connectivity to monitor these different areas.  

• Humidity
• Temperature
• CO2
• Sound/Noise

The device monitors all of these things continually but there’s also a button at the top of the device, which once pressed allows the device to update and add data to the app, which will display the updated information in the form of graphs. This is great for ensuring that the device is not only working, but also great for monitoring fast changes that the four sensors measure. The sound sensor has a range of 35 – 120dB. Within the Netatmo app there are preset profiles for your convenience for ‘baby’, ‘person with asthma’ and ‘general’, which makes it easy to get the relevant settings on the fly. These set various levels at which you would get alerts or notifications, depending on the chosen profile.

The Netatmo app teaches you how to understand, and get the best out of the different sensors by giving you a 5-star rating system to work off. Within the graph display, you can see the data from any one sensor at a time. You can select the graphs for the different sensors by clicking on the top right-hand of the graph drop down menu.

In terms of HomeKit, it looks and behaves as you would expect. All sensors except for the sound sensor appear as tiles in the Home app, so the three sensors that do link to the Home app are humidity, CO2, and Temperature. It’s important to note the well documented shortcomings of the official Home app, as the missing Sound sensor does appear in other 3rd party HomeKit compatible apps. I suspect that with the forthcoming iOS12, we shall see some of these oversights addressed. Aside from that, the notifications appear as standard, and the device seems to be quite responsive. If you rely on knowing the levels of humidity or CO2 then this could be a very useful tool for monitoring and consequently controlling these levels. For example, a guitar builder will usually make sure his aged wood doesn’t ever have more than 50 percent humidity in their aging room, to make sure the wood doesn’t react in a negative way. Bob Taylor from Taylor guitars would tell you his wood is worth as much as gold, and aging it correctly and safely with alerts is the best way.  

My overall impressions with this device are that the sensors are great for both the specific and everyday user alike. I love the design, and the only downer is that I don’t get that sound sensor in the Home app. 

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