Way back in the middle of 2019, we reviewed the Ambi Climate 2, a smart AC controller that was able to work with Google, Amazon, and IFTTT, but not HomeKit, at least not officially. Later on, the company – Ambi Labs – added Siri Shortcuts to their app, as a stopgap measure, so that you could at least set your AC using your voice via HomePod, iPad, iPhone etc. Moving onto 2021, and the Hong Kong-based company have released an update/addition to the Ambi Climate 2, in the form of the Ambi Climate Mini.

If you’re not sure what this device is, it replaces your standard AC remote, allowing you to control many aspects of your AC via your phone, voice, or using automation, depending on what route you take in using this device.

As you can probably guess, this new device is smaller than the previous model, but basically does much the same stuff. The main difference, aside from the much-reduced size, is that the company’s A.I. tech has gone from being free to a subscription service. Whilst that may give you pause for thought as to whether this device is worth a subscription, it’s also worth noting that the service you’re paying for is a lot more advanced than other AC controllers on the market. That said, as it’s still not officially HomeKit compatible, this could push you to look at alternatives. Today I’ll have a look at this newer model, and hopefully give you a better understanding of the product, as well as give you an idea as to whether the extras are worth paying for.

In case you find you’re interested in purchasing this product, Ambi Climate are offering an additional US$10 off the standard price if you purchase via their website, using the exclusive promo code HKN10. The code is valid until June 2021.

PACKAGING

The packaging follows on from the design used in the Ambi Climate 2, and looks good, clear and easy to see – assuming you’re browsing in a department store (less likely in much of the world right now…) – and even comes with the little plastic handle for it to be hung on a display. As you’ll see, there’s no HomeKit logo, which is a shame, and with another company making a similar product – Sensibo’s Sky AC Controller – gaining official HomeKit support, it looks like Ambi Labs are out on their own a little.

It is what it is, so if you’re aware of that, or use HomeBridge/HOOBs, then it matters less. It does work with Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and IFTTT though, and also includes the new ‘Add to Siri’ badge, meaning it works with Siri Shortcuts. I’ll go into that more, later.

The rear goes to great lengths to let you know that this AC controller makes use of what is described as a ‘Comfort AI Assistant’ – this is the subscription option I mentioned in the previous paragraph. The good news is that whilst you get a free one-month trial, you don’t need to use this functionality in order to use the Mini and can control the AC along with all aspects of your particular AC anyway.

The base of the box lists a few details, including compatibility, the contents of the box, and basic specs;

Compatibility

• WiFi – 802.11 b/g/n 2.4GHz
• iOS 10 or later
• Android 4.1 and above
• 2-year support and limited warranty

Contents

• 1 x Ambi Climate Mini
• 1 x USB adaptor (100 ~ 240v, 5v/1A)
• 1 x USB cable (1.8m / 70.87in)

Specifications

• 110.2 x 24.5 x 46.8mm / 4.33 x 0.96 x 1.85in)
• 50.8g / 1.8oz

The inner box contains everything you need and even has little ‘hand drawn’ icons to show you what should be in the box (cute). The mini is at the top, with the USB cable, power adaptor, and mounting bracket kit in the lower section, a bit like a bento box (look it up…). The USB cable is USB-A to USB-C, with the power port on the Mini being USB-C also, which is a step up from the Micro-USB setup with Ambi Climate 2. The USB power supply I have is suitable for both China and North America, being a Type A, non-polarised plug. The company also provide localised adaptors for Europe (type C), the UK (type G), and Australia/New Zealand (type I), so if you’re purchasing this locally, you should get the right plug, although if you buy from Ambi Climate’s own website, you need to specify your preference.

In addition to all of the above, there’s a small box containing a wall mounting bracket, a screw, a matching rawl plug, and a single 3M double-sided adhesive strip. The documentation includes a fold-out sheet that goes through the basic setup process in a variety of languages – English, Chinese (trad), German, Finnish, French, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish.

THE AMBI CLIMATE MINI

I did like the design of the previous model, but I have to say this one is way more impressive, despite taking on many of the same thematic design queues; the plastic, magnolia body, and a large black ‘eye’ that houses the IR sensor, and not one, but two light sensors, both take their starting point from the previous model. The Mini also has temperature and humidity sensors which are actually located near the back of the device where there are vents to allow these sensors to measure the relevant metrics without being affected by any heat coming from the other electronic parts. One edge of the mini has a USB-C port for powering the device. It may seem like a small thing, but using USB-C does make a difference, even if it’s not the kind of device you’re generally going to plug and unplug.

As with the Ambi Climate 2, the base is a sort of wooden plinth that houses the aforementioned vents. As the Mini is designed to be mounted on a wall, the wall bracket clips into place on the underside, which is quite simple but effective in its design. You can use either the screw to fix it to the wall, or the double-sided strip, and as the Mini is so light, the strip will hold up without any issues.

Of course, you don’t have to mount the Mini, and can just as easily have it sat on a desk, coming as it does with a pair of rubber ‘feet’. The only issue with having it wall mounted is the sight of the power cable trailing underneath and down the wall, although there are ways of fixing this. I’ll just leave that to your imagination.

INSTALLATION

The initial installation process needs to start in the Ambi Climate app, beginning with adding a device, selecting the particular model, and following the on-screen prompts, which go through your location, your wifi settings, and pairing with your AC.

You then allow the app to find your location, before then deciding the name for your location (home, office etc), and then what room it’s in. If you’re going to add this device to HomeBridge or HOOBs later, this info will also be needed, so it’s best to give the location name some relevance.

With all that done, you then need to place the device in the relevant room and make sure the device is within I.R. range of the AC it’s going to control. To add the device to your network, you need to temporarily come out of the app, and select the device from the list in the WiFi section of the settings screen (in iOS). I imagine it’s much the same on Android.

With the Ambi Climate 2, I had odd issues with connecting to one of my WiFi networks but somehow managed to overcome it eventually. I’m happy to say I had no such issues with the Mini and was able to connect it to my network, although it did take its time doing so.

After that’s all in the bag, you need to go through the process of setting the Mini so that it can control your AC. It’s a short process thankfully, which in the first instance asks you to enter the details of the make and model of your remote, as it’s the remote that is being replaced by the Mini, essentially. If your model isn’t listed, it’s simply a case of instead, teaching the Mini to learn the basics of your remote. This requires just a few steps that involve pointing your remote at the Mini, so that it can figure out the remote and what functions of the AC it can control. After it’s done, it’ll tell you what your AC is capable of via the Ambi Climate app. This will include the basics, like setting the temperature and the mode (Cool, Heat, Auto, and Off), but it can also include things like the fan speed, and control over the swing and louver of your AC (these are the blades that direct the flow of air from your AC).

If you haven’t figured it out by now, the Ambi Climate Mini is essentially a wall-mountable IR remote control, connected to an app, that can send instructions to your AC, as well as set conditions for when it comes on and off (via timers), or maintain a specific temperature range. Whilst some of this may be achieved with your original remote, the app and device also let you control the device whilst you’re out of the house, so this is where it’s taken beyond the realms of even the fanciest hand-held remote you can think of.

AMBI CLIMATE APP

Once you’re all set up, you move to the main screen. From here, you can access a ton of different sections, including the control modes;

• Comfort mode
• Temperature mode
• Away mode
• Manual mode
• Off

All of these modes, in addition to other options I’ll skate over are also available to owners of the Ambi Climate 2, so nothing has changed in this respect, apart from the fact that for Mini users who want to use the A.I. functionality, will now be required to pay for it, after the free one month trial. You can still use the other modes without a subscription, but you’re going to have to set the AC yourself without Comfort mode, which basically controls the AC for you, based on the feedback you provide in this mode. It takes time for the A.I. to learn your preferences, as it’s built, in some measure, on you telling the A.I. if you’re too hot, a little hot, too cold, a little cold, or just right. It takes this data, in combination with other factors, like local weather conditions, the temperature and humidity in your room, and thermal readings of your surrounding provided by the two light sensors (IR light, and visible light sensors) to build up a picture of your environment, and what you feel is comfortable. It all sounds quite impressive, and for that reason, you can maybe appreciate more why the company want to charge for this functionality, which also requires a server connection that they have to maintain. I’m not going to try and convince you one way or another as to whether it’s worth it or whether the company should be charging for this, but to paraphrase a saying, “there’s nothing in life that’s free”.

The Analytics tab at the bottom gives you three subsections, the first of which, Historic Data, allows for a lot more detailed information on the temperature and humidity readings, over the course of 24 hours, 7 days, or a calendar month. There’s a lot more to this section than I’m showing here, going into a LOT of details regarding the measurements in your home. Insights provides further data on your AC usage so that you can see where you might need to adjust something in order to fix potential issues, and Deployments shows how, when and who controlled the AC unit, as well as show when the A.I. side of things take over.

In the Device tab, you have a section for device settings and timers. The device settings include various sections relating to network connections, AC pairing, LED and bleeper control, and even wallpaper options, in addition to the option to calibrate your sensors if you think they may be off by even a small amount. The timers section not only allows you to program your AC to turn on or off at a particular time and day but also allows each of the aforementioned modes to be active in a particular timer. Admittedly, this is standard for smart ACs, but with Comfort mode, it could make things more useful.

the AC Settings tab gives you quick access to everything that your AC is capable of. This is going to look different depending on the type of AC you have, but as you can see in my case, I have control over the four modes, the fan speed, the louver, and the swing. In addition to this, you get to control which of the four modes is accessed by A.I. mode.

Going hand-in-hand with the A.I. functionality, you can access data on your user profile to see progress on how the A.I. has built up a profile of your usage and preferred settings, that eventually is able to provide the best ‘comfort’ settings to match your habits. if other members of the family use the app and also set up and account, the app can create a combined profile that analyses the data for all users, showing data across the board.

Now if this all sounds like a lot of trouble, and just want to be able to control your AC in the simplest of fashions, then, of course, you can just speak to your preferred voice assistant to control the AC. If, on the other hand, you have ACs running for much of the day in different rooms (like in Florida for example), this could be of use for those than don’t want to have to constantly adjust the settings.

IN HOMEKIT

We’d be negligent if we didn’t bring up HomeKit integration of course, and the two options currently available to you are via a plugin within HOOBS/HomeBridge, or via a MacOS app called Ambi Bridge, which does the same thing as the HomeBridge plugins, but resides on your Mac computer, if you don’t have use for HomeBridge besides getting the Mini into HomeKit. You can read our review of the HOOBS package HERE to learn more.

Whichever method you use, the Mini in HomeKit looks and acts just like any other thermostat in the Home app. I’ve been using the Tado V3+ Smart AC Controller for quite a while now (review HERE) and it has served me well, but what it doesn’t offer in the Home app is the Auto mode. The Mini does, which can go some way to reducing the need to keep adjusting your AC. It’s a small but possibly useful extra.

Another device I’ve had on test for a while, is the Aqara P3 AC companion, a smart plug specifically designed for larger Chinese AC plugs (16A) that typically come attached to wall or window-mounted AC units, that also acts as a Zigbee 3.0 hub, and alarm, as well as an AC controller, using IR. The P3 only exposes the standard three modes to HomeKit, so no Auto mode in this case, but what it does have is the ability to control both the fan speed, and the louver (labelled in the Home app as oscillate).

It should be noted that there are a few different HomeBridge plugins for the Ambi Climate devices, and some of the functions, like fan speed and oscillate are also exposed to HomeKit. It just depends on which plugin you go with.

AMBICLIMATE MINI IN USE

I’ve not had the Mini for too long, but as it uses the same functionality and sensors as the Ambi Climate 2, I feel like I’ve experienced it long enough to know it well, given that I’ve been running the latter for over a year now. Whilst it does the same job, it’s important to monitor any issues, like connectivity issues, sensor inaccuracies, or even any odd behaviour. So far the Mini has been very solid in its connection to my network, and it hasn’t disconnected once in the test period. I currently have it mounted on a wall directly below a Qingping Temperature and Humidity sensor (review HERE), and also above a OneLink Environment Monitor (review HERE) so I’m able to keep tabs on the relevant sensors in the Mini. I’ve found the sensor to be fairly close to both of these other sensors, so only a half percentage point out for humidity readings, and 0.5 – 1.0º for temperature, although this has fluctuated on occasion. Whilst that’s not a big deal at all to me, it could make a bigger difference to some, so it’s good that the app has the option to adjust these sensors if you want them to more closely match a sensor that you put more faith in.

I currently have the Mini running in HomeKit using the macOS app Ambi Bridge. I’ve also had it running in HOOBS, although my HOOBS box was offline for a period of time during my tests, so I stuck with Ambi Bridge. The small disadvantage with this option is that it relies on your computer running in order to control it via HomeKit, however, if you’re running Google or Amazon devices too, then there’s always something available to control it.

I was also going to mention that the other alternative to HomeBridge plugins would be the Siri Shortcuts integration, however, at present, I feel it’s rather limited, and as such isn’t a great alternative right now. In Shortcuts, you only have the ability to set the Comfort mode (so essentially turning the AC on, but only in this particular mode), or turning your AC off. They really should have more options, at least for turning the AC temperature up or down, so I’m not sure why it’s so limited.

That all said, if you’re going to use the A.I. functionality offered, it’s going to be a case that you shouldn’t need to control the AC yourself at all. Whether the subscription cost is warranted, is down to the individual, but the vast array of data you can glean from the Mini and the app is quite impressive nonetheless.

If I were to boil things down to exclusively using the Mini in HomeKit, then I would absolutely prefer they have official support, but I can’t see that happening for the time being, which I think is a shame. Still, if the company believes in their A.I. functionality to any large extent (which I’m sure they do), then having HomeKit integration does seem like a step-down, given what isn’t exposed to HomeKit. With that in mind, if you want a simple AC controller, there are a few other options available to you.

Full disclosure: Ambi Labs provided HomeKit News with the Ambi Climate Mini 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 AmbiClimate Mini Smart AC Controller (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

There are quite a few smart thermostats available these days that work with HomeKit, including devices from Honeywell, EcoBee, iDevices etc. but when it comes to AC unit controllers there aren’t currently too many choices, although just recently Tado released their Tado Smart AC Control V3+, which we’ll be reviewing soon. However, there is another product on the market that not only allows you to control your AC unit from your phone but also lets A.I. learning do a lot more to take control of your AC for you. This is the Ambi Climate 2 by Ambi Labs. I should point out from the start, that the Ambi Climate 2 is not HomeKit compatible ‘out of the box’, as such, but will work via plugins from HomeBridge, HomeAssistant or, if you have a Mac computer, then an app called AmbiBridge, that essentially does all the hard work normally associated with the aforementioned plugins, and puts them all into a little app that runs on your Mac. This will allow you to then add the Ambi Climate 2 to HomeKit via a QR code provided by the app. The Ambi Climate app also works with Siri Shortcuts, so if you don’t want to use any of the three previous options, you can still control your AC unit via Siri or the Shortcuts app.

UNBOXING
The packaging for the Ambi Climate 2 is pretty nice and in keeping with many other smart home products, we tend to see these days. The device itself is pictured on the front with a quick slogan on the front in both English and Chinese (A.I. Enhanced Air Conditioning Comfort). The rear of the box goes into a little detail about what makes this device smarter than other similar devices, which are essentially replacements for the IR remote controls you get bundled with your AC unit in the first place. The turquoise box is actually just a sleeve for the box-proper inside, which is all in ‘recycled style’ eco cardboard (I don’t actually know if it’s recycled…).

Once the sleeve for the packaging is removed, the first thing to greet you is the aforementioned card box with ‘hand drawn’ style printing. Removing the lid, you’re greeted by the device itself, held nicely in place, along with more icons in the same hand-drawn style.

Under the section that holds the unit, you get a small card wallet with two quick start guides in Chinese and English, along with a box holding the power cable and power supply.

The power cable is simply micro USB to standard USB, with the full-size USB end plugging into the included USB power supply. The micro USB end plugs into the rear of the device.

THE DEVICE
A quick look at the Ambi Climate unit reveals the Ambi Labs logo on the front along with a body in magnolia, topped off with a translucent area at the top which contains the IR transmitter as well as sensors for temperature, humidity and ambient light. This translucent portion is reflected on the back of the device too. The rear of the devices has a small hold for resetting or pairing the device. Next to that is a standard US port that is only designed for use when debugging the device, should it need to be repaired or otherwise tested by Ambi Labs. Finally, there’s a small micro USB port that the power cable plugs into.

The basic concept as to how this device works in the most basic sense is that it sends out the same IR signals your AC’s remote would send out, so in that sense, you could say it’s a replacement remote, although of course, it’s a lot more than that. This device allows you to control all aspects of the AC unit from your phone, and via voice control too, using either Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Siri. When it comes to voice control via Siri, you can use Siri Shortcuts to control the device, or if you want to use HomeBridge or HomeAssistant with the relevant plugin, then you can control the device like any other AC unit via HomeKit. The other option, if you prefer not to go into these options that invariably use a Raspberry Pi as a bridge device, is to install a small app on your Apple computer. The app – AmbiBridge – is essentially the same as the aforementioned plugins, but placed in an app that takes on all the hard work and simply lets you scan a QR code that then adds the Ambi Climate 2 to your HomeKit setup. The only issue here is that when you turn the computer off, the HomeKit connection is broken until you then turn the computer on again. This isn’t an issue for me, as my computer is always on up until I go to sleep, and as this device is used in the living room, there’s almost zero chance that the paired AC unit will be on when the household is asleep. As all of these options are not officially HomeKit compliant, adding the Ambi Climate 2 in these ways will generate the standard ‘This accessory is not certified and may not work reliably with HomeKit’. We’ll go into the HomeKit integration a little further later on.

INITIAL INSTALLATION
When adding the device your Home, regardless of whether you eventually decide to add it to HomeKit or not, involves initial setup via the Ambi Climate app. It’s a fairly painless process, which begins with you setting up an account. When that’s out of the way, you choose a device to add – Ambi Climate 1, Ambi Climate 2, or add a device from an invitation, so one that’s already set up. You then add your location (for getting accurate weather data) and the room in which the device will be used – living room, bedroom etc. Once that’s done, you will then go through the process of passing your wifi details to the device for connection, along with syncing the device to Ambi Labs AI cloud servers. After a few minutes, you should be up and running. You then need to start pairing the device to your AC unit. This is achieved by selecting the correct model of your remote, so that the Ambi climate 2 can basically mimic it, and control your AC as if it were the remote that came with it, only with additional smarts and with the ability to control it all via your smart device, or by voice. When you’ve selected the relevant remote mode, you then need to make sure the device is within range of the AC unit, in order for the Ambi Climate 2 to control it. The device will start sending out test signals to your AC and will ask you to confirm that the AC has responded accordingly. After that, you can begin to start using the device at will.

The initial screen shows four tabs, along with a circle in the centre of the screen indicating (in some cases) the mode that your AC unit is in – off in this case here. At the top are lines indicating the historical readings for both humidity and temperature levels in the room that the unit is located in, as well as the current levels, and the minimum and maximum levels reached up to that point. These historical lines will be generated as you begin to use the Ambi Climate 2, so initially, you may not see much. The first of the four tabs at the bottom is Analytics which is broken down into 3 further subsections – History, which gives you access to historical records of temperature and humidity levels, as well as basic mode use. This can be viewed by day, week or month, as well as allow comparisons for previous periods of use. the second subsection is Insights which reveals a staggering amount of data over six screens, detailing AC run time, Average AC set points, average temperature and humidity levels, mode usage, Comfort feedback, learned, and a diagram showing comfort factors via your own usage. The penultimate option is important in that this shows what the AI portion of the software learns about your preferences, and so eventually allows the Ambi Climate 2 to set the temperature, based on a wide variety of factors, so that you don’t have to make any adjustments, as it’s all done for you. This is pretty cool (no pun intended), but it will take a while to get to ‘know you’ and what you consider a comfortable temperature level. The AI doesn’t just access the temperature in the room however, as this is just one metric that could affect the comfort level you require. The AI takes into account the outdoor temperature, the light levels in the room, from outside light, which can affect the room’s relative ‘feel’. It also takes humidity into account, so when it takes all of these measurements, it should set the AC to a mode and level that always meets your level of comfort without you having to lift a finger – in theory. The AC Settings tab gives you access to both the preferences for the AC unit and the AI preferences. With these sections, you can let the Ambi Climate 2 control different aspects of the AC unit via the AC Controls subsection, so if you never use the heating element for example, then you can exclude this from the set of options it accesses. The same also applies to the speed of the AC’s fan, if your AC unit features such options. With the AI Controls subsection, you can control what functionality the AI can access in the AC unit, so if you don’t want it to use the DRY option when it calculates the best setting, you can set it as such.

The third and fourth tabs are Device and Mode, respectively. Device has subsections for Timers, which is self-explanatory, and Settings, which gives you access to all the device and app settings you need, including settings for wifi, device location, AC pairing, user management, sensor calibration, and even the brightness of the LED light at the front as well as the beep volume that the device pushes out for each action.

The Mode tab gives you different options on how to control the AC unit; Comfort, Temperature, Away, Manual and Off;

• Comfort mode allows you to tell the AI how you feel in terms of comfort, so when you press the circle icon in the middle of the main screen, it opens up to give you a range of choices, that then tell the AI if you’re Hot, Too Warm, A Bit Warm, Comfy, A Bit Cold, Too Cold, or Freezing. You tap this icon and choose the relevant option until you get to the ‘Comfy’ level. This all helps the AI work out the best settings for you over time.
• Temperature mode simply allows you to directly set a temperature that the unit will stick to.
• Away mode allows you to let the Ambi Climate 2 control your AC to keep your home within a desired temperature or humidity threshold.
• Manual mode lets you take control of the AC unit and set the desired temperature when using it with timers.
• Off well, you know what this does…it turns the AC off if you don’t need it to be running. This also means whilst temperature and humidity data are collected, no user data is, as you aren’t using it.

IN THE HOME APP
Adding the device to HomeKit via Ambi Bridge gets you two separate devices – the Ambi Bridge via the software version of the bridge to get the Ambi Climate 2 into HomeKit, and the Ambi Climate 2 AC unit. The Ambi Climate 2 gives you options for adjusting the temperature, via a slider that appears via a long press on the tile, in addition to an option to select the relevant mode – in this case, you get four options – Off, Heat, Cool or Auto. This doesn’t match the full range of controls you can achieve with either the Ambi Climate 2 app or the original remote control that would come with the AC unit, but it does allow for timers and automation, with other HomeKit enabled devices allowed to control aspects of your AC unit. The one install of the Ambi Bridge will add all the Ambi Climate devices you have in your home as separate accessories in HomeKit, and it is possible to customise in Ambi Bridge preferences which Ambi Climate mode maps to each HomeKit AC mode. There may be further options I’m not aware of via using the Ambi Climate via HomeBridge or HomeAssistant, so if anyone reading this is using it with either of these, feel free let us know.

You can find the Ambi Bridge app in the Mac App Store.

If you don’t want any of these options, the Ambi Climate app still works with Siri Shortcuts, so voice control is still within its skillset. Setting it up for Siri Shortcuts is pretty much the same as other devices, although you can’t set automations in the Ambi Climate app, so you have to rely on different Siri Suggestions to choose the options you need to control the device this way.

IN DAY TO DAY USE
At this point, it’s only fair to mention that I have had a few issues with the device itself, and I have had the team from Ambi Labs trying to work out the issue. We haven’t gotten to the bottom of the issue, but they have been helpful, and from my own tests, even though I haven’t gotten to the bottom of the issue, I think it’s down to an issue with either interference from other bridges (Zigbee perhaps), or some other interference I haven’t nailed yet. The problem is that I’ve been unable to set it up in the bedroom, where I tend to spend a lot of my work hours. Whenever you set up the Ambi Climate 2, you have to detect the device’s own signal, in order to connect to it and transfer your network details, so it can then connect to the network. For some reason, whenever I’ve attempted to set it up in the bedroom, my iPhone and iPad simply can’t detect the device’s signal, so I can’t set it up. However, if I take it into the living room, the problem disappears, I’m able to connect to the device, and from there continue with the setup. My bedroom has a LOT of wifi devices, including some ZigBee bulbs, a ZigBee hub, and a few Bluetooth devices, all in a fairly small area, so whilst I don’t really know if this is the issue, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that this could have something to do with it, considering this problem only occurs in the one room.

Putting that all aside, I have had it on test in the living room for the past few weeks, and it works with my Hitachi AC unit perfectly well, even though it didn’t have the exact remote control model I was using. I’ve also tested it with the other AC units we have here, which are all made by Daikin, and it works perfectly well every time. The key to making this device work really well is to provide feedback to the device, so the AI can work out your preferences, so you barely need to open the app or adjust the AC ever again, unless you want to analyse your data, which would be good if you want to see the costs incurred, and how small adjustments can save you more money. At the end of the day, this is as much about collecting the data for you to make use of, as it is about controlling your AC, but it does both equally well.

The amount of options available to users via the app, most notably in terms of data, is quite mindblowing, and even in terms of the device’s settings, there are a lot of options to customise the Ambi Climate to your liking, but that’s something for you to look into, if you think this is something you’d find useful. Even though I’ve yet to review one of the main competitors in this field, namely the Tado AC Control I mentioned at the start, this does have a large head start in terms of its AI skills and the deep data set that it can produce. The only thing you may want to consider is that it’s not HomeKit compatible out of the box, although Ambi Labs have said recently that due to HomeKit being their most requested feature from their current user base, integration with HomeKit is on their road map, so let’s hope that it’s more than Siri Shortcuts that plays nicely.

Full disclosure: AmbiLabs provided HomeKit News with the Ambi Climate 2 for the purpose of this review. No other compensation was made or requested.

The post Ambi Climate 2 AC Controller (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.