When I first started with HomeKit after getting my place outfitted with Phillips Hue lights and a couple of smart plugs to control a fan or two, the novelty soon wore off and I quickly became overwhelmed with always having to have my phone to do something that was just so natural before.  I even began to question the value of home automation in general.  What’s the point if it makes life MORE complicated.  This was about the time that I stumbled upon sensors.  I’ve said it before: sensors are where home automation truly live.  I grabbed the Eve Room v1 hoping to automate control of a fan in the summer and a heater in the winter, but this eventually led me down a path that has, without a doubt, improved my quality of life, as well as that of my family.  Since the writing of this review, Eve has announced an updated version of the Eve Room with some significant changes which will be discussed a bit later.

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Features

• When I first started with HomeKit after getting my place outfitted with Phillips Hue lights and a couple of smart plugs to control a fan or two, the novelty soon wore off and I quickly became overwhelmed with always having to have my phone to do something that was just so natural before.  I even began to question the value of home automation in general.  What’s the point if it makes life MORE complicated.  This was about the time that I stumbled upon sensors.  I’ve said it before: sensors are where home automation truly live.  I grabbed the Eve Room v1 hoping to automate control of a fan in the summer and a heater in the winter, but this eventually led me down a path that has, without a doubt, improved my quality of life, as well as that of my family.  Since the writing of this review, Eve has announced an updated version of the Eve Room with some significant changes which will be discussed a bit later.

Need to Knows

• Eve Room does not measure CO (carbon monoxide).  There are other HomeKit sensors that do, however.
• runs on 3 AA alkaline batteries
• battery lifetime is about 3 months
• Bluetooth Low Energy – BLE
• Eve recommends not using rechargeable batteries.  More on this below.

Pros

The Eve Room is a relatively small, white, plastic box that can be set on a horizontal surface in either flat or upright orientations.  The device is eerily reminiscent of the white plastic MacBooks from the early 2000s with a relatively glossy finish.  By no stretch of the imagination does it look bad and can blend in to and go largely unnoticed in almost any room or setup.

Admittedly, I was not so concerned about air quality, or really even temperature or humidity, in a room before picking up this device, but I’m certain now I should have been all along.  Initially, I just wanted to have a fan kick on whenever the temperature got a bit warm.  I then transferred this idea to a heater for the cooler months.  This was a game-changer without a doubt.  I, in fact, didn’t even mention to my wife that I had setup the fan to work automatically and when she noticed it for the first time, she literally said that she was hot and was about to get up to turn the fan on.  Mind.  Blown.  In terms of humidity, the humidity stays fairly consistent where I live except when it rains, of course.  But after doing a bit of investigating, I soon realized the benefits of humidity control.  I’ve not jumped into the humidifier/dehumidifier game just yet, but a dehumidifier is definitely on the list.

I personally have big problems with allergies and, to a lesser extent now that I’m all grown up, asthma.  Since snagging a Honeywell air purifier and setting up an automation using a HomeKit plug, I have noticed marked improvement in not only the freshness of the air, but in my breathing as well.  Without getting into the specifics regarding MEMs and PPMs and what VOCs are (you can read all about it in the links below), I’m now much more aware of different materials that are in my home, or at least my office and bedroom.  

Though this is less about the Room and more of a comment to Eve Systems themselves, about a year or so after purchasing the device, something went wrong with the device and it stopped responding entirely.  I emailed Eve support and within a week, I had a replacement unit at my door.  That, dear readers, is customer service and earns big brownie points in my book.

Cons

I honestly don’t have anything bad to say about this device.  It performs as advertised and expected.  This aside there are some slight drawbacks that you’ll probably want to be aware of, but one of these issues was addressed with the second iteration of the product.

The Eve Room, and the entire Eve line of products uses Bluetooth Low Energy, as opposed to WiFi, as its standard for connecting to HomeKit.  This is a great thing for battery life, but poses problems in terms of connectivity range.  This means you’ll want to have a Home hub within range if you want reliable info while away from home or for automations.  The HomeScan app is a great way to gain some insight as to where the ideal spot would be for a Home hub.

Although Eve Room is a BLE device, it’s still a pretty power hungry sensor and as such, requires relatively frequent battery changes.  Eve recommends not using rechargeable batteries which seems largely to maintain the user experience since, for me, changing the rechargeable batteries became a nearly weekly ritual.  

From time to time, I did have to do a soft reset of the device as it started displaying readings that were obviously erroneous, but this was a very infrequent occurance.  In the event that you need to perform a hard reset of the device, check out this video:

The App

Again, not only is there nothing really that negative to say about the app, but definite accolades are in order.  Though maybe not as pretty as Apple’s Home app, it is far more powerful in terms of setting up automations and, in fact, gives us access to triggers that are available with HomeKit, just not the Home app.  As of iOS 12, we still aren’t able to setup environment-based automations using Apple’s Home app.  Admittedly, there is a bit of a learning curve as far as nomenclature goes, once you get the hang of it, it’s a really useful app.  Even if you don’t have an Eve accessory, you can still use the app for your other HK accessories.

Automations based on environmental data can be powerful, but the data itself can be equally if not more so. The Eve for HomeKit app provides us graphical depictions of air quality, temperature, and humidity over hours, days, weeks, months, and the year. We can also see the specific measurements taken as well as export the data in the form of a spreadsheet and share that spreadsheet in a number of different ways.

Final Thoughts

While I don’t really mind talking to Siri for on-the-fly requests at home, it can be a bit cumbersome and can disrupt comfortable functionality when entertaining or just lounging about the house.  Sensors solve this with automations.  It’s a glorious thing when as soon as it’s a little warm or a little cool in a room, HomeKit kicks in and makes things just a bit more comfortable.  As I mentioned before, I wasn’t that concerned about air quality before getting Eve Room, but since have done research and made changes that have noticeably improved the air quality in my home.

Seemingly drawing on inspiration from the aluminum unibody Mac design, Eve Systems has released Eve Room v2.  It’s a sleek little number that solves some of the inconveniences of the first gen product and adds others.  While the updated accessory uses the same BLE connectivity as the original Eve Room, it has improved sensors for improved readings and has quite a reduced footprint compared to its predecessor.

The new version also boasts a rechargeable battery with claimed 6-week battery life and is easily topped up with any standard micro-USB cable.  A downside to this is that as the battery’s charge drains, air quality data is put on hold so bear this in mind if you want to use the device to trigger something like an air purifier.

The eInk display of the latest iteration of Eve Room is probably it’s most outstanding feature, however.  Easily seen from most any angle, the 2.1” display has capacitive buttons to cycle through 4 screens that display temperature, humidity, air quality, or all three.

If you are all-in on the idea of the smart home and HomeKit, the Eve Room is a must have.  As a matter of fact, all of Eve’s products are solid and should be considered when contemplating yourHomeKithome.  Whether you go with the fresh, new look of the Eve Room 2 or the first generation product, which I assume will be phased out in the near future, you will be pleased.  Eve Systems will be around for the foreseeable future and continue to crank out useful and good-looking HomeKit accessories and I can’t wait to see what comes to market next.

Which is your preferred HomeKit air quality sensor and why? How do you use the data from the sensor? The comment section awaits. Also, find us onn social media @myhomkithome for the latest and greatest inn HomeKit.

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Links & Resources

Read up on all of Eve Systems’ HomeKit products at https://www.evehome.com

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