If you’re a fan of Smart Home technology, you’re always on the lookout for new ideas and possibilities for expanding and optimizing your setup. For Apple users in particular, Eve Home has been one of the most compatible-with-HomeKit systems available. Eve Home has updated two of its products: Eve Weather and Eve Energy.
Eve Weather, Eve Energy review
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Of course these devices both work with Apple HomeKit but now they also take advantage of Thread technology, which is essentially a stronger and more versatile mesh network created through plugs and other smart home devices. Worth pointing out for some of you building your smart home: Neither device works with Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa, and for some remote and scheduling functionality you do need an I phone, and an Apple device to act as a home hub, like HomePod or an Apple TV (4th generation or later). I got samples of the newly redesigned devices to test out in my home to see what they can do, and how well they work.
What is Eve Weather?
Eve Weather is a weather monitoring device that provides temperature, humidity, and short-term (12 hours) forecasts/trends for its immediate area based on air pressure. Eve’s app allows you to see trends and graphs of changes to temps and humidity. Eve weather can be connected to HomeKit to provide automation options.
What is Eve Energy?
Eve Energy is an AC plug device that’s also an energy monitor: It records power usage, estimates energy costs, and tracks your trends. Eve’s app allows you to see trends and graphs of changes to usage and potential savings. You can also connect Eve Energy to HomeKit to allow you to remotely turn the plug on or off. Or schedule it to come on or shut off at certain times of day.
What’s in the Box?
What’s in the Box?Eve Weather: The box contains the Eve Weather, a CR2450 battery, and the quick start guide. You’ll need to download the Eve app and have internet access and either Bluetooth or a wireless connection to access most features.
Eve Energy: The box contains the Eve Energy plug and a quick start guide. You’ll need to download the Eve app and have internet access and either Bluetooth or a wireless connection to use the Energy.
Using Eve Connected Weather Station
Eve Weather now has an improved display and shows three key things: the current temperature where it is, the humidity level and a single icon by way of current weather conditions. You need the Eve app to view the trend data.
The Weather station can be mounted and used indoors or out, though this one is really made for outdoor use as it’s IPX4 water resistant.
The silver puck is small and sleek with an aluminum wrap. I will say though that the screen is hard to read.
The white on black text, while clear and easy to see when looking straight on, becomes completely illegible when viewed from any slight angle. Placing it on my desk I was unable to see it without picking it up. If you’re going to mount it, it must be at dead-straight eye level. It’s also not lit so it’s no good in the dark, and in bright environments, it’s also tough to review at a glance.
Where this device excels is in the HomeKit automation features. With the weather station acting as a trigger, you can, for example, connect it to the Eve Energy plug and if the temperature falls below a certain threshold, that can trigger a heater plugged into Eve Energy to turn on. Conversely a rise in temperature can cause a fan to spin up. Because of the outdoor nature of the Weather station, it would be ideal, for example, to use in a greenhouse.
While the Weather unit will share basic temperature, humidity and condition details, for any of the automation features to work, you need one of the aforementioned hub devices.
Using Eve Energy
Eve Energy works as both a smart plug and an energy monitor. You can set it to turn on and off on a schedule, control it through HomeKit’s app, or using Siri for remote voice control.
The app also monitors power usage through the plug and gives you readings about total consumption, projected costs, etc. That info can help with optimizing your home setup to save money.
The on/off functions work quite well and the response to Siri commands is quite instantaneous.
Routines
One of the often-overlooked advantages to sensors like Eve Weather and Eve Energy is their ability to provide triggers for automation routines. Having a temperature or humidity input means you can create a routine to trigger a fan or humidifier within a greenhouse, for instance. The Eve Energy can be configured to turn on and off when an Eve motion sensor detects someone is home, for example, or to turn itself on at sunset for ambient room light.
Overall thoughts: Eve home automation
Overall, Eve is definitely drinking Apple’s tea, and making smart, sleek and streamlined devices that integrate really well into the Apple ecosystem. These devices do exactly what they’re supposed to and work well. Downsides? With the Eve Weather in particular, the screen is hard to read, and with this whole system, you do need one of Apple’s more expensive devices as a hub to get full functionality.
I can recommend these for the HomeKit house, but for others, these likely won’t give you what you need.
Eve Energy plug/monitor sells for about $39USD, while the Connected weather station is about $69USD.
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