This review will be slightly awkward, as the latest product from SwitchBot’s lineup is… how to put it mildly: completely unnecessary. At least for me – a person living in the North of the UK who battles regularly with the excessive moisture seeping inside. When SwitchBot asked me to review their new humidifier – I had to double-check with them. Surely DEhumidifier is what they meant?
With that said – I’ll do my best! Oh! I’m totally stoked about the new SwitchBot Meter Pro – which came as part of the set!
SwitchBot Evaporative Humidifier
While I’m not the intended audience for this device, some of you might be. Whether you live in a sunny place, care for tropical plants, or struggle with asthma or allergy, nice humid air can make a massive difference in the quality of the sleep you get. The UK just entered the wettest period of the year and I can’t believe I’m testing SwitchBot Evaporative Humidifier right now.
SwitchBot Evaporative Humidifier aims to keep your air nice and humid, regardless of environmental conditions outside. Filled with water, it will ensure that air humidity never drops below the desired value. The side benefit of using one is that moist air absorbs more temperature and can provide a cooling effect in hot weather.
It connects to WiFi (2.4GHz) and offers rich controls in the SwitchBot app. To take full advantage of it, you are required to get one of the SwitchBot Meters. They sent me SwitchBot Meter Pro, but the SwitchBot Evaporative Humidifier can be linked to any SwitchBot device reporting environmental info:
Smarter than your humidifier
If you already own a SwitchBot S10 vacuum (review), the humidifier gets even smarter. Aside from the built-in tank that you can manually top up, you can schedule regular water top-ups performed by SwitchBot S10. At the bottom section hidden under a white panel – there is a docking station what accepts water input from the vacuum.
As appealing as it sounds to never have to think about this again – there is a catch! SwitchBot S10 can take the clean water from your portable tank or the mains hook-up and add it to the SwitchBot Evaporative Humidifier as long as the vacuum’s mopping station isn’t automatically mixing the cleaning solution. It’s a bit of a bummer, as unless I run out, I would always use the cleaning solution to keep my hard floors spotless. Bear in mind that the SwitchBot Evaporative Humidifier holds more water in the tank than the S10’s tank add-on.
If you want one for yourself, you are expected to spend £199.99 in the UK – but you can buy it cheaper during promotional times and when shopping for combo deals.
Two letters away from perfection
Using SwitchBot S10 to refill the water, was a stroke of genius, and the device would have had even brighter feature ahead if was made as DEhumidifier. Imagine how awesome SwitchBot dehumidifier would work with S10. Able to capture and condese the damp air of the UK and use that water to refill your S10 mopping station! Dehumidifiers in the UK fill up very quickly!
I pitched this idea to SwitchBot, I hope they will consider it for their next release. I suspect, that despite smart tech in SwitchBot Evaporative Humidifier, the device will sell poorly in this country.
EDIT:
They took it seriously:
In action
There isn’t much I can say about it. My bedroom humidity oscillates between 60% and 65% depending on whether I forget to switch the extraction fan on! (Having said that, I should really put a SwitchBot Bot on that switch! Duh!). So I increased the humidity to 70% and left it running.
My room is spacious, over 20m² and SwitchBot Evaporative Humidifier has no problem keeping set humidity at bay. Granted this was only a small increase, but you have to cut me some slack. For the last two days, the forecast informed me about 90% humidity outside of my window! It’s worth noting that 70% is a lot of water and I’d go through the tank of water in a week or so.
One thing that I should mention is the sound. It’s audible – especially at night. While the app offers DND settings and a night mode alongside schedules, if you choose to run it at night, you have to accept a consistent hum of the device. I could sleep with this 1 meter away from my bed, but I rather have it off.
SwitchBot Meter Pro
It comes in 2 variants: SwitchBot Meter Pro and SwitchBot Meter Pro with CO2 sensor. I already loved SwitchBot Meters as they can act as standalone loggers thanks to local storage that takes months to fill up! SwitchBot Meter Pro takes things to another level, by offering a completely flexible way to utilise its display.
SwitchBot Meter Pro offers the same features as SwitchBot Meter Plus (temperature and humidity measurements) with alarms and custom ranges and indicators, but the display does more than just flip back and forth between temperature units.
If you pick the more expensive version with CO2 monitor – the value in PPM is presented on the display as well, alerting you about less than stellar air quality in the room. The easiest way to fix that is to open the window and air the room allowing the CO2 levels to fall back to more neutral levels.
Flexible display
In the SwitchBot app, you can define the source of data you wish to display on the large LCD screen. Apart from time, date and the environmental data of the built-in sensor, the app allows you to show weather forecast for your location, display information from another sensor (for example: from SwitchBot Indoor/Outdoor Thermo-Hygrometer stored inside your greenhouse) or SwitchBot Hub.
To make things even more fun, the default row (top) that holds the built-in sensor’s data can be swapped over too. All this while SwitchBot Meter Pro gathers its own metrics that can be used in the automation panel to trigger other things.
The sensor is powered by 2 AAA batteries and will last for a year, the CO2 version is more power hungry due to the air quality monitor, so it also offers permament USB-C power option. If you pick the version without CO2 you are expected to pay £34.99 and going for the “true pro” version with CO2 sensor will set you back £59.99.
Shop for Switchbot
Get Switchbot devices in the following stores:
Final thoughts
I may as well unplug it and wait until summer or the impending climate change – whichever comes first. SwitchBot Evaporative Humidifier can keep the humidity of the room, but I would love to see a device that works both ways (and uses S10 to remove excess water) and purifies the air while at it. That would sell well in the UK. On the positive side, I have 2 very capable SwitchBot Meter Pro to assign to my rooms. Let me know what are your thoughts about these in this Reddit thread.
🆓📈💵 – See the transparency note for details.
