HOW CLEAN IS YOUR AIR?: The Elgato Eve Room

As  one of the first smart-home products to take advantage of Apples homekit, I wish the Elgato Eve Room was a better communicator. In concept, it's cool, but in practice, it's a little white box that has one unique trick among its otherwise mundane skill set.

If you want an air quality sensor that can determine the number of volatile organic compounds in the air, while also measuring temperature and humidity, the Elgato Eve Room will do it, chart the numbers for all three criteria, and send the data to your Bluetooth enabled iOS device. Because it's accurate, I can see this device being useful for allergy sufferers, or those painting or doing construction to their home, trying to figure out if the room they've aired out is now safe to inhabit.

You'll pay $80 for this device to get those readings. Amongst the three criteria it measures, air quality is the one that helps the Eve Room stand out, but because the device doesn't have push notifications and because it only works with Bluetooth, none of its readings are as useful as they could be. Some of the Elgato Eve Room's limitations might work themselves out as HomeKit gains maturity as a platform. In the meantime, don't let me stop you if you have a specific use in mind for the Elgato Eve Room, but don't waste your money if you're just looking for a broadly applicable HomeKit sensor. 

THE GOOD: Get accurate readings on humidity, temperature and the amount of volatile organic compounds you might be breathing everyday, with the Elgato Eve Room. It also has a handy HomeKit compatibility built in, so you can use Siri (iDevice only) to check on its temperature or humidity readings.

THE BAD: Without push notifications and limited in range by Bluetooth, you can't actually do anything with those readings other than look at them. It also takes days to properly calibrate to a new location. So unless you're all about the numbers, you might want to rethink. 

THE FINAL CONCLUSION: Temperature and humidity readings are easy to come by, but the Eve Room is an apt sensor that can work for you especially if you have a specific need for its unique VOC readings. For now, though, it's severely limited in ways to use that info and barely qualifies as a smart device.