Sensibo Air Pro is a smart home product to control our cooling and heating from our phones, compatible with Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. It is amazing to consider that the very idea of having the ability to control AC from a phone seemed to be unimaginable few decades ago, but now the concept of smart home helps us to control and automate more than ever.

First, why do we need a smart remote when a traditional remote is a lot cheaper and can be reached out easily? There are 3 main benefits that I can think of: convenience, automation and remote access.

For convenience, I can turn on AC or heater in the middle of Teams video conference meeting while working from home because I always have my phone with me. Yes, theoretically we can always bring the traditional remote, but really who keeps AC remote on work desk every day? There are other use cases, such as controlling AC in other floor in multi storey house.

Automation is arguably the biggest benefit of smart home. Sensibo Air Pro allows us to set up geofencing, so that our cooling or heating system will turn on or off when we arrive or leave home. We could also set on/off timer every day, or integrate it with other devices in our home. For example, when motion sensor detection detects movement, when the door is opened, or many more.

Since Sensibo Air Pro also comes with built in temperature and humidity sensors, climate react feature allows us to set AC state when temperature goes above or below certain limits.

The Pro model comes with additional sensor: air quality. It can tell us TVOC (total volatile organic compounds) and CO2 levels in a room and alert us when they reach unhealthy situation. If you don’t need this, Sensibo Air model would be sufficient.

Remote access is another benefit we could not do with traditional remote. There are some scenarios where this could be useful, such us turning on AC when it’s too hot at home to give our pets better comfort while we are away.

Sensibo Air Pro connects to Wifi. It supports massive number brands of products to control. The initial process is reasonably easy, but I got a mixed experience with setting up the remote for the first time. The app asked me to point my original remote to the Sensibo Air Pro unit to detect the AC model. This worked instantly with my work room AC, but took me around 10 minutes for my living room remote.

Once initial set up is completed, we can use the device directly from Sensibo app. Connection to Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa would require additional steps.

Some options are available to choose from Sensibo app: turning on/off, choosing mode (cool, heat, fan, dry, auto or even more depending on your AC), choosing fan speed and swing settings (horizontal and vertical). We can also set up thermostat temperature.

Possible actions from Apple HomeKit is somewhat more limited. I could not set swing settings from HomeKit app, possibly because restriction from Apple’s smart home system at the moment. They could always change this in future versions. I did not test my Sensibo Air Pro with Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa.

If there is anything I do not like from this product is that the app sends me annoying notifications asking me to open the window to improve air quality. In winter when it was freezing cold out there and I had my heater cranked up, surely they can do some smarts not to recommend me to open my window and undo the effort of warming the room.

My overall experience with Sensibo Air Pro is quite positive so far. After first successful purchase, I got another one for different room. They are actually useful in daily routines and I would easily recommend them.