Netatmo Healthy Home Coach Climate Monitor is a smart device for home automation compatible with Apple HomeKit platform. As the name suggest, this device is an indoor air quality monitor capable of detecting temperature, humidity, CO2 level and even noise. Different from some Elgato Eve sensors that I have reviewed before, Netatmo HEalthy Home Coach Climate Monitor uses WiFi connectivity instead of Bluetooth. It means this sensor should have more stable connection in theory because it does not rely on nearby iPad or Apple TV to act as HomeKit Hub. Instead, it will stay connected as long as it has WiFi signal at home.

Setting up this sensor is easy. Download the Home Coach app from Netatmo, follow some steps and it will be done in no time. The app interface is clean and simple to see the current reading. I’m not a big fan of how it shows the historical data though. In my opinion, some of the interactions needed are not quite intuitive and having to hold the phone horizontally to see graphical chart is rather silly. Eve’s app is by far my favourite compared to Netatmo’s.

Air Quality sensor measures CO2 ppm. According to the app, excellent air quality is when the CO2 level in a room is under 900 ppm with 400 ppm as the ideal goal. Noise sensor shows noise level in dB with under 50dB described as Quiet, ideal for sleeping.

Thanks to its WiFi connectivity, refreshing the data shown in our phone is significantly faster compared to refreshing data of Bluetooth-based sensors. However, this Netatmo sensor needs to be constantly powered through micro-USB cable. There is no batter nor battery slot and it will be off without power supply. I suppose that’s reasonable trade off from using WiFi connectivity: it needs significantly more energy than Bluetooth-based sensors.

Overall, this is still a good smart home sensor that I would recommend if someone prefers sensor with WiFi connectivity. It will not be my personal choice to some quirk with app user interface, and it’s slightly less flexible to position because it needs constant power.