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Hungary, Budapest
1 Level
473 Review
0 Karma

Review on ๐ŸŒ€ Smartmi 38-Inch Outdoor Oscillating Pedestal Fan - 3,100 Speeds, Portable & Quiet, 120ยฐ Oscillation & 40ยฐ Tilt, Ideal for Bedroom, Home Office - Works with Alexa, Cordless, Remote Included by Donna Tran

Revainrating 1 out of 5

Stops working with Alexa

11/30/2021: downgraded to 1 star because everything worked fine. Then they did something to Skill and now it doesn't even find a fan, effectively removing the Alexa integration entirely. So now I have to take my phone, find the app, open it and make manual adjustments. VERY unsatisfied with it. And yes, I tried deleting and re-adding the skill. BTW, the Mi Family's ability is gone, so maybe that's the part that made it work earlier. The Mi Home skill is there, but does nothing. 10/01/2021: So, I got this because when it's cool I want to blow cool air into my open patio window, but I could control it without walking onto the patio. Other fans have remote controls, but it's a detour so I wanted WiFi. Also because the outside sensor can tell me the outside temperature. And also because at certain times of the year I want it to stop blowing around midnight because it gets TOO cold. So there are many requirements for the humble fan. But not for SMART FAN! The packaging is good except for one small thing. There were NO instructions and there were about a dozen of them. I've collected fans before, so it wasn't necessarily a deal breaker. However, I will say that this would be a disappointment if I didn't have some experience and enough opportunities to break a few things while trying. I think with simple instructions my assembly time would have been about five minutes instead of the about 45 it took me to do everything myself. I will send you an invoice for the wasted time! (Not really, waste of paper.) Anyway, I put everything together and found that without instructions I can't know which app to look for. Someone in the Q&A here said about the "Mi Home" app, so I tried it and it worked. He found the fan, requested network login information, sent it to the fan for him to log in, and BAM! Did. Next comes Alex. Someone in the Q&A said I should install the "SmartMi Family" skill, which I did, and BAM! Ready. And now my impressions. EXACTLY what you wanted! First, it's shorter than expected, which is good. I had several larger fans that could fall off. It seems more sustainable. However, this is only partly due to his small stature. This is partly due to the very low weight of the upper parts (fan and cage are made of light plastic) and the weight of the batteries in the lower part. The height is perfect for my needs and I find most people choose Air. This fan moves more air than I expected, even after reading here that it moves more air than expected. I mean come on! Its fan is significantly smaller than others who don't move as much air as I do. For me it's all about the air. A doctor once told me that I need air to live, so I followed his advice and drank it regularly. I'm not impressed with the fact that this fan has hundreds of speed settings (needs an app anyway). The four settings that you can access with the remote control are therefore perfectly placed on the airflow curve. Yes. Finally OTHERS (trumpet notes): The light is bright. If it were in my bedroom I would cover it with a sheet made just for such things. I have it above almost every other LED in my bedroom. Tried dimming via the app to no avail. The beep is loud and annoying. It can be turned off with the app, but not shut down. It's ok for me as it's far out, but someone might have a thorn under the saddle. I don't care about "Natural" mode (changes speed automatically), but you're not me. Surprise! Different strokes for different people, right? One oddity that caught my eye is that the temperature gauge on the app's main screen reads F (I'm in the US, where we refuse to join the 20th-century madmen who want a world standard that just makes sense ). However, when I click on the device to control it, the temperature is in C. MY THEORY is that because I gave up location rights when I first set it up, it was in C. Later, when I discovered it would cause problems, I modified it and gave it location permissions so the home screen would recognize that and navigate to F. I could be wrong, and it doesn't really matter, but it's weird. The application itself is like another oddity, but overall it works well and anyone born after 2000 can figure it out, and about 75% of those born before that. Valued. I have not done any scientific research. I LOVE that it can be rotated with the remote control! First, there are several different "arches" to choose from. Not something I would use often, but nice. But there are also buttons in the application that you can use to move it left/right incrementally. So in my configuration it's cool because if he's out there and gets hit or something I can retarget him without getting all the way out! It can be rotated by remote control. I can't "pick up" with the remote control. So you can adjust it left/right but not up/down. That's all I can think of for now, apart from the usual warning. As with ALL IoT devices, make sure you DO NOT connect this to the same network as your computer and computer-like devices such as tablets. The IoT is very vulnerable to hacking and you don't want your computer/tablet compromised. If you have a separate router/network, use that. If not, use your main router's guest network to separate them. If your router doesn't have a guest network, buy a new router as it's WAY outdated. Also, update your router firmware regularly. (The new routers automate this process, thank goodness! If all those old routers die, a lot of botnets will die too!)

Pros
  • Few competitors
Cons
  • unreliable