UbiBot WS1 WiFi Environmental Sensor: Temp, Humidity, Light Monitoring | External Probe | Alerts, Schedule Reports & Device Sharing | Local Deployment| IFTTT & Alexa | 2.4GHz WiFi, No Hub Needed

I placed the UbiBot WS1 in my living room. Its small, inconspicuous design blends right in but packs a useful punch. Setup was super easy: plug it in, connect to WiFi via the app, and I was monitoring conditions in minutes. The connection stays solid even if my router cycles occasionally. I set multiple temperature and humidity alerts, and the instant push notifications warned me when levels crept toward risk. The app is clean and intuitive for checking history or tweaking thresholds. When I had a quick calibration question, support responded promptly and guided me step by step. Love how hassle-free and handy this little device is!

I have 30+ years experience working with computers and software. I also have some experience building Arduino devices that can give temperature and humidity readings. I was optimistic when purchasing this device, but soon found some serious issues.1) The first red flag was when a text came in shortly after registration. I opened the text message and it seemed to be a multi point series of statements that were larger than the little window within the app. The messages were each with a bullet point number and as they read to the right margin, I was unable to read the entire message because the text ended with a ... three dot suffix, and so I clicked on the right margin to read the entirety of each line of text and was unable to expand the text. The programer failed to turn on word wrap, and the 4 or 6 statements the support team sent me were unable to be read. They struggle to turn on word wrap so that I can read their statement? Really? This was the first in a series of red flags that continued to keep happening.2) The second problem was when I began to monitor the battery voltage. It took about 5-8 hours before the battery voltage was so low, I concluded that two 'AA' batteries would never work, and that I would need to go with some other form of power for the device. Note that in the specs it claims that you can run the unit on 4 'AA' batteries for four months (this is a bold face lie). This is the second red flag that something was amiss with this product.3) I watched the battery voltage drop off quite fast, and lowered my data requests down to every 10 minutes for temp. and humidity. I even turned off all other sensors so that I could conserve as much battery as possible. The voltage dropped down quickly to an even lower level.4) I decided to connect my phone battery charger and give it ample power. The instructions claim that you can connect it to a micro USB cable and then into your computer, and so I basically used a phone charging battery as a more ample way of giving the device what it needed. The voltage read even lower, like it was unable to deal with the phone battery plugged into the unit. Unable to read any of the recommendations that were sent in the un word wrapped document, I decided to remove the "AA" batteries to force it to get power from the micro USB connection, where my phone battery was connected. I watched the voltage go up to 5 volts, and I don't know if this was too high, and no information was available to indicate this was a problem. It registered 5 volts without any "voltage too high" alerts, and so I thought this must be ok (poor programming to not indicate if the voltage is too high or too low). Now the problem was with the data not being able to draw a graph. If its not one thing its another. I don't wish to go round & round with one problem after another if they haven't yet got this device to work properly. I'm not a beta tester, and when I spend $80 for a device that claims to work for professional use??? I expect it to be reliable, and not give me problem after problem after problem after problem.5) I contacted the support & they sent me an e-mail wanting the serial number of the unit. Here we go with the endless emails where they can't comprehend anything, and only answer 1 out of my ten issues. What they are doing is getting you to go back and forth long enough until the return period ends. I've dealt with this before, and the best way to handle it is to set a limit on the time and number of exchanges you will have with them.6) I don't trust any of the 5 star reviews. They build these units for $5 each, and if they give 100 of them out freely, with the requirement that you must give them a 5 star review, the receiver of such a deal will be writing the review within the first 1 hour of use, not realizing the unit will begin to fail within 8 hours, and/or the features will be less than what is indicated in the specs.

I purchased this to help automate a few smart-home features. The main reason I got this unit was to monitor the temperature and humidity in a room. If the humidity increased behind 50%, it would trigger an event via IFTTT and turn on a room fan via GE-ZWave, wireless smart light switch through a wink hub. Then once the humidity dropped below 50% it would turn off the fan. And as a precaution, I have IFTTT monitor the switched on fan, if it happens to run for more than 60 minutes, it would automatically turn it off. Then, if the humidity is still above 50%, the process will start over again.Also, another use I have for it, is to monitor water temperature in a water tank. I installed a deicer heating element in the tank, and when submerged optional DS18B20 sensor reports to the unit, it uses IFTTT to control a wemo insight switch. When the temperature drops below 30 deg F, it will turn on the wemo insight switch and start the deicer element. When the temperature is above 33 deg F, the insight switch turns off the deicer element. There is a backup protocol I setup with IFTTT just to be sure the deicer does not stay on all the time.PROSNow couple that with all the additional features (Air Temperature, Humidity, Ambient Light Intensity, Vibration Index Sensor, On board memory storage of data, and free 200MB cloud service account to get started, connect to house Wi-Fi, battery or DC powered, add external sensors (two microusb inputs), and connectivity to RS485 devices), I would have to say this is a nice little compact package that could be installed almost anywhere. Granted you will have longer performance if you can power this from an outlet instead of relying on batteries.Very straight forward setup process. With an app that walks you through the setup process.Has an entry level free tier to get you started. If you pay for a subscription and higher tier you can send alerts as SMS and voice call as well as increase the amount of data storage.Able to display history of data in graph view, and select a data-point to view the data (sorta, it is a bit clunky though).Battery or External Power supply.Adjustable data reporting / reading frequency (pre-programmed options 10, 30, 60 minutes. Custom has a minimum 1 minute and higher value in whole number increments).Power saving options.Reports battery voltage and Wi-Fi signal strength.Setup Alerts rules to report as a notification on a mobile device or email (free tier subscription).View data channels on mobile device (personally tested on iPhone X, and other iOS devices) as well as a web interface through their management console portal.Generates API keys automatically and setups your device for your account. For IoT developers, you can obtain your devices API keys for building your management system.Works with IFTTT and integrates into smart-home setups (tested with Wink Hub 2, Wemo devices).CONS (To be honest, not really cons, just things to be aware of. This really is a great product.)I did find the picture of the external temperature sensor (DS18B20) with the product a little misleading. And yes, you have to read below the picture to realize it was an option. If you are a picture shopper like me, then you may miss that. I was expecting an external sensor to come with the device, but was mistaken.(More of a disclaimer, not a con) For people that us English system of measurements, the Ubibot alert rule values are in metric only. However, if you use IFTTT to monitor readings, then you can use that to adjust your threshold values in English units.If you are a developer and need faster data frequency readings, then you are limited to 1 minute device recording, and then the speed of you network to get the data to external data servers. Fastest data frequency is 1 minute.