Cielo Breez Eco and Plus smarten up your air conditioner at a fair price
Description
If you like smart home gadgets and live somewhere with a thermostat installed, you are in luck. Nest, Ecobee, Honeywell and other big companies are claiming a place on your wall and in your phone app drawer. But if your home is equipped with a ductless system, such as an air conditioner with a split device, AC window, portable or floor, cassette type or heat pump, the options are more limited and less known.
Over the past year, I have reviewed both the Cielo Breez and the Sensibo Sky, two of the best solutions for converting a normal AC to a connected one. Now Cielo has released two more models: Breez Plus ($ 109) and Breez Eco ($ 69). The first is a more powerful version of the regular Breez that can also be mounted on a wall, such as a regular thermostat. The second is currently the best value for money in the smart AC market.
Material, installation, what is in the box
Leaving the cheap white plastic model, the two new Breez units are all black. They also look significantly less old-fashioned, although the design is even more utilitarian than beautiful. For something designed to stay on your wall or sit in plain view to catch your AC, a more modern and sophisticated look would be welcome. But let’s appreciate the improvement over the older Breez.
The Eco looks like Cielo’s answer to the Sensibo Sky: screenless, black, rectangular (former) shape. It has a button in the middle, which easily turns the AC on and off, thus providing at least a natural way to control it without the application, the remote control or the voice commands. You can support it on its base, stick it to a wall or vertical surface or screw it to the wall. Powered by MicroUSB and comes with cable and wall charger.
The Plus is the high-end model in the Breez series. It is also black, has a screen and buttons and can be powered via MicroUSB or mounted on the wall using a 12V or 24V power adapter (instructions) just like a normal thermostat. This is why the Plus is available with two options: a wall plate and screws, and a regular table base, as well as a MicroUSB cable and charger.
Left: Breez Plus and its accessories. Correctly: Breez Plus from behind.
The screen has all the information you would normally receive from the AC remote control (temperature in large font, AC mode, rotation position, fan speed) plus current room conditions (temperature and humidity) and WiFi signal strength. Below that, the four buttons allow you to turn the AC on and off and raise or lower the temperature. The menu feature controls the functions, rotation positions and fan speed, so you do not need the regular AC remote control and rely on Breez Plus, even if there is no connection. It just sends infrared signals to the AC, without fuss.
Adjustment and use
Once you connect your Breez, regardless of the model and power method, it starts broadcasting its own WiFi network, which is used for setup. Open the Cielo app, create an account (Google login supported), and start the process of adding a new drive. This requires you to connect directly to the Breez network, then teach him your home WiFi, give it a name, and choose which remote control to emulate. Since the Breez – like all smart ACs – works as a connected infrared remote control, all you need to make sure is that the remote control is compatible.
The Cielo app has not changed much from my review of the original Breez, although it has not been abandoned. Updated every two months to clear bugs and add some new features. It is not the most beautiful application on the block, but we have seen much worse. Allows me to turn many units on and off from the home screen or to deepen in special controls to change operating modes, fan speed, rotation position and temperature. I can also turn off the Breez Plus screen, change its brightness, or turn off the touch controls.
But the most distinctive feature of the Cielo – at least compared to the Sensibo – is its detailed charts. Thanks to them, I can see how many hours I have turned on each AC in the last one, seven and thirty days. There is also a log of every action performed and by whom, with notifications, so I always know when something is causing a change in my AC modules. So I know Cielo is not behaving badly for any good reason.
Screenshots of the Cielo application. Yes, I have called two of my ACs “hot and steamy” and “easily cool”.
The app also offers some automation capabilities, such as multiple schedules and geofence triggers, but still does nothing really “smart”. Instead of adjusting the AC temperature, as any partition owner would tell you, I would like to set the temperature range I want my room to be in and let Cielo handle it for me without any input. Is it cold? Turn on the hedge setting. Hot now? Lower it to keep things cool. I think technology has evolved enough to make us expect that advanced characteristics. I would also like a proper night mode without the need for multiple programs: turn on the AC at a certain temperature for about the first hour or so and then switch to a more moderate setting throughout the night.
In everyday use, I find myself interacting little with the application of Cielo, because it is not needed. My husband and I are attracted to Google Home / Assistant with their voice controls or even using the regular AC remote control. As the Cielo also picks up the remote control’s infrared signals, it synchronizes its state accordingly so that things continue to work smoothly.
One last thing to mention is the lesser known Cielo Web application which provides almost the same controls as well as a slightly more grouped trend analysis. It is neat to have if you want statistics for all your units or you are sitting at your desk and you do not want to spread the phone to check your AC.
Smart home integration
The integrations still belong to Cielo slightly weak spot. There is no IFTTT channel and there is no compatibility with any other node, which may not matter as the smart home moves away from the nodes, but I will not mention it now. Not working with SmartThings or Wink means that your ACs will live on their own.
Fortunately, there are basics: both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa are supported. I use the former because I have Google Homes and Lenovo Smart Display at home and in my pharmacy.
To avoid the weird names I gave my ACs, the Assistant knows them as Tommy and Jerry.
Cielo units look like any thermostat in the Home app, so I was able to give them the name I wanted, assign them to a room, and use both the app and the Assistant to turn the AC on or off, change the temperature or even check the current temperature in the room. They even fit into routines, so it’s easy to turn them off when I tell Google I’m leaving or set a proper temperature with my sleep routine.
If I use Google Home in the same room as one of the ACs, I do not even need to remember the device or room name. I just ask “Hey Google, turn on the thermostat” and he knows who I’m talking about. This is a feature of Google, not a Cielo, but it’s worth mentioning.
I currently have two Cielo units at home and one at my pharmacy, and one of my absolute favorites was to ask Google Home, in the morning at home, to turn on the pharmacy thermostat before I leave. The cold weather has not subsided in recent weeks, so instead of arriving at an icy pharmacy, it is acceptable to be warmer until I’m there.
And because my house is shared with my husband, he can control the AC of our house without having the Cielo app installed. Before he gets home, he just asks Google to turn on the AC he wants and the room is cool or warm from the moment he is there. After using it for a few days, he gave his seal of approval for the existence of a smart AC. (If you are a fan of smart home in your home, you know how important it is to get it.)
Do you have to buy it?
Probably yes. The value of a smart AC depends on the reasons you receive it. If you often forget to turn off the AC before leaving the house, if you prefer your bedroom to be cool / warm when you go to bed (depending on the seasons) but you would not be bothered by a moderate temperature all night, then a connected AC can easily save you money in the long run. If you only want it for the ease of turning the AC on / off before you get home or to control it with voice commands, then only you can tell what the right price is for it.
Suppose you are convinced of the idea and that the cordless system has a remote control. The two decent options right now are Cielo and Sensibo. I have considered many other alternatives and there has always been at least one downside. Having used both for many months, I found that the few differences between them are not so important to me. Both have decent applications that allow me to do the same things, offer built-in Google Assistant with the same commands, and were reliable with almost no reporting problems.
That’s why I think the new Breez Eco and Plus currently represent some of the best prices on smart ACs. At $ 69, the Eco is one of the cheapest options available, surpassing the Sensibo Sky ($ 89 off, $ 119 on regular days) in direct comparison. As for the Plus, the additional controls and display information and the option of wall mounting can be attractive enough to guarantee the price of $ 109.
Buy them if:
- Adding a smart component to your AC can save you money in the long run
- You will want to turn on the AC and adjust the temperature before returning home
- Not sure about all these smart ACs, but $ 69 for the Eco is quite reasonable
Do not buy them if:
- Do you have a duct system with a normal thermostat (duh)
- Your smart home gadgets need to be fully integrated with IFTTT, Wink or SmartThings – get a Sensibo Sky instead
- Expect your “smart” AC to be really smart, to learn from your behavior, to predict things etc … We are not there yet, unfortunately
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