Cigar Oasis Wi-Fi Attachment

This year at the 2014 IPCPR Trade Show, Cigar Oasis showcased its new wi-fi capabilities that would integrate with its humidification devices.  By leveraging these new capabilities, it is now possible for the cigar enthusiast to regulate and monitor the conditions in their humidor from a remote device.  This is accomplished by adding the Cigar Oasis Wi-Fi attachment to the Cigar Oasis humidification device.  At the trade show, the demonstration of the use of the Wi-Fi attachment was impressive.  Recently, I’ve had an opportunity to test drive the Wi-Fi attachment myself.  After putting it to use, I found this to be an invaluable accessory for the cigar enthusiast.

The Cigar Oasis Wi-Fi attachment integrates into its “Next Generation” (2.0) of its humidification devices.  These were introduced early last year.  For this assessment of the Wi-Fi attachment, the device was integrated with the Cigar Oasis Ultra 2.0 humidification device.  This is something we assessed back in September.  For the Wi-Fi Attachment, this was tested for a period of close to 90 days.

Cigar Oasis Ultra 2.0 and Cigar Oasis Wi-Fi Attachment
(Wi-Fi Attachment shown inside humidor for photography purposes)

Through a mobile application or web-browser, one can set humidity, monitor the current humidity and temperature conditions as well as recent history of those attributes.  In addition, alerts can be configured for low battery and low water.

Installation

There are three components that require installation and configuration: The Wi-Fi Device, the Mobile Application, and adding the device to your Network .  While there are instructions provided, I highly recommend using Cigar Oasis’ How to Videos.  I have found them to be excellent when installing Cigar Oasis products and for the Wi-Fi attachment, this is no exception.  It might seem a little daunting to install, but overall this is not a hard to follow process.

1) Physical Installation of the Wi-Fi Attachment: This involves connecting the Wi-Fi attachment to the Cigar Oasis Humidification Device  Instead of plugging the ribbon cable from the Cigar Oasis Humidification  Device into the USB connector for the power supply, you now plug the ribbon cable into the Wi-Fi attachment and the USB cable leading to the power supply now plugs into the Wi-Fi attachment.  Using velcro provided, Cigar Oasis recommends mounting the Cigar Oasis unit to the side of the humidor.

Connection of the Cigar Oasis Wi-Fi Attachment

2) Installation of the Mobile Cigar Oasis Mobile Application:  While you can perform functionality from a web-browser when using the wi-fi capabilities, the functionality is more robust from the mobile applications.  The Mobile Application is free of charge can be installed from the iTunes Store (Apple iPhone or iPad) or Google Play (Android).  There aren’t specific installation instructions, this defaults to the normal application download and install process for those platforms.  Once you install the Mobile Application, you will need to create an account – which you can do from the Mobile Application.

3) Installation of the Wi-Fi Attachment to Your Network:  In order for the Wi-Fi attachment to send and report data, it must be added to your local network.  While there are both written or video instructions provided, I highlight recommend the video here.  While you can do this configuration from either an internet browser or your mobile device, Cigar Oasis highly recommends the mobile device for simplicity – and I concur with that.

Wi-Fi Mobile Applications

As mentioned, when you use the Mobile Application or use the web browser interface, you will need a userid and password to logon.  If you don’t have an account, it can easily be created from the Mobile Application or web browser interface.

Login Window to the Cigar Oasis Mobile App
(iPad Version)

The nice thing about the Apple and Android Apps is that they are virtually identical.  There is no need to learn another interface.

Cigar Oasis Mobile Applications:
iPad (Left), Android (Upper right)
Cigar Oasis Mobile Application – Android

On the Apple device, while it installs on the iPad, it is really an iPhone application.  When downloading the app, you will need to search under iPhone.  The Cigar Oasis app works fine, but has some of the normal restrictions of running an iPhone designed application on the iPad (screen size, keyboard, etc)

Cigar Oasis Mobile Application – Apple

As mentioned, the Apple and Android Applications have the most robust functionality.  The use cases you will use the app for are regulating and monitoring conditions in your humidor via a Cigar Oasis humidifier.  There is one important limitation: alerts cannot be configured through the mobile application.  Configuration for alerts require the web-browser.

Web-Site

The web-site can be accessed at the url wifi.cigaroasis.com.  As mentioned, like the mobile applications, you will need a userid and password to access.

wifi.cigaroasis.com – Web Browser Interface

Regulate

The arrow keys on the Mobile Application or the Web Browser allow to set the humidity level generated by the Cigar Oasis humidification device.

Humidity level set with arrows on Cigar Oasis Mobile Application
Humidity level set with arrows on Web Browser

The nice thing is when I changed the humidity setpoint from one application, it was immediately reflected from the other applications.  For example, if I used the Android application to change the humidity setpoint, the new setpoint was instantly reflected on the Apple application and the web-browser interface.

The one limitation is that you can only set the humidity threshold on whole percent points.  The actual Cigar Oasis 2.0 Humidification Devices allow for the humidity to be set to a more precise level (tenths of a percent point) directly on the unit.

Monitor

On an hourly basis the Wi-Fi attachment reports conditions from your humidor recorded by the Cigar Oasis humidification device.  If you use the Mobile Application, you can access these reports.  The reports include:

  • Relative Humidity Reading
  • Temperature Reading
  • Average Relative Humidity
  • High and Low Humidity Reading (for past three days)
  • Relative Humidity Setpoint

 

Cigar Oasis Mobile Application Detailed Report

The Mobile Application also proves graphs that show trending data for the relative humidity and temperature readings.  The Mobile Application provides trending data for both attributes over the following periods:

  • 24 hours
  • 3 days
  • 7 days
  • 14 days
  • 1 month

In the examples below, we show a relative humidity trend over 7 days and a temperature reading over the past 24 hours.   The humidity reading shows a major dip on January 15th.  This was because the humidor was left open.  This actually triggered an alert via email and text message (see Alert section below)

Cigar Oasis Mobile Application Humidity Graph
(7 Days)

 

Cigar Oasis Mobile Application Humidity Graph
(24 hours)

The web-browser is a little more limiting in terms of reporting.   It will not provide the detailed reports that include the average, high, and low humidity readings.  You can hover over a section of the graph and get the humidity or temperature for a time checkpoint.  The readings are only done in whole number increments.

Cigar Oasis Web Browser Graphs

There seemed to be minor fluctuations with the readings.  Since the Wi-Fi device is acting as a conduit to report the readings from the Cigar Oasis Ultra unit, I assume this might be coming tom the device. It was nice to know that when the humidor was left open, the Ultra recorded a low humidity reading and eventually (after three hours) triggered an alert.

Alerts

As mentioned, the alerts can only be configured on the web browser.  The alerts are sent for low water or low battery.  The alert for the humidity threshold is sent if the threshold is not reached within 3 hours.  I did find the instructions could have used a little more beef when it came to configuring and working with alerts.  However, the alerts were effective and I found it very useful to receive these status updates.

The alerts below were triggered with the humidity dip discussed above.

Text message alert for low water

 

Email message alert for low water

Final Thoughts

Overall the Cigar Oasis Wi-Fi Attachment does its job and does it well.  One thing that should be pointed out is that even if you aren’t a person on the go, the Wi-Fi Attachment allows you to monitor and regulate without opening or closing your humidor. This is invaluable if you choose not to disrupt conditions in the humidor (or even your cigars).

The unit does carry an SRP of $119.00.  It does work on all four of the Cigar Oasis 2.0 Humidifcation Devices. We tested it with the Cigar Oasis Ultra, which was designed for humidors storing 100 or less cigars. Some may say you get more bang for your buck with Wi-Fi attachment by using it with the Cigar Oasis Magna – a device designed for 60 cubic foot cabinet humidors. However if you are storing a desktop humidor with some valuable vintage cigars, the Ultra and Wi-Fi combination can be a good combination.

There were a few things that had room for improvement. The configuration of alerts could be better – especially providing the ability to configure alerts on the mobile application. In general, the instructions could have been better on alerts. The other thing is the ability to set humidity more precisely (i.e. to a tenth of a percent like on the Cigar Oasis device) would be nice.

Still overall this is a current a unique product on the market and in the end it delivers what it says it will deliver.  It’s something I would recommend checking out.

Assessment: Very Good

Source: Cigar Oasis Wi-Fi Attachment device provided by Cigar Oasis for the purposes of this assessment.
Stogie Geeks Podcast: Episode 126
Stogie Feed: Cigar Oasis Wi-Fi Attachment