Smart hygrometers: Still largely useful even without integrated visual monitors

What makes a market success? Is there a Swiss-made sensor inside? Or maybe a wrist strap? What happened to the basics: cost-effective reliable functionality? (And yes, get off my lawn, you kids!).

Back in late March, I detailed my experiences setting up TP-Link’s entry-level Tapo H100 smart IoT hub and wirelessly mating it with a Tapo T315 smart temperature and humidity monitor a few rooms over:

along with, for good measure, a Tapo T300 smart water leak sensor downstairs. The Tapo T315 was effective in several respects: proving that the two DREO humidifiers (one of them also “smart”) were functioning effectively, and that whatever humidity sensing technology was being harnessed in conjunction with my furnaces was not functioning effectively and should be ignored going forward.

Display-optional when the data’s already app-visible?

The Kindle-reminiscent 2.7” e-ink display built into the T315 was convenient for at-a-glance monitoring of both humidity and temperature…that said, truth be told, I can count on the fingers of one hand, without using any of them more than once (and maybe even some of them at all) how many times I’ve looked at it since setting it up. To wit, at the end of that late-March writeup, I noted:

I’ve also got a redundant Tapo H100 smart hub and T300 smart water leak sensor, both sitting on the shelf, queued up for teardown, along with a display-less sibling of the T315 hygrometer, the Tapo T310 Smart Temperature and Humidity Sensor.

The Tapo T300 is still sitting on my teardown pile, although I plan to get to it soon (I promise, barring any out-of-my-control delay factors, of course). The Tapo H100 was dissected toward the end of last month. And today, you get the Tapo T310. I’ll as usual start with outer box shots, as usual accompanied by a 0.75″/19.1 mm diameter U.S. penny for size comparison purposes:

Marketing hype? Reality? A bit of both?

The back panel notes that the sensor is “high-accuracy”. The product page further elaborates that it’s “Swiss-made”. What is this, a watch (analogy)? Read Original