Review: WiFi Digital Hygrometer – £39.99

So its been a while since I posted, to be honest due to the weather I have not had many cigars so nothing to review. I have however recently purchased a gadget for the humidor, so it seemed like a good time to do a review.

TFA Wireless Multi Sensor Thermo-Hygrometer

Not sure if anyone else has their humidors out of site, my flat is not massive and I have had to put my humidors in a cupboard, which is fine, but its a pain when you want to check humidity. I decided a wireless hygrometer would be ideal, I did a lot of searching but there are not many options

I was looking at the Xikar wireless hygrometer, as its a brand I use and trust, but at £69 with one sensor its not cheap (especially if you need more sensors), and you can only see the output of one sensor at a time, not great for a quick glance.

I also found a really nice wifi hygrometer with a phone/tablet app, but it was pretty expensive, and required an account etc as it used the cloud, probably overkill! In the end I did a bit of searching the Internet and found a couple of people who have reviewed a relatively cheap wireless hygrometer that can have up to 8 sensors attached to it.

The were doing them on Amazon for £39.99 (it comes with 3 sensors) so I picked one up. I have to say its pretty nice, you can see 3 readings on screen at a time, setup was a doddle, you can set high and low alarms for temp and humidity, and two sensors were bang on, the other was was 2% under, (I used my Western Calibre III’s as a quick comparison) not bad. The only thing I noticed is that they are not as quick to respond to changes as the westerns, but they are fast enough.

They are a little thicker than other hygrometers, but not too large, the displays on them are to small to really use, but I guess that not the point of them, as you have the nice receiver unit with the large LCD display.

Having had them for a few weeks I decided to do my regular hygrometer calibration using Boveda calibration kits, and it turns out that the Calibre I used for a quick comparison was perfectly calibrated, so as I thought, two of my sensors are spot on, and one reads 2% low, I can live with that.

Summary

I am really pleased with this hygrometer, its wifi range is good, it works well, the alarms are useful, and its cheaper and more flexible than the Xikar solution. It would be great if they responded a little quicker (but how often do you get catastrophic drops/rises in humidity in your humidors?), and it would be nice if you could calibrate each sensor individually.

Just these two changes would make it perfect, but its still very very good, and an ideal cheap solution if your humidors are hidden away. Well worth checking out.

Link to Hygrometer

Bargain: XIKAR Axia Black Lighter

I got this on Ebay and it was an absolute bargain, its as new with box and instructions, there is not a mark on it, and the price, well I paid £15 + £3 postage. I dont know how I got it I expected someone to outbid me, and for this to go for much more, but sometimes you get lucky!

This is built just as well as the Pulse 3 jet lighter that I have, but only has 2 jets so its not as powerful, but its a great lighter and the ideal thing to take away with me when I dont want to risk loosing my Pulse lighter.

This would also make an excellent main lighter, so if you are in the market for a 2 jet lighter I would definitely recommend this model.

Humidor – Cuban and Box Humidor

Still got some organisation to do here, but its getting there.

Review: Cheap Digital Hygrometer – £6.95!

As readers of my blog may know I currently have two different makes of digital hygrometer, the Angelo, and the Western Caliber Iv. I like both these hygrometers, the Angelo because it is cheap at around £14, but it is quite large and its calibration is not adjustable, the Western because its small and it can be calibrated, but it is expensive at £25.

A few weeks ago I was just about to purchase another Western hygrometer (I needed the Western due to its size) when I stumbled upon these hygrometers on Amazon. I almost passed them by, but they seemed to have a couple of reviews that were okay, and I noticed the price £6.99 each !!!!!!!!

So I thought why the hell not get one and see if its okay, at that price its not much of a risk, then I thought, ahh if I get 2 I get free shipping ! So I did.

When they turned up they were far better than I expected, construction is pretty good, the display is clear, battery access is simple. So I stuck them in a Boveda calibration bag, and decided to see what happened. As you can see form the picture above after 24 hours one was pretty much spot on, and the other was only 3% out.

Now as these are not able to be calibrated you just need to add a sticker with the adjustment and you are good to go! Having had these in my humidors for a couple of weeks alongside my other digital hygrometers I can say that they seem to perform as well as both the Angelo and Western’s.

So all in all a bit of a hygrometer bargain, I am currently very impressed!!

Link to Hygrometer on Amazon

New Arrivals: Arturo Fuente – Hemingway Signature Maduro

 

 

Just like my last post these arrived a while ago, I wrote this post and then left in in my drafts folder for some reason. Cant wait to try one of these they are such a lovely dark colour, think I am getting rather partial to Arturo Fuente sticks!

 

 

New Arrivals: Arturo Fuente – Hemingway Short Story

I actually got these a little while ago, and forgot to post that I received them. I wanted a small cigar for the cold winter UK evenings, so you can expect me to give one a whirl very soon

 

 

Review: Xikar Xi2

So I have been pretty poor at blogging recently, its been mad busy at work and I just did not have the time. Well thats kinda true, but I could have made time, so here goes my first review in a while.

I blogged a while ago that I purchased an Xikar Xi2 cutter. I have had a Palio cutter since I first became interested in cigars, but I always felt it was crushing the cigar more than I would have liked, whilst it wasn’t a big issue, it got more and more annoying.

Palio Cutter

The Palio cutter is really well made, and the action is really good, the issue seems to be that the plastic around the blades is so thick that it starts to crush the cigar before it gets cut. So in the end after reading lots of review of Xikar cutters, and having just received an Xikar lighter that I really rate, I decided to get an Xikar

Ebay came to the rescue as usual and I picked up an Xi2 for a really good price.

Xikar Xi2

Now I have to be honest I think that the Palio has better construction and feels more solid, not only in the hand, but also in action, I also find the Xi2’s butterfly cutting blades a little awkward to use. Don’t get me wrong the Xikar is built well, and not too hard to use, but the Palio has the edge.

But when it comes to the cut the Xikar is sooo much better, it does not crush the cigar at all, and the cut is crisp and clean, you just get the feeling that the Xikar blades are much much sharper! Perhaps my Palio was blunt from day one?

So in the end for me the XIkar is the best cutter, at the end of the day the cut is the most important thing, and the Xikar is better than the Palio.

Xikar. Xi2

Just picked up an Xikar Xi2 at a bargain price on ebay. My current cutter is okay but it just does not cut as cleanly as I would expect. I am hoping this will be sharper and cleaner, the review’s are good, I will review fully asap

New Arrivals: Diplomaticos No 3

Not easy to get hold of Diplomaticos especially the discontinued sizes, so I was please to be able to add some to my collection.

 

 

 

New Arrivals: Por Larranaga Encantos (ER ASIA 2010)

These just looked so good, and the reviews of the 2010 special edition suggest that these are a great cigar, so I just had to go for five when a friend offered a box split.

Gonna have to let these rest a little, but it will be tricky not to try them.