Gadget Review: ASAKUKI Essential Oil Diffuser - with WiFi!

All gadgets have to include WiFi now. That's the law!

Does your home smell horrible? Would you like it to smell lovely? Well, friends, the good folk at Asakuki think that I'm the sort of person who knows lots of putrid people. So they sent me this Essential Oil Diffuser.

It's pretty plug-and-play. Pour some water into the supplied jug, tip it into the unit, shake in a few drops of your favourite flavour, hit a button, and WHOOOSH!

As a basic diffuser, it's great. Smells come out of it quickly and fairly quietly. You can fiddle with the lights, dim them, and turn them off. But it's the WiFi stuff that I like to fiddle with!

Tuya to your rescue

Every cheap WiFi device seems to use the ubiquitous Tuya platform - and this is no exception. Power it on, scan for the device in the app, click a button, and it's enabled. The second it connected, my Alexa also chirped up to say it had found it.

You'll almost certainly want to rename the device - because that's a bit of a mouthful.

What amazes is me is just how cheap it is to add "smarts" to a device. The basic diffuser without WiFi costs about £25. The WiFi enabled version is £32! Seven quid to add brains to a device. Nice!

The Tuya app has a bunch of options. If you try and turn it on without water in there, it will refuse your request. Which is a good safety feature.

You can set the intensity of the misting, and set a timer for how long to run the device.

And there's a standard colour wheel so you can set the mood just right. Or set it to disco mode.

Downsides

There are a couple of small niggles. Mostly around power. The unit's power connector is on the bottom: So you can't unplug it while there's water in the device without risking a spillage.

The connector is a barrel jack rather than USB. So make sure you don't damage it.

The Alexa integration is a bit weird.

You can turn the device on or off, but you can't set the colour of the light - nor its brightness.

Final Thoughts?

If you like a variety of scents, then this is a decent diffuser. For the £7 extra that it costs to put WiFi in this, I reckon it's worth it just to be able to yell "ALEXA! MAKE IT SMELL NICE!"

The Tuya app is basic, but works. Alexa integration could use a little polish but, for the price, it's hard to complain. I'd like to see a future version have a more sensibly placed power socket and USB-C.

I'm told that this will be part of Amazon's Spring Sale (April 1st to April 13) - so expect some discounts around then.

If there's a gadget you'd like me to review, please contact me!