Keen Home Reviews

I’ve owned the keen vents for over a year now and for over a year now I’ve had the batteries pulled out of them. I’m using ecobee thermostat with the ecobee room sensors. Maybe the keen works with their own sensors but they do not work with ecobee. My living room vent always closes itself if the batteries are in. I tried deleting the room readding it. Even if you try to manually open it in KeenHome it closes it. in heater mode it sets to leave it open to 75° and any temperature below that it still closes it. I’ve contacted support before they can never fix it. The hardware is built well I’m actually impressed with the hardware but they should fire their entire software team and start over again. This software is not tested it’s not even an alpha, it doesn’t even kind of work. It is really frustrating that I spent so much money on this crap and after being patient with them hoping that they will get this figured out after over a year they figured out nothing.

KeenHome is full of bugs. I’ve had the Keen system for about a year now. Running three vents and two temperature sensors, connected to Nest thermostat. As others have said, the vents are constantly disconnecting. KeenHome is just about impossible to use. I’ve been on with tech support multiple times to get temperature sensors to connect. Turns out I had beta hardware. They did send me a new temperature sensor and it connects now. However they never did get my keen hub to update firmware. They said it’s my ISP. Of course ISP says it keen. Never got anywhere with that. In KeenHome trying to set the temperature for the vent to close or open it just resets to original value. I had to do it prob 9 or 12 time to get it to stick. One vent I had to reset to get KeenHome to set the close temp. Constant issues. Going to try SmartThings hub next and see if it works better. When it all works it’s great and does exactly what is advertised. The problem is it rarely works for long. Have to mess with it 2 to 3 times per week. It’s a real pain.

I integrated the keen with ecobee. Couple of issues that I see. 1. It works with the Ecobee remote sensors for each room, but it doesn’t utilize the thermostat sensor to control the vents in he same room as the thermostat. 2. What is the Exclamation mark on connected device in KeenHome ? 3. Seems to work once I scheduled the occupied room and it go’s through the next cycle. As long you don’t manually touch the controls.... it appears to automate with the ecobee sensors.

I haven’t played enough with the automation and smartthings. I would like to see if the home hits an average home temp then the keen vents open with the ecobee whole house fan starts running with all the ceiling fans executing instead of the A/c kicking on. Especially if the window sensors are open.

Update: KeenHome , or possibly Keen’s server(s), have been down for days now with. Support has been unreachable. The vents are now unusable, with no indication of a fix.

Previous review:

Great Idea, but Half Baked

These vents are a great idea, and it's clear that some time has been spent on the hardware. Unfortunately, the iOS app and corresponding software seems to be half baked. The interface leaves a lot of interpretation to the user - does +1 degree in a room mean that it's a degree hotter than it should be, or that you want it a degree hotter? You can schedule 'occupancy' times for rooms, but the settings are too coarse - and the weekend settings would probably make more sense if they allowed you to set up late nights on Friday and Saturday. Instead it's Saturday and Sunday, which are indeed the weekend days but not necessarily the right days for this application.

Also KeenHome 's 'Auto' mode, which should really be its top feature, hasn't worked for about a month. Tech support from Keen stopped responding to messages - but they seem more than happy to post updates about their attempts to recruit investors for the company.

Stay away until there are signs of life from the development team and improvements to the software!

I am really impressed by the quality of the hardware of these vents. The software has been a bit of a let down. Originally they tried to use an internal temperature sensor to help automatically adjust the vent. This never worked very well and I always wondered how the vent would measure accurate ambient temperature in the room. The sensor placement would be better if it was where the people live. Now KeenHome no longer has this feature. It has a simple schedule for occupancy of the room. I really like how easy this is and wish it was like this from the beginning. If I want automatic adjustments, I’ll buy some of the temperature sensors.

I’ve had my smart vent since the beginning of the Pandemic. I purchased it since I’d be working from home and need a better way to assist airflow as opposed to a yard stick. The yard stock is better. This thing is a joke. It works great for a few days then it disconnects. It works great for a few days and it starts becoming possessed by opening and closing non stop. It works great for a few days and then you have to delete the room and reset everything and repair. I’ve tried manual mode without the auto temp, it does what it wants to. I tell it to open, it closes. I put it to 50% it goes to 45 or 58. I manually close it and have it set to closed and it will open back up.

Kenn support is a joke. Contact them through their chat and it’s days later off at all you hear back. Same goes with email contact.

I’m really tired of theirs and this devices nonsense. They’ve advised one time it is my ISP causing a connection issue. I tried my MiFi I use for when I travel and it still has the same issues. I’ve reset these devices I don’t know how many times. I’m about to go back to the yard stick and manual vent.

Avoid this company like the plague.

I honestly had no problems with the system since installing it over two years ago. It performed beautifully and integrated seamlessly with my Ecobee thermostats. Then 4 days ago I came home and noticed the loud rushing of air upstairs only to find all the vents closed except one closes to the air handler. The door of the handler closet was blowing open because the force of he air split open the plenum. I sent an email with the problem on Tuesday and received a reply which was no help. The system is no longer automated opening and closing vents to balance the temperature throughout the house. It’s now more than 24 hours since my last reply with no solution and no support to call or call back as I requested. KeenHome hasn’t had an update in 9 mos. Expensive vents that don’t work!

I bought their vents for a simple logic command, close a room vent if the temperature in a room is above the set point and the heat is set. I have not seen this system execute this command in any of my rooms since they lost their cloud infrastructure for a month. Do not buy their vents. They should be put out of business. Their engineers have had to look at my system multiple times. All solutions involve an endless cycle of resetting the vents, hub, erasing my account and reinstalling it, deleting and reinstalling rooms, etc. It is a never ending circle, where you get nowhere. Their software, at its core, cannot handle a simple logic command. So, give them a new one. If it does not work, do not buy their vents and do not download their software.

I bought this vent system 2 years ago. It was supposed to use temperature sensors in the vents to open and close them to balance the temperature across rooms and make heating and air conditioning more efficient. It has never done this. The automatic system has been ‘beta’ the entire time and does not work. The vents often go offline, requiring the batteries to be removed and reinserted. They sent out new battery packs with padding around the batteries, which hasn’t helped. Now they are plugging external temperature sensors you need to buy. They are supposed to be using the ones built into the vents, but those apparently don’t work either. I would avoid this system until the software is out of beta and working as promised.

I’m an early adopter of smart home products and have a high tolerance for half baked products, but Keen is the worst IoT app and product I own.

KeenHome is extremely buggy. Try going to the support page. I’ll wait. Then try leaving the support page without closing KeenHome . It can’t be done!

Back in March I my system had a communication issue. Nobody at Keen would help be troubleshoot it, but for some reason in May they sent me all new vents and bridges and sensors. Sounds great, right? Well, turns out I just needed a single bridge replaced—something they easily could have figured out had they spent a few mins on the phone with me.

Then the quest to Mail all the crap back to them started. I was assured a return label was going to be emailed “tomorrow” then a week went by. Then another week. Then an assurance that someone would call me. Then a few more weeks. Finally, I was asked to mail it back to them at my own expense and get reimbursed. I laughed at this request and was again told I would get a call. It never came and I finally got rid of the vents after being Keen’s warehouse for 2 months.

I contacted Keen support again because my Ecobee thermostat was showing up in the Keen Home app in duplicates and vents were closing when the temperature was lower than the set point. I got one response asking if I removed and re-added my Ecobee account. I said I had tried that first. After that, no response. Then one day, I notice that I can no longer log into my Keen Home account. I emailed Keen Support for help and got no response. Today, I tried to recreate my Keen Account. When I do, I get a spinning wheel and nothing happens. So now I have a worthless system that is completely broken and I can’t even complete the first step to get it working again with zero support.

No updates on KeenHome for over 6 months. Vents are not synchronized with KeenHome at all.
Even in KeenHome itself vent may say 100% open, when you click on room it says 0%, when you go see it it may be either.
I spent over 2K$ in vents for my home and app makes them almost useless. Might as well use manual vents (at least it’s easier to tell if open or closed).

This is now 2020.
After a couple of years finding workarounds on every issue, dealing with support, absolutely NO APP UPDATES since who knows when. Worst ecobee integration (if you want to call it that) ever. All of which I’m sure would be better if they had added HomeKit support (which keen app developers are in denial about based on their own documentation on their website).
Just don’t bother. I regret spending the money, I thought this would be a good idea, purchased 16 of these cents for my home. I really cannot think of a bigger mistake when it comes to home improvement.
Just don’t... return it... buy something else.

These vents paired with two Ecobee thermostats solves the uneven temperature issues we had in our home. For about 3 months. Then two vents in my home office stopped working, and despite multiple messages sent to their support over a month, they didn’t fix it. Turns out that they now seem to have a global issue where the entire system is malfunctioning (which they refer to as a “slight interruption” on their website, ha ha) and none of my vents (or anyone else’s) are working. They’ve stopped responding to support requests. I wonder if the company has failed and they just haven’t let anyone know yet. Don’t spend a cent with this company.

When trying to adjust room temperature differentials in the balance mode, KeenHome allows you to select a temperature adjustment up or down for a given room, but this setting resets to its previous value after a short interval. This bug has persisted across updates.

I’ve spent countless dollars and many hours on this system and have liked it most of the time. Recently however, KeenHome stopped working and now won’t let me log in. I’ve tried sending support emails but they just bounce back saying it’s not a valid email. Their website is still active but can’t reach anyone for help. I’ve tried resetting my password and it says no account active under my email address. I suppose they’ve gone under and closed up shop.

Just downloaded the new update and my ecobee now connects again. It has been awhile, so it may be my imagination, but it seems the vents respond quicker to change made in the settings. Hopefully they are back on track, as my system worked pretty well until it didn’t.

I revised my review as they updated KeenHome :

The system works well. You can schedule registers to open/close, or they can open/close based upon temperature.

Manual control is a little more challenging and some aspects are a bit confusing. However, they’re making progress. I definitely recommend and I raised my rating from a 2 star to a four.

When ecobee added two-factor authentication, Keen Home app stopped connecting to it. I reported it, and they stayed in constant communication with me, having me test parameters and send results; eventually they identified the authentication issue and resolved it with version 2.0.1.

Before you crash & burn as a commercial entity, please open source your software that others may keep their Keen software updated! Please don't abandon your customers who've helped turn your dream into a reality & spent small fortunes trying to just feel more comfortable & save money over time with their HVAC systems! If at all possible, leave instructions for customers to run their own local servers to keep their investments from becoming a loss! Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!

I really wish I had bought Flair vents before they sold out, I installed the Keen app, and I created an account, signed in, and it crashes after the first question. It crashes if you wait and don’t answer the question or crashes after you do. Do not buy Keen Smart Vents. KeenHome may be the worst smart home app in Apple’s App Store. A total disgrace. The support section of Keen’s site is useless. Truly unconscionable how they allow this.

These vents work for what I need. I have a bonus room that is tough to heat and cool and, along with the Ecobee integration, the Keen Home vents have dramatically improved the comfort in that room. And, they have/are making improvements to KeenHome allowing it to be more stable and functional!

Have the time I manually change “openes” of the vent in KeenHome it ignores it and remains on previous value without letting me know why. It trains me not to trust it.

Low hanging fruit: use same rounding method everywhere in KeenHome . E.g. on the list of rooms it shows “85% open”, while on room details screen it shows 86%.