ConnectLife Reviews

The AC seems good but ConnectLife is completely unusable.

I waited to leave this review until after:
-I emailed their support 4 days ago.
-I called their support 4 days ago.
-I was given an escalated case number 4 days ago
-received no response. Current status is not resolved.

I just downloaded the latest version that came out 3/2/23 (after my email and call) and get the same inability to add the device.

The AC appears to connect to my router but ConnectLife will not recognize it at all and times out. I give ConnectLife all the permissions it requests. I’ve reinstalled about 30 times. I’ve verified all the things they say to verify.

I even set up a completely different guest network just for my phone and AC with a simple password with the correct encryption type, and got the same non-response.

I tested it on another iPhone, same non-response.

I have a lot of experience adding devices to my network using companion apps. ConnectLife combined with the company’s inability to contact me, are uniquely bad.

I love the AC unit and the power savings but if I had known ConnectLife was this terrible and time consuming, I would have bought another brand.

Hisense has lost my business.

ConnectLife used to show the correct status of my HiSense window AC, but has recently started to always show it as off. It will turn on and change the setting through ConnectLife , but when it refreshes the status always go to turned off again. The AC will still be on, so I’m not sure why all the sudden ConnectLife isn’t getting the correct status. ConnectLife really needs to be more reliable, otherwise I will not be recommending any brand appliance that uses ConnectLife to others.

Another problem comes with the power consumption statistics that were once reliable and accurate, but have now become a complete joke. This problem started after the last update, and has yet to be fixed. The power usage for August has been saying 120 kWh per day, which is about 3 - 4 entire homes running for a day, not one small window AC used only at night. Totally incorrect readings now, when the hotter month of July shows 2.4 - 3 kWh used per night. Until this is fixed ConnectLife will remain 1 star, because now I have no way to track how much power I’m using when the electric bill arrives. Developer response would be appreciated, as my email sent last week has not received a response.

My number 1 to purchase was for WiFi & wireless remote control abilities however the wireless remote NEVER worked! I even installed a new battery although it was new out the box and it still doesn’t work. So I was left to use only the WiFi and this is the worst app I’ve ever experienced! App responses very slow or not at all. It appears there’s always a 5 min + time delay. The in-app manual is a useless joke! Just as the manual in the box. After multiple failed attempts to connect to WiFi I put the wireless router in close proximity (thought that would help) but it only connected after 10 more failed attempts. Then I selected the wrong unlabeled in-app button and accidentally disconnected the air conditioner. The button selection appeared as if it was to turn the A/C unit off but instead I discovered it completely disconnected the WiFi from the unit and router. And it will not respond to my selecting (cut back on) to reconnect! I’m not spending another 3 days trying to reconnect the WiFi or buy more batteries. So I’m returning everything back to the store. I’m so disappointed!

I’m not sure what’s going on with ConnectLife. I purchased two portable air conditioners the first time around. It was easy to link to my network work fine for two days. The first one went down and then the second one went down unable to link to the network. Nothing change I didn’t make any network changes just from one day to the next just dropped off-line and was unable to reestablish the link online when I try to reestablish the link it will get to the part which says link to cloud and then nothing none of the troubleshooting worked. I shot a message to Hisense and now waiting on a return for some assistance. I hope they figure out a solution.

Please fix this, the timers function is a mess. Sometimes i just want to set an hour timer, but i have to go in a menu and enter the current time, the time i want the ac to stop, the mode, the temperature, the fan speed. It’s a lot for what could just be accomplished with a simple 1 hour timer function. The wrong command is often sent, causing my ac to heat when i wanted it to cool, sometimes the wrong temperature is sent or the ac unit just turns off. The only function ConnectLife needs to do correctly is to work as a remote for my ac and it can’t even do that. Honestly just head over to GitHub and help out the people trying to make a HomeBridge plug in (those people seem much more capable if you just provided an api key).

Half of the features work. You cannot share this device it just comes up no data. I used Apple ID to login and I can’t even login with my password which means I’m the only one who can access this. If I’m not home and I try I turn it on… doesn’t work. Can’t turn off the bright led lights from ConnectLife . I would have had better luck getting a manual air conditioner with a turn knob and a smart wall outlet. I have a Midea smart AC I bought at the same time from Costco and that thing works great. I regret buying this. It cools the room well enough but the purpose of buying it was the “smart” aspect of it.

Update the following year. Still one of the worst app user experiences. Nothing seemed to be improved. Very difficult to set up with a new Wi-Fi router. It took be about two days to realize it wouldn’t connect unless I had to share my precise location and leave location tracking always on with apple settings.

If you are buying any product that uses ConnectLife and you actually want to use it don’t buy it. I can’t even create account to log in. I gave ConnectLife all permissions. Says no internet connection when I start ConnectLife when I am definitely connected. I am able to use my web browser and anything else that uses an internet connection. When I try to register it says my email has already been used when I am 100% sure it hasn’t. Oh wait it’s says no internet connection so how does it even know I have an account registered or not?? Used 4 different emails and used the google and apple log in and I even made a new email account and I get the same response. So I’m at a dead end here. Can’t even get past the log in screen… ConnectLife developer and any company that uses it obviously does not care to make it work for the consumer when you get an error immediately when launching ConnectLife .

App will not connect to either of the 2 identical window A/C units I recently purchased. But it required collection of all my data and registration. JUNK! This is a MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR CORPORATION and all they do is create a series of garbage apps every couple years and never fix them. They know the problems. They just want your data. Why do they need my location data for ConnectLife to function? That’s insane! Why no HomeKit? My experience is identical to another reviewer “jonk ponk” from June 18th 2021: “Followed the setup directions exactly.. connected to the HIS-xx network, went back into ConnectLife and nothing. The next button is still greyed out. Tapping it gives a "Please correctly connect to the appliance WiFi" error. But... I am. Why don't YOU correctly connect?”

One main reason I purchased this unit was because of the smart feature and being able to monitor the power consumption. Every thing but the power monitoring consumption monitor works decent. The power monitor may work one week and won’t work again. The power monitor is what I use most. I thought I had something that would help me keep up on the kWh but I guess I was wrong. Personally I would not purchased this a/c if I knew this features didn’t work. If your looking for an a/c with a smart app I suggest GE with smart app. I have one of those also and it works perfect and with no issues of reading power consumption.

Just recently had to new acs installed and was able to connect them to ConnectLife for home automation and such, but only from within ConnectLife . I am an avid HomeKit and Apple Shortcuts user, but there is zero support for these platforms. Not even any Siri integration. As far as apps go it is super basic and seems more like an afterthought than an intentional app to support making the users experience easier. If ConnectLife ever receives any kind of support for the Apple ecosystem I would be more than happy to rate it five stars, otherwise it’s disappointing to have to open an app every time I want to interact with my ac and just better off using the remote instead

I’ll turn AC on, switch it to Cool, turn the speed to high and almost every single time the temperature will self change immediately to 79F so I have to manually turn it all the way back down. Even after I do that it will change it back from being manually set at 61F to 79F. Sometimes it’ll change to 62F or 63F. All self changes. I’m not doing any of it.

Also, why would you have it turn off once it hits the temperature you have set? The last thing you want when you’re sleeping or honestly just any time, is an AC in your room to go from dead quite to the air compressor turning on and the AC turning on back and forth all night. It needs to automatically kick into fan mode to keep that white noise balance. You may be thinking to yourself “just use Automation” but I’ll tell you… I have and it doesn’t work. I’ll set it to turn on fan when it goes down to 61F and turn on AC when it goes up to 64F so I can manually keep that white noise going through Automation but sometimes it will still just turn off when it hits 61F and sometimes it will turn on fan when it hits 61F (great, right?) but it will stay on fan. So I’ll wake up in the middle of the night sweating from the summer heat wondering why this is happening because I have everything set to keep me cool, turn on ConnectLife , and see ConnectLife decided it wanted to do something else.

Like I said in the title, very buggy.

ConnectLife worked great until tonight (May 14,2023). I was able to adjust the ac temp from my phone all day. At one point I changed it from cool to fan. About 30 min before bedtime, I changed it back to cool and lowered the temp on my app only to find that it didn’t send the demand to the portable ac unit.

I restarted my phone, updated ConnectLife , uninstalled and reinstalled ConnectLife . Nothing worked. I manually turned off the ac unit then restarted it. ConnectLife still doesn’t send over the demands to the ac unit. Maybe the recent update made everything messed up..

Being able to control the temp with my phone, especially while away at work so I save energy and cool the house for my pets or before I come home is important for me. The wifi and app feature is the reason I bought this portable ac unit over a competing brand. If ConnectLife continuously does not work, I may return the portable ac unit for another brand that does offer wifi and a working app. Their portableAC is great, but ConnectLife isn’t. Guys, please fix this!

ConnectLife allows me to create a schedule to turn on and off my ac automatically w/o having to go through the stupid eco setting at each startup. However, lately my unit is showing offline and I've reset my router but it's still not finding it. and ConnectLife is constantly wanting to update, and update firmware. I'm going to do that and see if it connects but the deal is I really don't want a big relationship with a stupid little app that's supposed to do one thing and then let me forget about it. If these idiotic updates continue I can guarantee you this will be the last one of these air conditioners I buy. And I will let the manufacturer know it's because of ConnectLife constantly pestering me to update . What the heck can need all this updating jeez

3 Jul 2023 App stopped communicating again with the unit. Says it successfully sent a command but does not beep and it not received. Guess I should not have updated ConnectLife . This seems to happen every now and then as ConnectLife is updated.

The remote has a timer, ConnectLife does not. Please add a timer to ConnectLife . I know it is possible to set a start and stop time. But it would be much much easier to just hit, turn off in 30 minutes. Also, fyi programmer: scenario: AC is manually on and running. When setting the start/stop schedule and putting the start time to before current time, and the end time 1 hour from now, the unit does not turn off at the end time. In order for it to actually stop in the one hour, it must see the start time pass. Then when the end time is reached it will actually turn off. I was trying to use the schedule as a timer. Don’t care if unit is already running so I don’t care about setting the start time; it can be in past. Then set the end time 30min from now, but the unit didn’t turn off.

Loved having ConnectLife and being able to control some of the things in my home like my AC without having to be at the house. Like turning the heat up or AC down prior to getting home. Since the newest update it will no longer connect to anything at my house making it pretty much useless. Tried to find a help section on ConnectLife to contact support to report the issue and it doesn’t give you the option to do that only to place a service on the device such as a AC unit. Was 5 stars but now it’s down to 2. Why update/change something that wasn’t broke to begin with?

I have a Hisense portable AC unit that has a sleep mode, but ConnectLife has no way to set it to sleep mode. I, and I’m sure other people, would like to set my air conditioning to cool my room to a temperature, then once reaching that temperature go to sleep, then once the temperature goes up or down by a certain amount it starts to heat or cool again. Just lacks that one option that would open up a lot of options for automation and cost saving, would make it much easier to set and forget with those features added, or if the auto function allows you to set temp and switch between heating and cooling. I’ll adjust my review accordingly if updates roll out fixing this

I like ConnectLife and exclusive use it over the remote and buttons on my mini split. It works very well and adds a ton of value.

Small fixes that would make it great:
-Whenever the remote or physical buttons are used on my mini split it switches the unit of measure to the default Celsius but it should remain in Fahrenheit as I set for my preferences.
-The modes in ConnectLife are not labeled the same as in the manual for my mini split. This is an issue if I select a mode in ConnectLife that is not really supported in the mini split and it results in unexpected behavior

After exchanging the air conditioner for not connecting so the wifi. This new one so far is working flawlessly. I do wish they would add HomeKit and or matter support along with the timer option in ConnectLife . I could have swore it was their last year, but I could be wrong.

It says I’m not connected to the internet when I am connected to the internet. I would sayConnectLife is unconnected. One of the reasons I bought this ac was so that I could use my phone to control the temperature of I’m away from home. It’s so frustrating.

Update! After working with Karla and others at Hisense, it was discovered that my internet service (Suddenlink) was the problem. Once I connected to my iPhone, I was able to connect the ac. I am now very pleased with the ac and the ability to control it with my phone.

Thanks, I know it’s been frustrating!!

I see a lot of negative reviews but my experience has been flawless. The account / device setup was a breeze. ConnectLife has always responded for me when I try to use it. I have not experienced any lag time when sending commands to AC. Issues can be blamed for poor or weak WIFI connections. You can’t put all the blame on ConnectLife . That being said, I wish the AC remained on after reaching the desired temperature. I know this may or may not be a function that can be added to ConnectLife . Also, a timer option would be nice to have. I do see a scheduler option but the timer option would be much simpler.