For years now I’ve messed with sponges, gel, water pillows, and virtually every other form of passive humidifying solutions. So, when Eric asked me if I would review the Cigar Oasis Ultra 2.0, I jumped at the chance!
I received a Lucky 7 Humidor from my wife for Father’s Day a few years ago, and I’ve always had trouble keeping humidity levels acceptable – it wasn’t so much that the passive solutions I was using didn’t work, but rather I was too busy (errr, lazy) to keep up with making sure things stayed nice and, well… moist.
So, now enters the Cigar Oasis Ultra 2.0!
Shortly before purchasing a home after the summer, I decided to empty my Lucky 7 Humidor in hopes of restocking after the move was over. I smoked all my sticks and survived the move, then I grabbed a box of Headley Grange sticks (one of my all-time favorite cigars) and fired up the Cigar Oasis 2.0 review unit. Obviously, I am using this in a humidor that is much larger than what is intended, so I knew this would be a good test for the unit.
The folks at Cigar Oasis also sent us the WiFi module, which is a great compliment to this setup.
I prepared my humidor, after having been dry for a few weeks, by wiping the drawers and inside with a clean, damp rag moistened with distilled water.
Placing the Cigar Oasis Ultra was pretty painless. I used the bottom drawer in the humidor, and was able to route the ribbon cable underneath my humidor where I mounted the WiFi module. It worked out very clean, and the ribbon cable didn’t inhibit the door seal at all. All in all, the total setup time was under 30 minutes.
I downloaded the Cigar Oasis app for my Android phone, then proceeded to setup my account.
I let the humidifier run for an hour or so – I use a digital hygrometer to keep tabs on the moisture levels, and as it turned out, the Cigar Oasis Ultra 2.0 was reading within 1% of my digital hygrometer. No calibration needed, which was awesome! I set the unit to hold at 69% RH, and let it do its thing.
After several weeks, the humidor was nicely acclimated. I find the app to be straightforward and it has worked very well to date – not a single crash in the time I have used it.
The charting reports are pretty helpful, showing the average humidity and temperature trends through different periods.
There are tons of graphs and such to look at – and it’s nice to see the history whenever I want to look at it.
After several months of using the Cigar Oasis Ultra 2.0, I can say with confidence that this is one solid unit. I am now able to completely forget about having to mess with my humidor for about 6-7 weeks at a time – and this is not a small, desktop unit, so I know it will last much longer in smaller humidors. And even when it comes time to add water to the internal sponge, it’s only a 5-minute process, if that. Painless.
My only complaint is with the documentation – it was just a bit thin, and the WiFi module setup portion was worded a little confusing. Still, I was able to figure it out pretty quickly, so I don’t see it as being much of an issue for anyone. That aside, I highly recommend this to anyone looking for something more than passive humidification – it has eliminated a lot of headache for me. No more dry sticks!
If you’re looking to buy a new humidifier get it from our friends at JR Cigars by clicking here.
