The Minut Smart Home Sensor is a Mighty Mini Monitor

The rather unremarkable-looking Minut Smart Home Sensor might be unassuming when you take it out of its box, but it is actually packed with features. The small hockey-puck shaped monitor retails at $129 and it offers several layers of protection—not only around your apartment or house but also your extended community, like your apartment building or street.

With home-security tech creating such a buzz over recent years, the Minut alarm gives the user something a little different from your average home security system. Inside the box, you’ll find the Minut itself, a mounting plate, and a quick start guide. And that’s it!

Buyers should note that there are three subscription plans applicable for the Minut. The first is the free-of-charge “Starter” plan, which allows one user to access all of the monitoring features for a single home, with all data monitoring recorded for 90 days.

The second is the $7.99 “Standard” plan. This adds unlimited users in each home, so your family can also use the app and obtain the monitor information independently of each other. It also allows for unlimited recording, rather than just 90 days worth of data.

The third is the $14.99 “Pro” package. This has all the features of “Standard,” plus it allows you to integrate the Minut with a property management system—handy if you manage several Airbnb properties, for example, as you can monitor them all in one space, remotely, while maintaining the privacy of your guests.

The Minut sensor can keep tabs on a number of environmental conditions around the home, such as detecting movement, sudden increases in temperature, and monitoring noise levels. It can even alert you to any changes remotely, via your smartphone. With this in mind, let’s take a closer look at what this minuscule monitor has to offer.

An Unimposing Design

The Minut smart home sensor is tiny. It looks not wholly dissimilar to a smoke alarm. As mentioned, it is puck-like in shape. Its dimensions measure in at 85 mm in diameter with a height of 46 mm. With this in mind, it won’t take up much real estate on your ceiling and, as a result, doesn’t impose on the overall aesthetic of a room.

The underside of the device has several controls with a label sticker to inform you of what each one does. There is an on-off slider, which has a fairly obvious use, plus a reset pinhole and the charge indicator. To the left of the charging indicator, on the side of the Minut, is the charging port itself, which is USB Type-C.

If we flip the Minut over, the top of the device has an operating button. This has multiple functions that we will talk about later. Around the main button is a recess, through which the nightlight shines—again this will be covered in more detail later.

The Minut comes without a camera. Instead, a motion sensor is hidden below the main button. Minut makes a big deal of not having a camera, as this means the device can monitor your home and keep you secure without invading your privacy in the way Ring intends to with its flying home security drones.

In all, it is a neat little device that takes up very little in terms of space and doesn’t stick out like the proverbial sore thumb when it is mounted to a ceiling or wall (particularly if it is mounted on a white surface, given that the Minut’s case is made of white plastic).

Super Simple Installation

Installing the Minut couldn’t really have been easier. The metal mounting plate that comes in the box is faced on one side with industrial-strength adhesive. This is great, because you literally have to remove the adhesive covering and pop it on the wall or ceiling, wherever you have decided it will be located.

The metal mounting plate is also magnetic. So, the label sticker on the underside of the Minut device actually conceals a metal plate. Once you have the mounting plate in position, you just need to place the Minut over it and it’ll take hold instantly.

This also means it can rotate freely—perfect for placement of the charging port if you decide you’re going to have the Minut plugged into a power source at all times. Not that you will need to, really (and Minut doesn’t advise it, either); the Minut takes three hours to charge and then you get a battery life of roughly six months, according to the manufacturer. I’ve had my Minut alarm up for a total of three months and it is currently at around 50% battery, so this rings true.

Having just moved house (and therefore moved my Minut from the ceiling space it formerly occupied), I am pleased to report that, while it has industrial-strength adhesive on its face, I was able to pry the mounting plate from the ceiling without even leaving a mark; I was expecting to have to explain why a huge portion of ceiling plaster was missing. It was just as easy to place on a surface at the new property.

Several Levels of Protection

Despite its diminutive stature, the Minut smart home monitor is loaded with features that enhance your general well-being around the home. While it covers the obvious things like security and motion detection, it also has some other cool tools at its disposal.

Home Protection

A number of features are included with the Minut that are geared toward home protection. These cover security as well as promoting awareness of your surroundings.

Motion Detection

Motion detection works over a range of 25 square meters. This is more than enough to cover both my stairwell, entrance hall, and some of the upstairs landing space, too. It is designed to react to the movement of an entire human body rather than just a waving limb, so just popping your head into the field of vision isn’t necessarily going to be enough to trigger a movement event.

Alarm Recognition

One clever feature of the Minut is the alarm recognition function. The monitor is capable of “learning” what your other home alarms sound like and then notifying you if they go off and you’re not at home.

Noise Monitoring

With the noise monitoring function, you can set a threshold within the app that allows the Minut to detect when this has been crossed. This is a great community-minded aspect of the Minut, as it will alert you if you are playing music too loud or if the TV is going to upset the neighbors next door. It is also a great way to protect your hearing.

Tamper Detection

Remove the Minut from its mounting plate and it will immediately send you a message telling you it is being tampered with. The second you return it to its plate, you receive another message telling you that this is the case.

Home Health

Aside from the security benefits of the Minut’s various detection abilities, you also gain insight into the health of your home. These features focus on the condition of your home environment and so, by extension, ensure you stay healthy.

Night Light

The Minut comes with a nightlight that works in conjunction with the motion sensor. When the Minut detects movement it will illuminate the area in which you have placed it, meaning that you don’t have to switch a light on to go downstairs for a drink, disturbing the entire house in the process.

Temperature Monitoring

If the temperature in your home suddenly goes up or down, the Minut can inform you. Not only is this good from a comfort perspective, but it also ensures that you know if, say, your boiler breaks down in the middle of winter and your pipes start to freeze. You can do something about it, even remotely.

Humidity

Humidity is well-known for causing some fairly unpleasant ailments. Despite it being related to moisture in the air, it can still make you feel dehydrated. It can also cause muscle cramps and make you feel lethargic. It could even have an impact on your sleep. Minut monitors this for you to ensure your home stays at a reasonable humidity level.

Mold Detection

Mold, like humidity (and also caused by humid environments), can have a terrible effect on your health. Not only is it unsightly and has an unpleasant odor, but it can also cause quite serious respiratory problems. Once Minut has been operating for a week, it is able to tell you if there is any risk of mold.

Be aware, though, that it doesn’t actually detect mold or mold spores. It can only alert you if the perfect conditions (temperature+relative humidity) are present. Clicking into the “Mold Risk” section of the app (found via the “Minuts” page—see the next section for more detail on the app) actually states that mold can still grow despite conditions not being identified by the Minut sensor, so you should remain vigilant.

How Does the Minut Alert You?

While it does come with a built-in siren that will alert you to issues in the home (and can be deactivated with a quick press of the Minut’s main button), the monitor is mainly focused around the Minut app, which is available via the Google Play and Apple App stores.

This is were most of the magic happens. You have full control over the Minut from the app as well as the ability to view detailed reports. These reports take the form of graphs and update in real time, so you can actually see any changes occurring as they take place.

 

The Home screen has basic controls for turning the security alarm and noise monitoring on and off, as well as access to the general account settings. There is a navigation bar at the bottom giving access to any Minuts you have connected to your phone, access to Groups setup (more on that shortly), and your Log page, which is where the app stores any alerts the Minut sends you.

Heading into the Minuts page gives you stats based on what the Minut is monitoring. You can see I have mine set up above the stairs. From here it is monitoring the temperature, noise level, humidity, atmospheric pressure, and mold risk. Clicking on any of the criteria will open the aforementioned reports page.

  

The Groups page is a fantastic idea, as it makes the whole family responsible for maintaining the security and health of the home. Here, you can add family members and anyone on this list will receive alerts from the minute. These alerts are delivered whether you are at home or remote.

A really nice feature is the ability to share the device with neighbors or friends, too. The beauty of this being that they don’t even need to be within range of the Minut to receive a notification that something might be amiss at your property. This is excellent, as it not only ensures people can keep a watchful eye on your home while you are away, but it builds a sense of community spirit if you have neighbors watching your property for you (and vice versa).

Should I Invest in the Minut Mentality?

If you are looking for an unobtrusive security system that monitors your home yet respects your privacy, then the Minut is for you. It is an excellent device, and I love that they have incorporated genuine security features without the need for a camera monitoring your every move.

The Minut offers more than just security, as we have seen. Plus, the ability to incorporate the whole family into a shared responsibility is a nice touch … although whether a teenager is going to care all that much about remedying a spike in air pressure is another matter. The ability to share the device with neighbors while you are on vacation is a really nice feature, too.

The Minut is a fairly unique device in terms of the services it offers. There is very little in terms of an all-in-one package available anywhere else, save for combined temperature and humidity monitors. In fact, there is nothing else that monitors the same range of conditions—Minut, it seems, has hit the nail squarely on the head and delivered a product that has genuine value around the home.

So, for $129, I’d say you’re getting quite the bargain in terms of what this powerful puck can do. If you are looking for a more visual aspect to your home security system, then you might want to check out the Eufy home security system, as that is camera-based. Otherwise, the Minut has all you need and more.