These Smart Vents leave us cold (pictures)

Keen Home's Smart Vents are the first major devices of their kind on the market. For $80 per Vent, they seem like a reasonable investment. Here's what they can do.

The magnetic face plate is easily removable so you can access the actual vent underneath.

The $40 Keen Home Bridge is necessary for app control. Each additional bridge you purchase can be used as a signal repeater for the Vents.

The Keen Home app offers basic control over the Smart Vents and a Nest Learning Thermostat, if you have one.

You can also program the Vents to keep the room warmer or cooler when you're there.

Changing the batteries is a relatively simple process, thanks to the magnetic faceplate. If you install the Vent on the ceiling using the Keen installation kit, however, you'll have to remove the whole device, which is much less convenient.

It takes four AA batteries to power each Vent, and those batteries should last well over a year.

The metal frame to which the vent device is affixed screws into the wall. But if you install it in the ceiling, they can pull apart as pictured, and the vent device can fall out completely. Keen Home hopes to have this design flaw fixed within the next two months.

Using the app, you can also control the Home/Away state of the Nest Learning Thermostat.

While the design flaws in the current iteration of the Smart Vents are seriously damaging to its overall quality, Keen Home hopes to have them all rectified within the next few months.

We recommend waiting to purchase the Keen Smart Vents after their design flaws have been fixed. For more information, check out our full review.