Senville AURA Series Mini Split Air Conditioner Inverter Heat Pump, 12000 BTU, Works with Alexa, Energy Star, White

In one word, amazing. This unit was delivered exactly as described and much quicker than quoted. If you are not a fairly advanced handy person do not attempt to put this in your self. The directions leave something to be desired. Overall this unit is extremely quiet, I didn’t think it was running at first. The fit and finish of the machine is beautiful. The install took about eight hours for me, if you know what you’re doing it will be much quicker than that. I have never installed one of these units before. In New Hampshire we are in late spring right now, my house is about 650 ft.² and this 12,000 BTU unit cools this space without a problem. I look forward to the opportunity to really try the heating of this unit. At this point it has only been a test run but the heat comes right out and it shouldn’t have a problem keeping up with our demand. The electric company is currently offering rebates which pay for this unit completely. I would buy this unit and install it again if anything should ever happen. I purchased one of the cheap Chinese vacuum pumps with the gauge set up to install this unit. Just be careful because those pumps get hot and can’t run straight out. If you buy this unit you will not regret it. The remote is very user-friendly. I will try to remember to update this review after a year of use, but at this point this unit is simply amazing. Update: December 21, 2018 We have now gone through summer in this unit has kept up with our cooling needs without an issue. We’ve had some very cold weather down to 0°, and this unit has done well to keep up. It does struggle a little below 5°, so you may need a back up heat source if your weather it’s colder than that on a regular basis.

Excellent unit installed after a meticulously step by step took me 3 1/2 hrs It cool excellent. The only issue was that it called for a yellow wire in the inside wire connector and the cable had red, black, white and green so it took me a few to figure it out, I checked the outside unit and white goes to the yellow Other than that I saved mega bucks DIY!! I pressure tested at 200psi and flushed the lines with nitrogen and it held 200 psi for 40 minutes then I vacuum the lines for another 30 minutes let it sat for 25 and it held -30 solid so I released the gas. Started cooling immediately, however, you have to let it run for While for all sensors to settle then is amazing quiet and keeps the temp to the T !!!! Happy camper!! Ps. Had some concerns of how the unit cooling at various outside temp and so on; I sent a message and it was answered immediately by Jim them immediately a tech called Mike and I got all my questions and concerned resolved. Great people to do business with. Capt. Jay 8/13/20 update. After 17 months of continuous use it performed perfectly no issues at all and it was a DIY installation. Customer service second to none, courteous and helpful 100% Won’t hesitate to buy again. Go for it, just make sure you fallow the instructions or hire a hvac to install.

The unit arrived palletized and well packaged. We hung the condenser and had 220V electrical installed, with remaining installation by a professional HVAC contractor. Although the room served is only 325 sq feet, we opted for the 12000 BTU arctic heat pump unit because of extreme heat and cold temperatures often experienced in eastern Montana. This winter we had temperatures as low as -24 degrees F. and the unit maintained 68 degrees F. set point without any additional heat source. Summer performance was satisfactory with outside temps as high as 100 Deg F. The evaporator is so quiet you won't know it's on unless you feel the airflow. The condenser is nearly as quiet. Very satisfied so far, and hopeful it will hold up over time.

Installed mid June. Hot humid weather in July. Kept house and room very comfortable. Works better than expected. Very Quiet. Install straight forward. Reviewed a lot of U tubes! Very informative. After a 2 hour vacuum and wait period! Vacuum stayed at desired setting! Charged the system. Turned on unit and tested connections with soapy water! A leak was visible. Tighten fitting! Leak stopped. Please follow directions! Don’t rush it . Very happy with the Mini Split. Update!! It’s now last of October . Temps high 40s and 30s at night. The heat side of this unit works wonderful. Keeps us warm. Can’t go wrong with this little giant

We have a mobile home that we are fixing up as a vacation house. We got bids of 10, 12, and $14,000 for a new furnace and AC. This is a 970 sqft, 1980 mobile home. Optimistically it is worth $5k. In my mind these bids were outrageous. So down the mini-split route we went. I have now bought and installed 2 of these. (The other one is in an outbuilding shed/office.) If you are relatively handy, it is not that hard. I thought that the electrical was the hardest part. Once the electrical was in, the first one probably took me 4 hours. The second one I did in 2-3 hours. (But I did watch about 50 youtube videos on how to do it. So you can add that in to the time investment.) The only specialty tool you need is a vacuum pump (~$150). Both of these have been in for about three months and they are fantastic in the heat. No opinion yet on heating 'til winter. For the price vs having a pro do it, I don't think you can go wrong. You can screw it up 5 times and still come out ahead. And you're not going to screw it up. In my mind, it's a no brainer to go this route. Update on heating - It works great too. Both of ours have now been in for about a year now and no issues.

They sent me two units. The heating did not work. Both units were professionally installed on the second unit. They didn’t want to take it back even though I had four seasons Heating And Cooling Com that they could fix it, but it would be almost $1500 which is what I paid for the unit completely terrible company bad customer service very slow to respond. luckily Amazon was able to do the A to Z return had me returned the unit and I’m waiting for my refund.

Unit is very quiet and is pumping out a lot of heat. I should have bought one sooner. I will be buying another when they come on sale again. Install went well. Pressure tested lineset with 315 psi of nitrogen for 4 hours checking for leaks several times. Vacuumed down to 35 microns! Isolated pump and vacuum went from 112 microns to 173 microns after 45 minutes. Released refrigerant. Unit is running well.

6 years and still going strong . It's 26.8 deg F and holding the indoor temp at 71 deg F. At these low outdoor temps the unit runs between 40 to 80% load and is running almost full time. 5 years on , still working well, I have found that over a long period of time the set temp and actual temp differ/drift by at least 2 degrees F going to 4 to 5 degrees F. thinking that the indoor sensor was failing it was replaced , It made a difference at first but again drifted. Shutting the unit off , removing the A/C power source allowing the circuit to totally deenergize and restart , resets the differential to 2 degrees F. Akin to most electronics like modems and laptops SAT receivers, that behave erratically . Unit was cleaned and serviced as winter heating season is not far off. 3 years on and going into its 3rd winter the the mini split is still going strong. the one option not mentioned very often is the installation of a unit specific or whole house surge protector. It would be wise to protect the sensitive electronics from spikes, outages, brown outs etc. Shortly after installation I did install a surge protector on the disconnect. (not shown in Pic) we have on average over 70 power interruptions as recorded by the uninterruptable power supply of more than 5 ms. the house breaker panel has its own SP. They are easy to install and cheap insurance. Its now almost one year later since installation and one winter /spring and well into summer of use. The 12k unit has stood the test of time so far . it operated full time for the heating season, the gas furnace was only used occasionally to supplement as I wanted to raise the interior heat faster. The cost of running the heat pump (heating) was approx. 35% of gas price. so far the cost of running the A/C is 3 to 5 Cents an hour. at a moderate load . All in all I'm impressed with its efficiency. I am heating/ cooling approx. 1000 plus sq ft but 11 ft high ceilings well insulated, and it seems to have no problem handling the load. The one area that is a problem and may be inherent to all indoor unit is filtration and blower wheel accumulating dirt dust etc. The removable filters ability to stop fine dust dirt is almost zero. I call it a rock catcher. Subsequentially it transfers onto the blower squirrel cage . I have worked out a way to clean the blower with out removal. The only time I would remove it would be to replace the motor. I have made it relatively easy to clean that I do it whenever there is a build up of dust .less than 15 min start to finish. looking forward to many more years of trouble free use. the end ----------- careful research was done on most of the units out there. one has to understand that 99% of the mini splits available are made in CHINA. compressors, condensers, electronics, in fact its hard to tell one unit from the other , if no brand label was attached, and only from minor exterior and remote (handset ) style changes. If one were interested you could find the Chinese manufacture 's online and compare. Anyway Senville is regarded as upper middle of the pack. ( who rates them ?) What makes them middle of the road? As I said previously there all made in China. WARRANTY WARRANTY WARRANTY Please read the fine print . Senville does not provide the Warranty. It is the manufacturer. Doesn't matter if it is 1 or 2, 3,4,5 7 or 12 years warranty. read the small print. here are some points to look at when purchasing a unit from a contractor. or DIY. If you have a issue with a unit( Contractor Installed) , Labour for inspection to determine the problem is not covered , if home owner installed ( No Warranty ) read the small print. something as mundane as dirty air filter not covered . By the way, without yearly maintenance from a hvac contractor your coverage may be denied. As a 3rd year HVAC apprentice I installed my own unit , and I do not qualify for a warranty. !! How many people out there have purchased a product only to find it DOA. To say the least it is Frustrating trying to deal with the seller/ manufacturer ? Now lets say you installed your unit as per the manufactures instructions and it fails to work . what now? I've watched many YOU Tube videos describing the installation . Most of them are really bad, be very wary. No one talks about the units that didn't work, and how to test them . Actually if it doesn't work the first time, its a bad install or DOA. The mini Split units are so complicated( electronically) to diagnosis a masters or PHD is required. Anyway back to Senville. I purchased a mid size unit , and all the extras needed to complete the installation . I had all the tools, pump and gauges. The installations( Senville ) instructions are lacking clarity for DIY ers. Wont go into the nitty gritty and nuts and bolts , suffice to say it was installed in a professional way. I ran into a small snag and called Senville, they responded promptly and the issue was resolved . I would like to say it was Plug and Play operation. Worked first time , heat and cool. Its been several months since installations and the unit is working as advertised. The difference between this unit and the higher end units is cost. That's it. this unit has been in service for a couple of months, I don't know how long before I have to start replacing fan motor 's indoor, out door or circuit boards..... . time will tell and find out the true cost of a warranty. This unit is now replacing a gas furnace for heating although the furnace is still an operational back up . To Date I will give Senville 12k aurora two thumbs up . Have a Good Day

Good and relatively easy to install but there is room for improvement in the way of quick connect electrical connectors

This is an awesome product. I DIY installed this unit at our cottage in the Laurentians, north of MTL, and it has been reliably heating our 800 sq ft. living area down to -20C outdoors temps. I bought the extra WiFi module for remote controlling via the mobile app. It has been working great. The delivery took 2 days after order and was handled via freight shipping. I had to sign with the driver to release the delivery. Installation went well with no hiccups. I bought a vacuum pump, gauge manifold and flare tool. I torqued to spec and used nylog blue on the fittings for good measure. The vacuum held and there have been no leaks to the refrigerant since. The unit runs very quiet, both indoors and outdoors. I wall mounted the outdoor compressor, and I hear the occasional vibration in the wall during defrost mode or when heating hard when below -12C outside. But this doesn't bother us. Depending on outdoor temps and humidity, the defrost cycle can kick in more than once per hour. The machine knows what it's doing. The unit design, quality, energy efficiency and sheer thermodynamics are top notch. But there is one real improvement area: there's drift between the temp set point and the real temp observed. And the colder it is outside, the more that temp drift. At -20C of outside temp, I need to set to 76F to reach a real 71F. At 0C of outside temp, 73F of set point will reach a real 71F. I've measured this drift reliably for 3 months of heating season now. I've been monitoring my daily kWh consumption, I am forecasting a yearly decrease of $250-300 in my hydro bill compared to the previous winter with baseboard heating. I am very satisfied with this, so my project next summer will be to install this same unit on the ground floor of our cottage.

I installed this in my garage and as easy as the videos and instructions make it look, you need a host of expensive and specialized tools to do it with the confidence it will last years. The problem is that making sure the lineset can hold 400psi of pressure, which is what the refrigerant gets to in heating mode, without leaks, is tricky. First, routing the 1/2” lineset may requires bending the 1/2” diameter copper tube which needs a tube bender ($40 from PA), pulling a vacuum on the lines requires a vacuum pump ($150 at least) and preferably a digital manifold gauge set. If you, like me, end up twisting off the flare multiple times on the 1/4” copper tubing, you need a flaring kit ($40 from PA), and if you want to torque the flare nuts to the right spec, you need a torque wrench capable of 10 to 50ft/lbs and crowfoot wrenches ($150 from PA). Once the lineset is in place, the only way you know if you pulled a deep enough vacuum is to use a digital micron gauge ($260 for cheap ones from Amazon). You need to pull less than 500 microns and it has to stay below 1000 microns before releasing the refrigerant. Once the vacuum test is done, you then should really pressure test it with nitrogen ($110 regulator and $300 bottle plus nitrogen) to make absolutely sure you have no leaks (and it dries out the lineset even more) Even tiny leaks mean you will loose refrigerant and in a year will be calling an HVAC tech for a minimum of $350 just to look at the system. If you do find a leak, and don't want to dump more of the extremely potent green house gases into the atmosphere, you need to buy even more equipment to recover any remaining refrigerant! Almost none of these tools besides the torque wrench and crowfoot wrenches can be used for any other projects. Pulling the vacuum and pressure testing the linset yourself also voids the warranty. [December 2021] Added a custom aluminum cover and a bike tassel I can see with my security cam to tell when it is running - there is no indication in the app that besides being on, that it is running. Stills works fine although my DF (Defrost) light slow blinks in FP (Frost Protection) mode which has Senville support stumped. [January 2022] Even at -30c and in Frost Protection mode it doesn’t have much trouble keeping my 480sqft garage above freezing although near the ceiling it is 8c and by the garage floor it is 1c. Our electricity in Alberta costs about 17c/kWh, so to run this 12k BTU minisplit flat out costs about $120 a month. It does go into defrost mode about twice an hour when that cold. There are a few -35c days coming and I will keep an eye on it to see how it does. [April 2022] It survived the extreme cold fine and the maximum it pulls is about 1400 watts but not continuously as it goes through a defrost cycle every half hour. I did make sure the ice didn’t built up but it was pretty good at keeping itself frost free. For a 500sq ft insulated garage it really had no problems keeping it above zero. Our electrical bill is about $225 a month during the coldest months, but keep in mind that includes two EVs and a three person house hold, so it did not bump our bill up that much. Best heating&cooling option you can buy in my opinion - no smoke, no smell, quiet, safe and inexpensive. [January 2023] Had a -42c night last night and in Frost Protection mode which is suppose to keep it at 8c, it could only keep the garage at 4c around the head unit. Closer to chest level it was 1.5c, but it worked! I am paranoid about the outside unit frosting up so at temps below -35c I run a supplemental 3kW resistance heater (self installed) during one of the Senville’s defrost cycle. The garage heats up a bit, the outside unit defrosts fine and then the heat pump can keep it at 8c. Keep in mind that around the head unit in the garage rafters it is 8c but by the concrete floor it is below zero c. The thing is a rock at -30c or warmer and needs a little help below that in a pretty badly insulated garage.