Companion for allmost a year - The Hulecos H1
Thorsten Ebers
7 Junio 2026
The moisture/humidity measuring device Hulecos H1 is now one of my tools I use more or less every day. How did I became aware of it ? How did I get mine ? Let me cover all in the next few lines the ins and outs why it became the tool aside from cutter and lighter.
Ok, by participating my first time at the finals of Cigar Slow Smoking Championship (CSWC) 2023 in Split, Croatia I made the acquaintance of Lucien Vouillamoz, the man behind the genius H1 tool. There I saw the first time the H1 in action when all competition cigars were measured for the final round. So every competitor got the same smoking conditions regarding moisture. H1 connected to a laptop showing the peak of the curve while the cigar was measured. I was impressed as this device had only one needle/probe compared to another device that I had at this time with 2 probes - not useable for cigars with smaller ring sizes and not very precise. On that time the H1 was not on the market yet, still with ongoing development of the software and maybe hardware things as well. Only a handful of people had some H1 for testing etc. I was impressed by the quality and feel of it.
At my second participation of the CSWC 2024 finals in Dubrovnik, Croatia I met Christophe Béchade from Hulecos. On the last day of the event some H1 were raffled off and the it was publicated that the H1 will be now on the market with a sell price around 800 Euro and Club Mareva member could get it cheaper with a good discount. Unfortunately I didn't won one, neither was the price even with discount affordable to me at that time. Beginning 2025 I saw announcement and pictures in the social medias that the H1 hit the stores with a price tag of 250 Euro. I still struggled to decide shall I get one or not.
Around April 2025 I took over the responsibility to organize the national finals in Spain of the CSWC in Barcelona. I was looking for sponsors for the event for tombola prices and contacted Christophe. He was generous and sent me 2 devices. One for me to check the cigars and he also knew how much I like to have one, hehe. And the other one for the winner of the final. As I became winner 2025 I put up that prize to the tombola. That is the story how I received my H1.
The functions behind the H1:
The device has two modes. The preservation and tasting modes. The device is delivered with two cups for each mode protecting the probe. The preservation mode is to measure over time your humidity in your humidor while the tasting mode to measure moisture and humidity of your cigar. The H1 also measures the temperature of your cigar. You can of course swap between Celsius and Fahrenheit degrees as well swap the display mode for left- or right-handed person. This makes very well sense as left-handed hold their cigar in the right hand and stick the probe from left while right-handed does the opposite. The device has a rechargeable battery and uses an usb-c connector for recharging.
Tasting mode - The device measures the moisture and then converts that depending on temperature to relative humidity(rh%). If the moisture is close to its optimal, the tobacco leaf should contain 13% of water, the display starts to show leaves. One for a bit below, two for be right at the spot and three if a bit over. If the moisture is not close no leaves are shown while RH levels and temperature will displayed all time.
Preservation mode - At this mode the H1 measure the same but takes every 10 min a snaphot of the data and stores it to show you later recommendations (how to achieve to the 70/70 rule your right cigar moisture in your humidor) as it turns off automatically after 30 minutes. Mine does not to that as I need a firmware upgrade. Mine is measuring all time for 30 min and cycling between actual data and recommendations. Which is a minor drawback for me. You cannot see the data because my humidor is not transparent and also the device reacts very fast to changes and while it shows the recommendations the actual data changed already when it come to that. It is ok in my cabinet humidors as they have transparent doors. I also found out that when connected to a power bank it doesn't turn off after 30 min. I do not know how it behaves with new firmware. But I guess it runs all time and making every 10 min snapshots till the power bank is empty.
The H1 in action. two leaves = optimal moisture, 68% rh, 26 deg Celcius , I am in Spain.
What I found out using it over a year now and my conclusions:
I use the device almost every time now to make sure my cigar I like to smoke has a decent level of moisture/humidity. Especially when I take notes/review the cigar I smoke. I write down now as well rh%, number of leaves and temperature. Therefore I guarantee for myself consistency.
Cigars without cellophane adapt quite fast moisture in my humidor. With cellophane even after a good month it just got one point up. The recommendation to leave your you cigar for four week and then smoke doesn't work out with cigars in cellophane. I think it might be more then 3 to 6 months depending how good the moisture was at the beginning in the cigar you put into the humidor. I also found out that the cigars you buy here in Spain in cigar stores are very suboptimal with &rh levels. I had cigars at recommended stores with levels below 60. I know that some of the cigars I bought were delivered the same day I bought them. This means the cigar lost a lot of rh% on its way to the shops or that even at the warehouses of the importers or customs offices are not well humidified. If you think about that it makes sense if many people first try a new cigar just bought from the shop do not like them.
Cigar shops should have an H1 to make sure to their customers that the cigar is well for smoking. Yourself should have one that you can make sure yourself smoke the cigar in a good condition. You think I have my hygrometer showing me good values - I do not need that - but despite of that, all these cheap 10 euro digital hygrometers are not very precise and with time they get even more imprecise. The H1 has 1% fault tolerance, is sturdy, feels good. And for sure a good investment for consistency smokes.
Glad I have an H1, thanks to Christophe and Hulecos
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