Wish I had mailbox’s like yours that opened from the front… the ones for my building open from the back to take out the mail that arrived and are built into a brick wall so I can’t really do a door sensor for input trigger, still looking at threads like this for ideas otherwise if one comes up that may work with my setup.
One cheap an robust solution I use is a off-the-shelf door window contact sensor (433MHz in my juristication) and a inexpensive esp8266 with an receiver to get the signal into HA. The esp has esphome installed and is solid as a rock. Installed this couple of years ago an still the first set of batteries in the contact sensor.
I use 433 as well. I desoldered the Reed switch and put on wire so I could position transmitter on the side facing the receiver in the house. Battery does last long but water ingress destroyed 1st one.
Interesting! I’m guessing the receiver would sit inside the house and be connected to the ESP (connected to power), which would in-turn send the signal over Wi-Fi back to Home Assistant. Is this correct?
Would you please share your parts list and any schematics for the ESP connections to the receiver?
I also started looking at Zigbee. It seems that the USB dongle isn’t too expensive ($29.99) and a Zigbee sensor is less than $10. I’m not sure about the range, but it seems the battery life is pretty good (over a year). Does anyone have experience with this type of setup for a mailbox sensor?
I used to have some ZigBee and a few matter devices but got rid of all because of lack of functions and stabiltzy. Today I only have some RF and BLE devices and a army of rock solid esphome devices which work great (opposite to my ZigBee mileage)
Here are 4 devices I have used to collect 433Mhz signals from the mailbox. esp8266 with a SRX882 is the cheapest. The RTL-SDR and Heltec V2 are about the same price and the most expensive but they have a good coverage with home made ground plane antenna. The SONOFF RF device requires a bit of cutting and reprogramming with serial connectors.
For an update, I did go the Zigbee route. Purchased the SkyConnect for $38 and an Aqara door sensor for $12.99 which I attached to the mailbox door to detect opening. Here’s my automation YAML that seems to be working so far:
alias: “Mailbox: Mail Arrived”
description: “”
trigger:
platform: state
entity_id:
binary_sensor.lumi_lumi_sensor_magnet_aq2_opening
to: “on”
condition:
condition: state
entity_id: input_boolean.mailbox_acknowledged
state: “off”
condition: state
entity_id: input_boolean.mailbox_opened
state: “off”
action:
service: input_boolean.turn_on
data: {}
target:
entity_id: input_boolean.mailbox_acknowledged
mode: single
I have a few helpers used to capture the states. And I have another automation which resets the helpers at midnight. Any suggested updates would be greatly appreciated.