Arre’s Temperature Sensor looks promising on paper, offering measurement of temperature, humidity, air quality (VOC) and air pressure using Matter over Thread.
I’m wondering if anyone has any experience with this device? In particular, I’m interested to know how quickly it reports changes in measurements. Is it pretty much instant? That would be great to trigger a ventilation unit in a bathroom.
Normally I’d just roll the dice and buy one, but the shipping costs to Europe are almost as high as the device’s price!
Not any first hand experience, but they seem both expensive and physically large. These are less expensive and work great. They are zigbee though. Temperature and Humidity Sensor - Aqara
Thanks for the pointer. I don’t have Zigbee directly on HA, so the Aqara device wouldn’t be my primary route (unless it interfaces through the Philips Hue Bridge, but I think it only supports lights? Any idea?).
I currently have a sensor by Aeotec, using Z-Wave, which has been quite slow to report changes.
Also, I do like the idea of VOC measurement, if it actually works in real life of course.
You are correct, you cannot connect these to the Hue bridge. If you already have Hue lights you could change out the Hue hub with something like this and get support for more zigbee devices. https://smlight.tech/
I have the conbee 2 zigbee usb dongle to control philips hue lights directly and it is rock solid, you can still change brightness/colour/startupstate from HA, no hubs required.
https://phoscon.de/en/conbee2
Was also looking around for temp/humidiy sensors. I had a lot of the sonoff sensors and you have to buy a big bag and try them out, and throw away the ones who don’t work…
Several mentions of Aqara so will give them a go.
ON TOPIC: I read reviews of air quality monitors a while back and the Aqara one was a top pick, downside is the display that will drain more battery.
