I’m getting rid of my GE Hinge door sensor. This is the second time in a 6 months that it has stopped responding and I’m tired of messing around with it. It worked will for a year and a half and then started going flaky. Which brings me to the point of this post.
What sensors on the market now seem to be behaving the best? I tend to lean heavily toward zwave devices. These are solid wooden doors so I would prefer not drilling holes in them so something externally mounted. Cost is an issue, but not a show stopper for the right device.
Thoughts please.
We have a lot of fun with the Xiaomi Aqara door sensors. Relatively small and in my opinion reliable. Only thing for me was that I had to reset the gateway once. But that can be overruled by using Zigbee2Mqtt or ZHA
I have these sensors approximately 1 year.
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Same as him, instant feedback on state and they have never failed.
Very small, long lasting battery I’ve had one for nearly two years and it is still working out of the box, haven’t changed any batteries. I’ve got 4 more all of them working flawlessly. By far the most reliable sensor from Xiaomi.
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If you are interested in 433mhz sensors this one is currently the best in my point of view:
And the associated review:
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I use xiaomi ones too, cheap, extremely reliable and fast (I receive a notification almost instant when I open the door). However, almost after every Home Assistant update I need to powercycle the Xiaomi hub. The Hub fails almost every time after a restart and I need to cut power to the hub before it works again with Home Assistant, for some reason it gives invalid token errors etc. (Which are valid again after I restart the hub).
But as said before me, you can mitigate this problem by using zigbee2mqtt (which will be the next step in my setup).
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I use the same sensors with deconz, very reliable. Also, easy to modify - I have a couple set up to sense whether the doors locked rather than open.
Do you have a tutorial anywhere for this mod (door lock vs open)?
Sorry, no, although I have seen stuff from others who’ve done similar, mostly with the older version of the sensor.
It was pretty easy though. I carefully un-clipped the case and took out the board. Then desoldered the reed switch and soldered on some short wires which go through a hole drilled in the side, once the case is back together.
These then run to an external reed switch which I mounted in the cavity where the lock bolt goes. A small magnet glued to the lock bolt to activate the reed switch and it’s done.
Ah ha! That was the part I needed most. Thank you!
I’d thought about this myself, but my visions all included putting a magnet on the external bit that the user turns to lock the door. Which wasn’t very clean looking and also made it hard to turn the lock with this thing on the side of the lever. Your way is much better.
I have doors that I don’t need to lock automatically, because they aren’t used often, but I’d like to know when they are unlocked. If I could put a full, smart keypad lock on it for under $50, I’d go that route. But I can’t seem to find anything like that. So, this would be second best.
+1 for the xiaomi sensors, cheap and reliable!
Just get the xiaomi ones… i’ve been using them for 2 years and still didnt have to change the battery. Even hacked one into the doorbell
are xiaomi sensors sending a different signal if open or closed?
Zigbee : Xiaomi Aqara
Z-wave : Coolcam door sensor
Nope : -) , an arduino uno with an ethernet shield (central setup) and a sonoff rf bridge as a complementary gateway.
Both with Openmqttgateway.
The described solution, magnet and reed switch, is a good one.
In my case, I use a micro-switch. The switch’s lever protrudes into the base of the hole where the deadbolt slides into. When the deadbolt is extended, it pushes the micro-switch’s lever.
The sole advantage is the deadbolt needs no modification (no magnet is required). The main disadvantage is it’s more difficult to install and conceal the micro-switch (it’s much larger than a reed switch). In comparison, it’s easier to install, and conceal, a reed switch.
Anyway, I have two door locks monitored this way (for about ten years now). The doors also have contact sensors. The combination of the two sensors allows me to confirm that a door is closed and locked.
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Yes, they will send “on” or “off” messages to HA (where “on” is open and “off” is closed). They work great, I get notified immediately when the door opens on my iphone (you’ll have to set an automation for that obviously) and apparently the battery will last very long (and they are cheap at IKEA which sits at 5 minutes away from me).
They are cheap, are easy to pair, easy to install and easy to work with. Oh and I forgot to mention, they don’t look horrible and they are small which can be important to you (you can choose between rounded mija ones or squared aqara ones, the aqara ones are newer and supposedly better, but I haven’t found a difference yet)
+1 for the xiaomi sensors. I had the sonoff rf bridge with the 433Mhz door sensors and they weren’t reliable for me.
Completely agree. I’ve been using 5 of these for over a year, haven’t even needed to change any batteries yet. 100% reliable with the OpenMQTTGateway bridge.
Since this I have tested a new one, this digoo :
it can compete easily with the gs-wds07, moreover it is delivered with a lithium battery which has a lower self discharge rate compared to alkaline ones.
Here is more infos about it :
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