🪑 DIY Zigbee bed/chair occupancy sensor

[parrel]

@ferbulous @NoedelVreter

I tried it with the bed sensor I ordered from Aliexpress. However it’s too sensitive for the Aqara sensor. That causes it to open/close very often sometimes which causes the wrong last state being reported.

A better solution would be an ESP8266 or ESP32.

[NoedelVreter]

Thank you for checking. ESP32 it is.

[Nanope]

Got this working today, nice and easy, and works great so far. Thanks for posting

[harpdogg]

Has someone tried it with a ESP32 or 8266 instead of the Aqara sensor and can share what the wiring looks like?

[parrel]

Not tested but it should work like this (using ESPHome )

Connect the black wire to a G (Ground) on the board, and the red wire to one of the GPIO pins, I used D2)

Then add this in ESPHome.

binary_sensor:
  - platform: gpio
    pin:
      number: D2  # Change this to the GPIO pin you are going to use
      mode: INPUT_PULLUP
      inverted: True # You might need to set this to False
    name: "Chair" 
    device_class: occupancy
    filters: 
      - delayed_on: 10ms

[harpdogg]

Thanks! I will give it a shot.

[rvdbrink (RBrink)]

Great DIY, it works perfect, tnx!

Only by default the contact status is inverted as preferred.
With this addition to configuration.yaml you can create a new sensor which show the correct status in your lovelace dashboard.

binary_sensor:
  - platform: template
    sensors:
      chair:
        friendly_name: "chair"
        value_template: >-
          {% if is_state('binary_sensor.contact1_contact', 'off') %}
             on
          {% else %}
             off
          {% endif %}

homeassistant:
  customize: 
    binary_sensor.chair:
      icon: mdi:chair-rolling

[FlashingGremlin]

Dude, I have the same problem!! Motion sensor that turns on the ligths on my office…but have an automation to turn off the lights after 15 min if no motion is detected. Plenty of times going in the dark and move to turn on again…
Great solution! Gonna do it!

[finity]

I’m not sure if I posted this here (or anywhere) but I use an Alexa actionable notification to ask me first if the light should be turned off after no motion. If I say “yes” or don’t respond the light gets turned off. If I say no the light turn off timer gets reset just as it would if the motion detector resets it.

and if it’s at night and I don’t want the voice notification I flash the light and if I don’t push a reset button I have on the desk the light turns off.

code upon request

[rvdbrink (RBrink)]

After my first successful chair sensor I created 3 new ones. None of them works…
The resistance is the same as the working one (11 Ohm when you sit on the sensor).
The only difference is the zigbee contact sensor: the working one is model lumi.sensor_magnet.aq2 vs the new lumi.magnet.acn001 (comes in a smaller box)
Anyone the same experience?

UPDATE: it works!
There are problems with this contact sensor. The data was not picked up in zigbee2mqtt.
I had to flash my zigbee stick to a specific version. See for more info Xiaomi MCCGQ14LM control via MQTT | Zigbee2MQTT

[parrel]

Good to know it works with the new version

[Midget (MidgetMan)]

Just made this today, works perfectly from what testing I have done so far, and it works perfectly fine under our mattress cover.

[parrel]

That’s nice to hear! Thanks for letting us know.

[thanhtam23 (Tam Nguyen)]

Sorry to bump an old thread!
I have followed this DIY instruction and it works, thank you very much!
However, it only works perfectly in the beginning, after few weeks of constantly using, it keep status closed like forever.
I practically sit on my chair like whole day (it’s my home office chair) and only want to use sensor to turn on/off my fan. After some time, the sensor refuse to bounce back to open state when I’m not sitting.
I think it’s problem with low quality sensor, it should be same for any standard car seat sensor but they’re working just fine no matter how long we sit on it.
Is anyone having same issue? How do you manage it?

[thanhtam23 (Tam Nguyen)]

bump again, anyone?

[parrel]

Hi, I think that could indeed be the car seat sensor yes, maybe you can hook it up to a multimeter and see if electricity goes through it if you do not sit on it

I don’t know of a better seat sensor at the moment, but there are also some DiY solutions here on the forums, or more advanced onces that use an esp8266 instead of a Aqara sensor

[Mahko_Mahko]

You could try #13 here.

A list of door sensor / reed sensor hacks! (Aqara, Xiaomi, others)

There’s so many cool little door sensor hacks floating around that I thought it might be useful to have a meta thread? Like this one.. I really like the Aqara ones, which are small, cheap, and reliable in my experience. I’ll add the one’s I know about, and add one I’m just playing with. Chair Occupancy Sensor Door Lock Sensor Rain Drop Sensor Weber BBQ on/off detection Gas Meter Edit: Added from this thread. This may not be well maintained so scan the thread too. 6. Rain Gauge 7. Water Lev…

You probably wouldn’t need any new hardware.

[christopherius (Chris)]

I just made one of these and placed it between my mattress and foam topper and it works.

[0anton (Anton Golubev)]

I share the same experiences as you. At the beginning the seasons has reliably detected seat occupancy and „emtieness“. However after a about 4 weeks, one sensor daily short occupancy while nobody is on the seat. Short press on the sensor „discharges“ it, so its again open and respond to real weight.

I have a feeling that the open sensor is not enough open (too conductive?) for Aquara.

Sensing the presence (sensor is closed, low resistance) in contrary very accurate.

I wonder how those car seat sensors are correctly used?

To increase the reliability I‘m thinking on adding the voltage comparator LM393 as shown by @PrairieSnpr in the „FRS - the best bed occupancy sensor thread“:

FSR - the best bed occupancy sensor

I can’t speak to reliability; I just installed it today. In testing it has been 100% repeatable, triggers on my body weight but not the dogs, no false triggers and clears instantly. Due to the low resistance when the FSR is compressed, I was concerned about battery life, with the stock battery I estimated the battery lasting less then 30 days with the voltage divider alone, not including whatever draw the door sensor has. With the CR123A it should be several years. They are both 3v, so it’s …

Dear electronic engineers: does it make sense to reduce false „seat occupied“ rate?

[Javit89 (Javier)]

This worked great, but for some reason the sensor burns through batteries like crazy!
I have other AAA powered devices that can last over a year with 1 batter, but this one is emptying 2 AAA batteries in 2 weeks Anyone has any ideas what could cause this?