Hello all,
Looking for some advice and input from the community on how you all detect motion in your home. Currently Im using a combination of DIY wemos d1 and PIR sensors and the wyze intergration ( using wyze motion sensors) the DIY work well and are usually rock solid with little issues at all. The wyze, not so much. When they are working they work well… battery powered, no wires, stick anywhere , super small. How do you all recommend to detect motion? Do you have suggestions for a wireless effecient battery option? Should I use Zigbee? Any help and or suggestions would be great as this is not only for my home but also maintaining and running HA in my parents home.
Personally, the absolute hands-down best motion sensors I have found so far are the Hue Zigbee motion sensors. I have them paired directly to HA using a Zigbee stick and compared to a lot of the others out there, they have been just super rock solid. Granted, they are pricey (I’ve been picking up one a week at Home Depot for $30), but they are one of the only ones that I know of that use standard AAA batteries and they seem to last forever. A couple of mine have been going for over 2 years on the same set of AAAs that they came with. Plus, they also have a built-in lux sensor as well, so bonus.
The ones on the top are the Hue motion sensors. The ones on the bottom (showing less than 100% are the SmartThings 2018 motion sensors that I am phasing out):
One thing to add, by going this route, you’ll want to occasionally unpair them from HA and pair them to a Hue bridge (should you have one available) to update the firmware on them. I try to do that once every 4-6 months. I’ve read that you can do this using deCONZ, but I don’t have my Conbee2 to test that.
I like Home Depot because they have a good partnership with Philips and usually most stores have good inventory on the Hue devices. It was the only place that I found more than 5 of the Aurora dimmers in stock and quite a few of the motion sensors as well. Plus, if you’re interested in smart bulbs, they are the only brick-and-mortar store that I know of that carries the Philips Wiz bulbs and accessories.
Give the Wiz bulbs a shot. They are MUCH cheaper than the Hue bulbs and they are WiFi, not Zigbee. The color bulbs are something like $12-$13 each (compared to the $40+ for the Hue color bulbs) and they seem to be brighter and produce slightly better colors than the Hue bulbs as well. I have 36 bulbs (so far) and they have worked pretty well.
I use the Xiaomi motion sensor. I am OK with it. Never had to replace the batteries yet after around 2 years. Use some on the xiaomi hub and some on zigbee2mqtt.
