I need a better vacancy detector

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1

A simple and cheap Sonoff IR motion detector is working well enough to detect motion and turn the lights on. But it’s the common problem of when you are sitting motionless in a room reading, the lights go out. Yes I can set the timeout longer.

One work aroubd I thought of is to program a slow-motion dimming effect when the sensor thinks the room is vacant, then if someone is still in there they can wave a hand. But better if this is not needed.

What’s the best solution for this? millimeter wave? But I think these require AC mains power. I have Wifi, zigbee and Thread networks

My security camera will detect human-presence failrly well but I don’t want indoor cameras.

2

I have deployed Tuya Zigbee Human Presence Detectors around my house. They work great. Pretty cheap from Aliexpress. And yes, they are power hungry and require USB power. Placement and sensitivity adjustments take trial and error, but once you get them fine-tuned, they are a game changer.

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I also have the Tuya mmwave sensor and it’s very nice. One thing to note is that it may require a special zigbee quirks file since many do not use standard zigbee methods.

4

Good point!
The ones I am using require this:
Quirk: TZE204_sxm7l9xa.TuyaMmwRadarOccupancyVariant2

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There may be something wrong with your sensors. When I tested mine it used a few 10s of mA @ 5V. So like 150mW.

They work OOTB with Zigbee@MQtt.

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I’ve never seen a battery powered mmwave occupancy sensor, only devices that must be plugged in. It definitely uses more power than a standard PIR. It actively sends out radar pulses, so it makes sense.

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I’m currently testing these out myself, got them yesterday. They are battery powered.

9

How are those going for you? I bought a number and mine arrived this week.

Using z2m 1.36.1

So far it seems to have got stuck in this state

{
    "battery": 100,
    "fading_time": 30,
    "illuminance_lux": 1188,
    "indicator": "ON",
    "linkquality": 58,
    "motion_state": "large",
    "presence": true,
    "static_detection_distance": 5,
    "static_detection_sensitivity": 6
}

I have a zStack3x0 coordinator with firmware 20220219 (which is probably a bit old).

Not too much use as it is.

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These have been working well for me (USB-C power not battery):

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005946786561.html

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The athom works well https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005772833515.html but isn’t cheap and is USB C powered. That’s why I was hoping the battery powered ZG-204ZM would work better.

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Haven’t had time to test much yet, but the one I’ve unpacked is not stuck at least. 20240321 FW on the coordinator.

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Thanks. I suspect then that I need to update the coordinator firmware. Always makes me nervous.

What version of z2m are you on?

14

1.37.0. Be aware of the 20230507 FW, I kept getting dropped devices on that.

1 Like
15

Could you please be so kind to point me to the exact link to download this quirk ?
I cannot find it, the ones I found are exposing only occupancy and the best one occupancy and lumens.

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The ZG-204ZM is a piece of junk.
The PIR has a very short range and the mmWave simply does not work as advertised.

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Yeah I’m not too impressed with them either.

18

Same issue currently, strangly mine has/was working fine I think… just had to move it 0.5m and now it just goes to LARGE and is stuck also. Confused… guess you did not solve your issue?

19

No news, but to be fair I haven’t put any further effort in. Its a public holiday here today, so I might get a chance.

20

Man, still got one stuck going into LARGE and stay; no reset or setting change works… and this was simply after moving its position (it worked before that). Any ideas, any troubles on your side?

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I have 2 of the ZG-204ZM sensors. First one works 100% no issues. Second one, stuck in large. Really annoying.

Anyone figured out how to get these unstuck or is it just luck of the draw?