mmWave Wars: one sensor (module) to rule them all

Yes, I tried it, it works, but it is not reliable, because the LD2410B does not have a powerful BT and must be located near Ha-BT, adapter BT or ESP proxy-BT. I used the D1 mini connected UART and works very reliably throughout the apartment.

Ah I seem I mis-read, thought you said HA had a native component. I have found the same, have also gone to esphome, works much better. I have some that won’t work even next to a proxy with HA

Has anyone tried to power the LD2410B/P with 12VDC? The regulator on the board is rated to 18VDC and the data sheet for the LD2410 show max 12VDC. I have 4 deployed with 5VDV but just tried 12VDC and it worked for a bit. HA found the BT device but then would not connect. I went to the device and it was hot. Looks like the 12VDC killed it as it no longer works even with 5VDC. Won’t be doing that again.
Just wondering if others have better experience.

@Sawadee Before you toss it, try the HKLRadar Tool app or with a D1 mini. I thought I had killed mine too, not because I used 12v but because I could not longer get HA to even recognize the device. I used the app and was able to see and mess with the device settings so I knew it couldn’t be dead. I connected it to a D1 mini and it’s been working fine since.

Wonder if it’s something that will be fixed, perhaps via firmware. It’s not the chip itself as I can connect using their app across the room without problem. It just refuses to connect to my HA instance unless it’s within 30cm of the bluetooth stick! I’ll probably just D1 mini it too.

In was reported before in some threads that power consumption of this module is “significant” comparing to for example PIR modules. I think it was stated to be approximately 150mA. If this is the case and module is operating on 5V then connecting 12V means the regulator must reduce 7V and 150mA which is almost 1W od heat…
Anyway, in the manual v1.02 it was stated:


and in the v1.04 it is only 5V:

So, I would not try 12V…

0.5mA 50mA-100mA use on mine with Bluetooth if that helps.

Guy0nabuffalo
Thanks for the reply. I did give it a try. When this board is plugged into the eng board and then powered up. No comm port is acquired. I’m sure it is toast.
Since I have smoke detectors in every room I wanted to use the convenience of the power already run to the ceiling of the different areas of the house. I have ordered small 12v to 5v down converters to take care of this issue. Should arrive soon. Thanks again for the suggestion. Guess I let mine cook a bit too long…:woozy_face:

[quote=“guy0nabuffalo, post:207, topic:453260, full:true”]
@Sawadee Before you toss it, try the HKLRadar Tool app or with a D1 mini. I thought I had killed mine too, not because I used 12v but because I could not longer get HA to even recognize the device. I used the app and was able to see and mess with the device settings so I knew it couldn’t be dead. I connected it to a D1 mini and it’s been working fine since.
[/quote]

Maco65
Thanks for the info. Missed the rev change info.
Have a dozen so not out of business.

BLE range may be specific to your setup tho, I’m getting the advertised 4m range on mine. Drops off at roughly 3.6ish meters.

Hmmm, I don’t have any issues with any other Bluetooth devices and it does seem to be a common issue on the LD2410 threads so perhaps there’s a bad batch or it happens to work really well with your Bluetooth stick?

Can you please double check this. I have checked few of them and it seems that it is around 100mA if nothing is detected. Also in the documentation it is stated that:

Blah, sorry I typed that without much thinking after work, sorry for any confusion. I meant 50mA undetected with it going to 100mA when detected. Just double checked that too, so that does average out to around the stated 79mA.

oh boy I’ve tried LD2410B and its Bluetooth range is about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. And ESPHome just can’t seem to keep up with the fast pace of plotting energy levels every second or so.
So far the most promising device I’ve seen is here. It talks wifi, so range is no issue. also you can feast your eyes on those gorgeous plots in real time with a refresh rate of 25ms.

roomsense dashboard

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Honestly speaking, I don’t want wifi any more. I feel like my network is getting too crowded and I started to face disconnects of devices.

For example when I stream something to my tv, some tuya lights might disconnect temporarily and then connect again. I try to avoid it to be honest. That’s why I wanted something that uses Bluetooth

Assuming you don’t have any range issues, using Bluetooth should be fine. However, based on my testing, the range is quite limited and probably only covers a small room. So if your home automation system is in a different location, Bluetooth may not work.

Regarding your wifi issues, it’s worth noting that various factors, like router performance, coverage, and the number of devices connected to wifi, can cause connectivity problems.

Planning to put the sensor very close to a Bluetooth proxy I assume it will work. If not, I can use the same esp32 that I have as Bluetooth proxy to wire the sensor and not use Bluetooth. Either way the esp32 is already on my wifi network.

Regarding my wifi setup, I have the router from the provider which is a Huawei HG8245H but on top of that I have 2 Tenda Nova MW3 satellites.

In total, I have 25 wifi devices on the network and on top of that I have a small zigbee network with total of another 10 devices.

I live in an apartment but I am afraid that the reason is not as much as the number of devices I have but interferance from routers from other apartments. Looking for wifi networks I can find more than 10 around mine… I need to find the time to select the correct channel…

So this is an interesting question about using an esp32, I too had issues with the poor distance of the bluetooth on the LD2410 and decided to move both of my current LD2410’s over to a d1_mini and integrate it via esphome yaml however would it be possible to use a esp32 instead of the d1_mini and add the BT Proxy to the esp32 as well? I am not as familiar with esphome but would it be as simple as changing the board from the current esp01_1m to an esp32 board and then adding the esphome.bluetooth_proxy package thereby having both a BT proxy and the LD2410 in one? Thinking this would also cut down on the number of wifi devices I would have connected. Could there be an issue with having the LD2410 so close to the proxy but not utilizing it?

According to this: Home Assistant Bluetooth Proxy - How To | digiblurDIY you can enable Bluetooth proxy on an existing ESP32 device. Follow the link and go to the bottom to find the yaml.