Hi,
I need motion sensors for backyard lights, so just checking if anyone here has experience working with any motion sensors. The search results on Amazon were weird and all kind of gizmo showed up for motion sensor search.
Found few such as - https://www.amazon.com/Aqara-RTCGQ11LM-Motion-Sensor-White/dp/B07D1CRRVF but these seems pricey and not sure if it will work with HA.
I will really appreciate any recommendations on the subject.
Thanks,
Pankaj
Iâve been using these for my home.
Although once in a while a sensor becomes unavailable and I have a feeling itâs because Aqara does not conform 100% to zigbee V3
but overall works well. I have another 2 in the home and those have still been reporting back to HA.
(using elelabs zb)
Pricey? They cost less than 20 bucksâŠ
I can recommend the Philips Hue motion sensors (they are pricey, but the best from my experience, have one for more than 4 years and still didnât need to change the battery, they seem to last forever xD) and the Aeotec Multisensors (also pricey but include lots of other sensors and can be mains powered if needed).
I thought these are pricey as there are motion sensor LED bulbs that are sold on amazon for $8~9 a piece.
Here is one such example - click here
I just assumed that motion sensor built into these bulbs would probably be no more than $2~3 bucks as a normal LED bulb can cost up to $5. Its possible that Philips and other pricier motion sensors may have better specs or more features.
Anyway I am buying the Philips Hue motion sensor you recommended and will give it a try in next few daysâŠthanks for your recommendations!!
But these are just bulbs, they are not meant to report state or communicate with any other device at all.
Yes and these bulbs also have few more limitations. I just installed these LEDs at the front porch (about 5x6 ft semi-enclosed space) and noticed two more limitations:
The range is very limited and unless you walk up to within 7~8 ft of the front door these lights do not turn on. While this is acceptable for my front door needs but it will not work in the backyard where the area is significantly larger.
These lights turn on even during the day time & no way to program them for sunlight or a timer (bummer!) but given the total time these are lit up in a day makes it non-trivial.
So in the end I got what I paid for 
I finally have Zigbee2MQTT running on my Home Assistant instance. Will this be sufficient infrastructure wise? How are you integrating the Philips Hue motion sensors with HA?
Thanks
Yes it will be and you can integrate hue sensors with HA.
Can someone explain why motion detectors response time is so limited? especially in case of subsequent movements?
For example in case of Lidl zigbee3 motion sensor, once triggered it reports movement for time period of 1 min. obviously it cannot detect subsequent movements during this time.
From various sources I know users struggling with that regardless the sensor, however this pause time (warmup time?) is different from one model to another
Yes
Iâm using a ConBee II with deconz, but zigbee2mqtt works fine as well.
To save battery and make it cheaper. My Aeotec Multisensors as well as the Philips Hue Motions Sensor and a DIY motion sensor work perfectly fine with subsequent motion, you get what you pay for 
Indeed. For zigbee I was happy with the Philips ones, not so happy with the Xiaomi (which have the benefit of being super small). On zwave I use neo coolcam and Aeotec Multisensor 6 which are both very responsive and have been 100% reliable.
Thanks, @Burningstone and @Piggyback
Would OTA firmware updates also be possible without buying the Philips hub?
As far as I know thatâsnot possible, because Philips doesnât make their firmware public.
I went for the Xiaomi Aqara ones due to size⊠(ok I lie 
, the Philips Hue ones are pricey but @Burningstone said it right, you get what you pay for)
@bernhard , any particular reason you werenât quite happy with the Xiaomi ones ? The only thing i didnât quite like was majorly them going unavailable for some random reason and had to go through zha.permit. although hasnât happened for sometime though and i suspect the cause is HA going through a major upgrade and taking some time to come back up and sensors thinking the coordinator was dead. 
My use cases for motion detect was occupancy for light/fan/ac control, and as a trigger for my home security system.
Any reason why weâd want constant state updates from a motion sensor ? would like to understand the use cases as well 
The Xiaomi sensors donât re-route.
If it connects to the network via a bulb and somebody turns the bulb off physically, the Sensor is dead. If you have routers in your mesh that donât work properly with the Xiaomi sensors, like Osram plugs or some Philips bulbs, you lose messages and sometimes the sensor does not fire an event.
Letâs say you have lights in the office turn on when motion is detected. Then you leave the office and turn off the lights manually. Now if you walk in the office in the next minute, the lights wonât turn on as the motion sensor is still in âmotion detectedâ state.
The problem is turning the lights off manually. The idea of motion sensors is that you donât have to turn the light off manually. I simply have a minimum time of light being on of 2 minutes, which is more then enough to not get the problem you describe.
I donât have a problem at all, my motion sensors reset after 10 sec.
But I also have been raised to turn lights off when I leave a room, I donât think Iâll never get rid of this habit, which is not too bad I think
May work for you, but for me and lots of other people it wonât. If you sit still for too long your lights will turn off on you, which I absolutely hate (and my wife hates it even more).
