Motion sensors with ESPHome (feedback)

ESPHome
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1

Hello everyone,

I’ve been attempting to build several ESPHome devices for my home using various components, including a basic IR blaster, a room temperature sensor, an Air Conditioning WiFi module, and motion sensors, all connected to an ESP8266 board.

I’ve tried using the LD2420, LD2410b, and LD2410c motion sensors. What I’ve noticed is that my ESPHome device works fine with all the sensors (connected to the ESP8266) without any issues. However, as soon as I include any of the motion sensors, the device either hangs or disconnects from the network.

After trying various troubleshooting steps and searching online without finding a solution, I decided to switch to the ESP32 board, and the issue completely disappeared!

It appears that the ESP8266 is unable to handle the processing of motion sensors when combined with other sensors, even basic ones. I thought it would be helpful to document and share this information in case anyone else encounters a similar issue in the future.

Interestingly, the ESPHome website doesn’t mention anything about this problem.

2

They sort of hint at possible issues in the uART docs:

Note

On the ESP32, this component uses the hardware UART units and is thus very accurate. On the ESP8266 however, ESPHome has to use a software implementation as there are no other hardware UART units available other than the ones used for logging. Therefore the UART data on the ESP8266 can have occasional data glitches especially with higher baud rates.