New DFRobot MMWave sensor not working

ESPHome
1

Hello everyone, I was hoping someone could help me with a problem I’ve been having. I found out about this pretty nifty-looking mmWave sensor from DFRobot.

Product Page: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/dfrobot/SEN0623/24854509

Documentation: SEN0623 C1001 mmWave Human Detection Sensor

I wanted to use this in ESPHome in Home Assistant; however, I discovered it isn’t supported quite yet. I tried out the test code from the documentation page, and it works fine flashing the code directly to the board so I’m relatively sure it’s all wired correctly.

Here’s how I have it all wired up:

image
image762×827 148 KB

However, since there’s no native support for this sensor in esphome quite yet, I’m having difficulty getting it to work. I’m quite new to ESPHome, so I’m having a difficult time figuring out how to port the DFRobot_HumanDetection.h to ESPHome. To be honest, I’m not even sure if I really need to.

Here’s what I’ve tried for my YAML config.

substitutions:
  uart_tx_pin: GPIO17
  uart_rx_pin: GPIO16
  gpio_pin: GPIO22
  device_name: mmwave-sensor
  device_name_pretty: mmWave Sensor

esphome:
  name: $device_name
  friendly_name: $device_name_pretty

esp32:
  board: esp32dev
  framework:
    type: arduino

# Enable logging
logger:

# Enable Home Assistant API
api:
  encryption:
    key: "KEY"

ota:
  - platform: esphome
    password: "PW"

wifi:
  ssid: !secret wifi_ssid
  password: !secret wifi_password
  domain: .lan

captive_portal:

web_server:
  port: 80
  version: 2
  include_internal: true

http_request:
  useragent: esphome/$device_name
  timeout: 2s
  verify_ssl: false

uart:
  id: uart_bus
  tx_pin: ${uart_tx_pin}
  rx_pin: ${uart_rx_pin}
  baud_rate: 115200

binary_sensor:
  - platform: gpio
    name: "${device_name_pretty}"
    id: mmwave_presence_detection
    device_class: motion
    pin:
      number: GPIO22
      mode: 
        INPUT_PULLDOWN

When this config is flashed, it just shows that the motion sensor is always clear.

I’m hoping someone can help point me in the right direction here to figure out how to get this sensor to work.

Thanks!

2

Try reversing your TX/RX. These are usually wired in reverse. Two such examples attached

Screenshots
Screenshots1966×808 245 KB

3

You maybe able to use some of the code generously open sourced by EverythingSmartHome. This isn’t specifically for your sensor but these may be close enough

4

It might be worth messaging the person who submitted the latest 2 mmwave configs and see if they can assist you with modifying an existing one and adding support for the one you have…

5

I did try this; the result is that it’s either always detecting motion or never detecting motion.

1 Like
6

That might be good, how do I figure out who that is?

7

the esphome documentation catelogs every update and links to the relevant repositories, authors, etc. You might even just go ask in the Esphome Discord server, that’s where all the esphome developers hang out and answer questions there.

1 Like
8

Sweet, thanks I’ll do that.