I would like to install an occupancy sensor in each room with an AC unit, such that it would turn off the device whenever the room is empty. This would be a holiday apartment, so I can’t rely on the guests to be registered on homekit.
Can someone recommend reliable devices working well with homeassistant or homekit/homebridge?
Having only started learning about home automation, I am open to other suggestions. For example, maybe the router could count the number of devices connected to the wifi network and the AC would switch off whenever no devices are connected, but this would not work if people turn their wifi off for some reason or if they leave a device connected to the wifi in the flat and then leave.
If there are no fans in view than mmWave sensors such as the Xiaomi FP1 are great. If there are fans (in view of the sensor) though they’ll detect the spinning fans as continuing presence.
This is actually made especially for HA and was also featured during on of the recent Home Assistent presentations (1:12:00 in the video).
Its based on mmWave, which detect really small movements, so it is much more precise in detection.
Thank you for building this. I have been playing around with the Unity sensor and while it works well overall, I did notice that the “Has Still Human Target” sensor randomly turns on just for a few seconds even when there is no occupancy. I have added more details and logs in this GitHub issue, would appreciate if you could take a look when you get a chance.
Hi!
Thank you for letting me know. I’ll start looking in to this immediately and respond back to the git issue you raised.
Thanks again for your support!
Honestly, right now I’d go for something cheap, because I expect that in the next two years there is going to be an explosion of off-the-shelf options using mmwave technology — like the various things linked above, but in a nice package and with zigbee / zwave / whatever integration.
Thank you @spalexander!
I have been designing and testing the case. I’m currently fine tuning the ball joint at the moment. Once that’s done I’ll look at batch printing.
Just sharing my experience with the sensor so far (with xiaomi multi mode gateway) … It’s used for my living room. My TV is wall mounted and I placed the sensor on the wall, right under the TV.
Detection is almost immediate, and seems like the TV manage to block the signals from the ceiling fan.
Works as intended in HA. Other than the fact it is not Zigbee, I m quite glad with the result to far…
