Off the shelf Sound Level sensor?

Anyone know of any sound level sensor that can be linked into HA?

Can be mains/USB powered or battery powered. Zigbee or Wifi. Need to be as compact as possible, hence wanting off the shelf solutions.




I want to install sound level detector in my hallway, near the front door. I hear there are burglery going on in the neighbourhood, where they knock on people’s doors at night while monitoring the house, if no activity is seen, they come back later to burgle the house.

My solution:
trigger if high sound level is detected
condition: away mode or night mode is on, hallway and stair motion sensor clear
action: randomly turn on light bulb(s) in bedrooms for a short random period

Any suggestions?

Alternatively, a vibration sensor on the back of the door?
But I’m not sure if it would be sensitive enough.

I did consider vibration sensor, the Xiaomi Zigbee one. I asked in their thread, response was “depend on how sturdy is your door”.

My door is relatively new, solid wood internal, composit material outside for looks. I’d like to think it is very sturdy…

Netatmo Weather Station… main internal module has sound level meter build in… Though it might be overkill just for sound meter…

The Netatmo weather station is a bit more expensive than I wanted to pay for a noise sensor. Never felt the need to know more than indoor temperature and humidity, nor outdoor information beyond what’s been provided by weather forecasts.


I've ordered a xiaomi vibration sensor just to try it out, expect over 1 months to get it delivered........ If it doesn't work and no better suggestions in the mean time, I'll bump this thread and see if there's new development/suggestions.

i was going to suggest netatmo. I am not however sure if this will work as I am not sure if the sound level will pick up a knock at the door…

Having said that, it will also give you readings like humidy and Co2 which can lead into indoor air qulaity which can’t be a bad thing? https://github.com/Limych/ha-iaquk

Otherwise, a smart doorbell with motion sensor? like dare I say Ring?

Not of the shelf, but rather cheap and easy: ESP Home integrating an ESP32 with some cheap sound sensor like a KY-038. can be setup probably within an hour… powered via USB adapter.

How would I package that into a package that is pleasing to the eye, that won’t draw attention to itself and doesn’t look out of place within a normal plain home decor?

Bits sticking out of breadboard or prototype board will not get past wife.

I don’t have a 3D printer :frowning:

There are online services available that provide 3d printing services.
Of course also DIY wood or something similar is possible. Or just buy a little plastic/metal box. Whatever passes the WAF test. :wink:

I also want this. A simple audio level sensor would be GREAT!

Looks like using a camera will do the trick with this integration, but there’s a bunch of hoops you have to jump through, unless you already have FFmpeg running

1 Like

I’m also curious, have two use cases:

  1. To set up continuous noise level logging near a road where there is a building plot, I am interested to understand if the road is too noisy / trafficky to consider building a house there.
  2. A neighbor wants to set up a wind turbine and has to measure the dB output to decide on optimal placement.

So far seems the ESP32 solution is the only viable, is it possible to have offline recording of some kind (leaving the battery powered device in the wild, and pick it up every month or so for data dump) or do I need to connect them to an HA instance?

I’d like to have an out of the box noise sensor too…

I sometimes have issues with a neighbor and I’d like to monitor exactly how much noise comes from my apartment :sweat_smile: