Rain sensor advice

Are there any good and affordable ZigBee rain sensors? I’ve mostly seen amateur projects online. Thanks

What is it that you want to know about the rain? Tipping buckets are fine for measuring amounts of rain over the day, but too slow to respond to if you want to protect e.g. an awning from rain.
Other sensors are available that react very quickly to the first drops, but do not know about the rain amount. Those are often slow to detect that it is dry.
The ones that do all well are very expensive.

I don’t care about the quantity, knowing that it’s raining is enough for me to close the windows

I do not think you will find many zigbee pre built ones, so this is likely why you see mostly diy things. You could buy a cheap door sensor and wire a sensor like this to the place where the reed contact is that responds to the magnet. That isn’t hard.

If you’re ok with spending a few more bucks, optical sensors like these ones will give you some more peace of mind (as they will run almost forever without needing service):

I have the RG-11 (with a 12V power supply) which has a relay contact for rain sensing.
So you could use an zigbee input sensor that supports something like that (or unsolder the reed contact from an aqara window sensor and connect it to the relay.

I have one on our roof since 6 years and it still works like on the first day.
A little bit rain from time to time keep it clean, so no maintenance needed.
And there’s no risk that it kill itself from corrosion over time, like these electrical sensing boards.

It’s also very fast in reaction and hasn’t given me any false alarms.

(Beside of a few minutes after rain stopped, when the wind can push the remaining water drops on the sensor over the optical area.
But this is also faster than the time raindrops need to dry on the electrical sensors.)

But yeah, it’s also a more expensive solution.

I have one of those. Brilliant. But they are not cheap, not zigbee, not cheap, need soldering, and did I mention not cheap? So that is why I did not mention them.

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This works too.

Well, he said affordable, not cheap. :smile:
And I had a few different sensors before, that wasted only money without being good (which he also asked for).
So I wanted to mention it at least … :wink:

If I give you a zigbee remote, can I hire you do that 24/7 and press the button when needed? :joy:

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For the right price.

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There are many zigbee rain sensors available on Aliexpress, you don’t need to go the diy path.

Do note that the ones based on electrical contact by water will corrode over time and need replacement at some point. But since they are cheap, that should not be a big problem. They also tend to take some time to dry and stop signaling rain.

Stay away from the one shaped like a flower (I forget the name) I had one this summer and it was very unreliable.