Recommendation for a presence detector

Hi HA Community

I am new to HA and have a question about presence sensors.

I use already a couple of Aqara motion sensors P1 which works well to detect if someone has entered into a room. As described several times, these sensors are not suitable when someone simply stands still around the room. E.g. watching TV or doing some work at the desk. For this case a mmWave sensor is recommended. I found for example the aqara fp1, aqara fp2 and some from tuya.

Here in Switzerland I can only buy the Aqara FP2. The others I would have to order from AliExpress. Unfortunately, I have not heard much good about the Aqara FP2 so far. It needs a login, ghost people detection etc…Is that correct? Or has this improved in the meantime’

Currently I use HA only with a Conbee 2 stick and the Zigbee integration. So no hubs or anything else.
I want to install one sensor in the living room (20m2) and one in the office (9m2). Main goal is to turn off the light if nobody is in the room.

Which one would you recommend?

Thanks and best regards
Buhli

This video may be of use for ideas for you https://youtu.be/g53jpdWoXVk

Hi Robert

Thank you very much for the link.

Yes, he had some interesting points with ESP and the combination of the different sensors.

Do you use one of these sensors? Or can I use one of this sensors (Aqara or Tuya) with my installation (Conbee 2 stick and Zigbee integration)? At the moment my goal is really only to know, is somebody in the room or not.

Thanks a lot

Greetings
Buhli

I don’t have these setup or use them at the moment, my current setup is just detection if I am home or not with validation if the phone is inside or outside the home zone when not leaving the home for a while to trigger my AC and Lights to Turn off it they are on and to switch my Synology Surveillance Center to/from Home mode.

I was planning to try at some point try use the existing BT adapter I have by seeing if there was a way to tell HA what room I am in based on the signal strength since my place is not that large with the main rooms being the lounge room and my bedroom, still researching it as I think of other ideas for my place as I can afford the items.

I use the following in the configuration yamil to force the home zone to be the correct radius for my needs:

zone:
  # This will override the default home zone
  - name: Home
    latitude: 
    longitude: 
    radius: 15
    icon: mdi:account-multiple

and what I am using for the AC control:

alias: Manage AC
description: >-
  Turns on the AC based on Summer and Winter temperature's during the day or
  night, else turns it off when not home.
trigger:
  - platform: device
    device_id: 
    domain: device_tracker
    entity_id: 
    type: enters
    zone: zone.home
    id: When Home
  - platform: device
    device_id: 
    domain: device_tracker
    entity_id: 
    type: leaves
    id: When Not Home
    zone: zone.home
  - platform: sun
    event: sunrise
    offset: 0
    id: Sunrise
  - platform: sun
    event: sunset
    offset: 0
    id: Sunset
condition: []
action:
  - choose:
      - conditions:
          - condition: trigger
            id:
              - When Home
              - Sunrise
          - condition: and
            conditions:
              - condition: state
                entity_id: climate.home_ac
                state: "off"
              - type: is_temperature
                condition: device
                device_id: 
                entity_id: 
                domain: sensor
                above: 30
                below: 50
        sequence:
          - parallel:
              - service: climate.turn_on
                data: {}
                target:
                  entity_id: climate.home_ac
              - service: climate.set_temperature
                data:
                  temperature: 25
                  hvac_mode: cool
                target:
                  entity_id: climate.home_ac
              - service: climate.set_fan_mode
                data:
                  fan_mode: medium
                target:
                  entity_id: climate.home_ac
      - conditions:
          - condition: trigger
            id:
              - When Home
              - Sunset
          - condition: and
            conditions:
              - condition: state
                entity_id: climate.home_ac
                state: "off"
              - type: is_temperature
                condition: device
                device_id: 
                entity_id: 
                domain: sensor
                above: 0
                below: 21
        sequence:
          - parallel:
              - service: climate.turn_on
                data: {}
                target:
                  entity_id: climate.home_ac
              - service: climate.set_temperature
                data:
                  temperature: 25
                  hvac_mode: heat
                target:
                  entity_id: climate.home_ac
              - service: climate.set_fan_mode
                data:
                  fan_mode: medium
                target:
                  entity_id: climate.home_ac
      - conditions:
          - condition: trigger
            id:
              - When Not Home
        sequence:
          - parallel:
              - service: climate.turn_off
                data: {}
                target:
                  entity_id: climate.home_ac
              - device_id: 
                domain: mobile_app
                type: notify
                title: AC Unit
                message: AC Has been turned off.
mode: single

Figured I would share them here whilst on the topic incase you wanted ideas with your presence detection. I’m using entityID’s with the Choose for the actions based on selected entities in the triggers when assigned a name for them first.

Been playing around with them for my other automations with parallel actions with or/and based on what conditions need to be met first.

Hi Robert

Thank you very much for your post.

Your plan to use your BT adapter to find out in which room you are is a good idea. Later I want to do the same. I found already a few videos to this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axod3MJmXQk This guy explains in different videos all the steps. Unfortunately, I am using ZHA with conbee 2 and not zigbee2mtt. So I am not sure if I can do this with my current installation.

Thanks and best regards
Buhli