I have a gate at the rear of my property that sometimes gets left open and its not directly visible from the house. I want to put a sensor on it so that I can easily see if its open and use it to trigger automations.
Due to the distance it will need to be wifi. Its outdoors in an exposed position so needs to be water resistant/proof. Also, needs to be battery powered
Any recommendations for something off the shelf?
I could start building something in a waterproof box using something like a D1 mini and a reed switch but, for now, I would prefer to go with something ready to go if I can
Any idea what the usable distance is for the magnet? I am guessing if its just a magnet, something stronger could be used if it not quite close enough to work
Usually a reed switch functions with a distance of about 1 cm.
I tried taking a stronger magnet to the reed switch but it made very little difference.
I took a stack of neodymium magnets tested it with a bare metal and compared to the magnet of the contact sensor and the stack of magnets was clearly stronger.
But it’s not a scientific test in any way