Hi all. Looking for your opinion on whether RF or Z-Wave sensor is better to detect presence and ambient light level to use as input to turn light on.
What is “better”? I’d say my parameters are: reliability, speed, HASS compatibility, and price, in that order.
So, a cheap sensor, which doesn’t integrate with HASS is a no go. Or, a sensor that integrates with HASS, is not expensive, but only works well some times (i.e., not ALL the time), is also a no go. Or, one that is reliable, but takes several seconds to detect presence, would also be not desirable.
What are you using? What have you tried and didn’t work as expected?
In my opinion, ZWave… hands down. It’s definitely not cheaper than RF, but the clearest advantage over RF is the 2-way polling.
Most RF sensors only transmit when a state-change happens. Some sensors transmit their status every x seconds/minutes/etc. But almost all of them don’t have a way for you to “poll” them to get their status. If you aren’t able to “receive” at the time that the state change happens (HASS rebooting, RF interference, etc), you don’t have a way to know what the status of the sensor is. With Z-Wave, you can poll the device for its status and ensure that the actual state matches the Home Assistant state.
I am using both zwave and 433 RF sensors. If I have the money, I would go all zwave. But RF sensors are so cheap and they work equally well. Only issue is anyone can sniff your RF signal or jam them. So I only use them on non critical part of the house such as room doors, staircase, etc… for light automation. I use zwave for perimeter of the house.