Ring Z-Wave Plus Door/Window Contact Sensor - does this work with HA?

Hardware
1

I’m looking for an inexpensive door/window switch that is also compact, something like the Ring Z-Wave Plus Door/Window Contact Sensor. I have a z-wave USB stick and a Zooz 4-in-1 sensor connected through HA. Has anyone successfully connected one of the Ring contact sensors to HA using a z-wave USB stick?

2

There is a Hass.io add-on that that can access the Ring sensors, but it requires the Ring Alarm hub.

3

I tried the Ring motion sensor but gave up. Either HA could not detect any motion or I had a bad unit.

4

Thanks, bosborne, I think I’ll wait until the Ring platform is more developed within HA. Any recommendations for compact door/window contact switches (WiFi or z-wave) that work with HA?

5

I have not used any contact switches.
I normally check to see if something is supported by openzwave. I recently bought a motion sensor from China and that is the criteria I used.
I am a little concerned with the new tariff law because I have some z-wave plugs in transit.

You can also search here.

6

these will work:

https://www.amazon.com/NEO-Z-Wave-Automation-Security-Magnetic/dp/B079MB2FQN/ref=sr_1_2?crid=20AZSAKDR1WFX&keywords=neo+coolcam&qid=1557515188&s=electronics&sprefix=neo+coolcam%2Celectronics%2C488&sr=1-2

I got a 4 pack last year and they are still working great. I don’t remember them being that expensive tho.

7

Thanks finity, I’ve seen these. How do you have them integrated into HA? Did they pair well with a z-wave USB device or WeMo bridge? Any complications?

8

they are paired directly to my Aeotec USB Z Stick.

As far as I can remember there wasn’t any issues getting them paired but that was quite a while ago and I’ve slept once since then. :slightly_smiling_face:

9

Has anyone had any luck using the zwave Ring sensors direct to HA? I have a HUSBZB-1 network in HA that I can add the sensor to with a custom device xml but cannot seem to get the device to properly add to the network even with a secure add. The device just stays asleep forever when added to my network. The LED also goes red at the end of the join process which according to the docs is a self destruct, whatever that means.

Hoping someone out there may have had better luck than I.

1 Like
10

Recently purchased RING window/door sensors, as they were the only ones available at the time, seeing they were Zwave didn’t give a second thought.

Well when I paired and saw the "Unknown " tags started to get worried, but after further testing (openzwave beta integration) THEY do work, albeit not like the other contact sensors I have they report safe/unsafe but fyi RING contact sensors are now working

11

Adding a few extra details for anyone that comes across this. I do have the Ring Contact Sensors v2 working in Home Assistant but had to do a couple non-intuitive things to get them to pair. I am using the zwave-js integration through the ZWave to MQTT control panel (but I have MQTT Gateway turned off).

When both sensor and hub are in pairing mode, I had to hold down the button on the contact sensor for 5 seconds. When you release the button it the sensor should blink rapidly. It will begin to pair and will blink red and then do nothing. If you look in the control panel a new node will be added but it will just say asleep and the interview process is not complete. You then have to use a pin to press the reset button by the batteries, and then it will complete the interview process and will be added to HA.

They came through with device_class: safety (which is why they report safe/unsafe) but can be changed to Doors or Windows using customize.yaml.

4 Likes
12

Thanks for this I was given some of these and probably wouldn’t have figured that out that easily… I had to do re-interview and pin press an extra time and it started working. Hopefully just adding the config to zwave_js will allow it to show up a little “prettier” did you get like 10 entities and 31 disabled ones?

EDIT: So I found this: https://products.z-wavealliance.org/products/2665/network
which says removing the back cover keeps the device awake so I am going to try that with the next one and hopefully it will get the whole thing interviewed right away.

1 Like
13

Just curious if anyone has an update on how to improve the process of adding these contact sensors with zwavejs? I bought one to test and I got it working. That was only after an hour or so of combinations with including/excluding, pressing the pin, and reinterviewing. I’m still not entirely sure of what actually helped with mine.

1 Like
14

I feel silly for buying a six pack of these Ring z-wave contact sensor G2 devices before checking this forum. I didn’t realize they would be difficult.

I’m using Z-Wave JS and the log seems to think the initial interview is successful, but the the light goes red at the end, as if it disagrees. I tried the trick mentioned above to poke the reset button after the red light, but according to the log, it just wakes the device up and it goes right back to sleep. I’ve even tried multiple HA instances with different brand Z-Wave USB sticks and I can’t seem to find the combination of things to make these work.

The device and all of its entities show up in HA, but their status never changes. It just always reports as “safe”. The intrusion switch continues to report “safe” as well, even with the battery cover removed.

:shrug:

15

Good to know.

I bought a house with a ring alarm system but it’s all Gen1 sensors. They work well with the Z-wave JS integration and addon.

Shame the gen2 don’t integrate well. These seem like the cheapest contact sensors for Seaver that I can regularly find.

Just need to hunt down a few more Gen1 sensors though to get everything alarmed.

16

Edit; I see now you are using just zwavejs I would suggest zwavejs2mqtt if you are still having issues but I would first try pairing how I mentioned even with just Zwave js until the interview completes… as soon as the Inteview actually finishes it should work

I have the gen2 working fine with zwavejs2mqtt… I’m going to search for my post but somewhere i mention what I did to pair… I believe leaving the cover off at first… pressing the button once then pressing and holding the reset pin hole until the light flashes… and if it doesn’t complete interview tap it again to wake up until interview complete.
I’ll link the post as soon as I find it but my gen2 have been working perfectly and are also now recognized as the correct device.

Edit: so I guess I didn’t go into too much more detail here but I believe a post higher up in the thread may have mentioned the process… but either way I assure you I have my entire 6 pack working perfectly

17

For those coming back to this. I got a 6 pack of the sensor and have been having good luck with this process in zwavejs.

  1. Hold the led button for 5-10 seconds and start pair process from controller.
  2. Pair will happen in the controller (sometimes it shows nothing but just goes back to the start pair screen). Contact sensor will continue to flash until it shows red.
  3. Select the gen2 contact sensor in the zwave device list.
  4. Press the pin hole button for 5 seconds.
  5. Press the led button for 5-10 seconds. Then re-interview the device. Wait for re-interview to complete.
  6. Put back on the cover and move the magnet to and from sensor to see if it changes status. When I left the cover off it didn’t seem to update.

I’ve done 3 consistently with this process.

3 Likes
18

I verified @Roborobp’s steps Ring Z-Wave Plus Door/Window Contact Sensor - does this work with HA? - #17 by Roborobp works.
Before going through those steps I was able to connect my Ring Contact Sensor gen2 to HA, but didn’t see the sensor status changed when it should. Now I see “safety” state flips, which is not exactly what the sensor senses as some people have already reported above but I’m way happier than nothing.

Btw I might have to ask in a new thread. I’m new to HA community. If there’s a better location for documenting these best practices? I suggest we should add this, to give better ideas of which ones are good, verified solutions/workarounds. Otherwise I’m afraid people keep hacking, taking more time, prone to errors esp. due to missing lines in between.

In my case what I did was 1) Find this thread from google.com, 2) read through the top, 3) try 1 approach that I ran across first while I read through from the top (didn’t work completely), 4) This step is not really documented anywhere but in order to make every attempt self-contained, I did factory reset and did also whatever makes environment clean as possible. 5) read further and kept trying another approaches. Luckily I found the one that works.

19

Is this a binary sensor? In the states tab of the developer tools does it switch from on to off when activated?

If so, switch the device_class using customize to window/door as appropriate.

20

Interesting thread here all, especially as an HA noob making what switch from smartthings.

I currently have a Ring Alarm V2 with contact sensors placed around the house. They’re being used in routines via Alexa to control external hue lights on door open, etc. but the lag is terrible.

Is there a way of managing this in HA which will fire faster? I’m assuming the contact sensors can only pair with one zwave network so can’t coexist in HA and Ring.