I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations or personally good experience with contact sensors that work well in a wet environment such as a bathroom or even outdoors. Preferably Zigbee based to save battery life and Zigbee2MQTT compatible.
I currently have Eufy and Aquara Contact sensors on most of my windows and doors (lower floors Eufy due to being part of the alarm system, higher floors Aquara because they just kinda work better in HA). The only window I cannot monitor is the bathroom as it’s very close to the shower and it can just can get very damp and moist in there. Read some experiences about Aquara contact sensors not really being up to the task there.
I use an aqara door/window contact sensor in a polycarbonate waterproof box to monitor my gate outside. The magnet has no problem working through the extra plastic.
We have had several cheap door sensors fitted to outside gates for years and just opened them up before install and sprayed them with the following product:
This mostly worked, the theory being that as they were cheap sensors then even if we had to swap them out every year or so it was no big deal.
For our use we never had a problem with water ingress like this ever, but due to outside temps the battery life wasn’t great as they were using coin cells but that’s a different issue I guess.
Eventually we swapped them out for z-wave recessed door sensors and haven’t had battery issues since
Thanks for the tips so far. The Aquara ones are not to expensive to try this with. My main concern for in the bathroom is not it getting directly wet, but that with all the steam, heat and dampness electronic’s not suited for a wet environment will simply not last there. This spray does seem interesting to investigate.
I asked a friend to 3D print some cases for Aqura sensors and so far so good…
I found a schematic on Thingiverse for him and the sensors seem to fit perfectly into it:
Disclaimer: they have only been up for 4 days now, in the shower and outside (it has rained already). Not a very long time testing it
I’ve installed these in July and it’s almost end December now. Both the one is the bathroom (that can get very wet → teenagers showering) and outside with rains, freezing, etc. have survived perfectly so far.
That’s a base for the magnet part of the sensor to be placed on if I see it right. Depending a bit on if you need it or not. The one I originally found came in 2 parts: 1 the case for the actual sensor to make it waterproof and 2. a base you can also put the magnet part on if you need to ‘lift it’ to be in contact with the sensor in the case.
Thanks for all the good ideas on here!
i’ve just ordered the Aqara contact sensor and the waterproof enclosure linked above. I’ll let you know in the coming days how it goes.
I had previously bought the Yale outdoor contact sensor as it has an impressive 200m range, IP 65 rating and said it works with Philips Hue which was going to be my Zigbee way to get it to talk to Home Assistant. Unfortunately, it won’t pair with Hue without purchasing additional hardware from Yale, which wasn’t clear on the website - just an FYI!
For those who haven’t seen it, here’s a great resource for those hunting for the right zigbee product. I haven’t searched through the list of products for outdoor contact sensors, but this list is a great place to start.
I conformal-coated the case seams (not the internal electronics) on an Aqara Zigbee door sensor and it worked fine outside in the weather on an external gate for a number of months before I repurposed it. Got some conformal coating on the pairing button - don’t do that - it was a pain to dig around the button and get it functional again so I could repair after I changed a setting in HA and broke Zigbee briefly.
