I really like Xiaomi Aqara zigbee devices. I have temperature sensors; pir sensors; door sensors. I’m using the data from them to turn on/off light, to switch on/off heaters and to send notifications. All of them work well (I’m using zigbee2mqtt).
But there is also a device that I don’t know use cases for.
I have one on the window at my front door as a security measure. (Someone breaks the glass). I put one on my hallway door in my condo, if someone knocks on the door, it acts as a doorbell. I have experimented using it at my dining room table to turn on the dining room light when vibration is sensed, couldn’t get the sensitivity correct though. High was too sensitive, med was not sensitive enough.
Same here. I have two of them and as desperately as I try to find a use for them, I just can’t
Tried to use it on the door for the walk-in closet with the x-y-z orientation to check if the door stays open (it has a de-humidifier in it) but the distance from the Zigbee stick is too far.
Tried it to sense vibration on the creaky wooden front steps but the vibration is not strong enough.
Even taped them to the solenoids of the sprinkler system to verify it turns on & off as scheduled (the PVC pipes shake a good half inch back & forth.
Those make sense. I thought about the window one before, never considered the door knocking one.
The only other one I could come up with tracking when the washing machine or dryer is running and sending a notification when its done. Basically in case you’re out of hearing range of the buzzer or don’t want the buzzer to wake someone or just would prefer to turn it off since its loud and obnoxious.
Same situation here, not 100% sure on how to use them. For now what I did was:
wrapped it in lego pieces to create a magic cube (using x y z to detect the side that is up and switch light scenes)
installed one in my washing machine, inside the door (I had to unscrew the lid but that’s ok). This way using the x y z I can verify if the lid is opened or closed. I’m still trying to figure out if it is sensible enough to be a reliable detection for when the machine is running, but previous experiments (with different positioning) were not much reliable
one in the armchair: detects when you sit on it, but as long as you stay there it randomly detects vibration so best use is doing some idempotent operations “when you sit set a light scene” and not things that get annoying (like play sound). Not reliable to detect when you lift up from the chair, so not a real occupancy sensor as I hoped for
Got one on my Bed underneath my matress.
I made an automation that starts playing rainsounds on my sonos-speaker. (only between 9-12pm)
I always played the rainsounds manually and this simple automation prevented me doing it manually.
Good point - tried this one as well.
But while the temperature sensor right next to it has not trouble sending updates, the vibration sensor seems to be out of reach.
First tried if it would detect If washing machine started/finished. But it was not sensitive enough. Then I put it on the mailbox lit to detect if mail was delivered so that I am notified.
I use the xyz coordinates to determine whether a wallbed is down or up … and prevent the roller shutters from opening up at 7:00 if someone is in the bed
I also have one on my garage door which does not have different commands for opening and closing it. The DJT11LM allows me to register the last move (up or down) and determine whether I have to send 1 or 2 commands to open or close the garage door. Unfortunately, I am stuck with version 0.111.4 as the new Xiamo gateway integration does not support the DJT11LM yet and zigbee2mqtt does not provide the required xyz coordinates.
I was wrong, I managed to recover the DJT11LM thru the Xiaomi gateway.
Happily migrated to 0.114 without any more issue.
Attached mine to one of the sound plates in my old school doorbell chime so that I can trigger an automation that sends a notification and turns one of my lights to red. Easiest possible way to automate a doorbell.
Here is what I did for the office bed, setting the reset button towards the bottom:
- platform: template
sensors:
accelerometer_office_bed:
friendly_name: 'office bed accelerometer'
value_template: >-
{% if states.sensor.xyz_office_bed.state == 'unknown' %}
unknown
{% elif states.sensor.xyz_office_bed.state.split(',')[1] | int < -970 %}
closed
{% else %}
open
{% endif %}
When the bed is closed, the vibration sensor provides xyz coordinates similar to this:
85,-1032,279 turning sensor.accelerometer_office_bed to ‘closed’.
First one is attached to the cat flap so I know when the cats are using the cat flap. This is useful when we’re waiting for our cat to come in to shut him in at night (he’s worked out how to get around the one way control of the cat flap).
Second one is attached to my home office chair. My study has lights triggered by motion and will switch off after 20 minutes. Having the vibration sensor is another way to restart the 20 minute timer.
Mmh…isn’t the letterbox a perfect use case for the sensor… I mean just putting it inside the letterbox on at the bottom… this should send a signal every time a letter is thrown in or even the lid gets opened or closed… I will give this a try.
Just did it… works like a charm. I also introduced an input_boolean to indicate the letterbox state in my dashboard. When a letter got thrown in, I send out an actionable notification to my mobile (which allows to directly reset the letterbox state).
- id: 'postbox.notification'
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.vibration_letterbox
to: "on"
action:
- service: input_boolean.turn_on
data:
entity_id: input_boolean.letterbox_filled
- service: notify.mobile_app_xiaomi_redmi_note_9_pro_daniel
data:
message: "Look into the letterbox, you got mail!"
data:
actions:
- action: reset
title: "Thanks, has been emptied!"
- id: 'postbox.reset'
trigger:
platform: event
event_type: mobile_app_notification_action
event_data:
action: reset
action:
- service: input_boolean.turn_off
data:
entity_id: input_boolean.letterbox_filled
I am trying to use the vibration sensors on my washer and dryer so I will receive an alert at the begining and end of a wash/drying cycle. The 2 sensors are integrated with HA via a Conbee II USB key but they are not detecting the vibrations of my machines for some reason. I dont now if thier sensitivity can be modified. They do respond if they are tapped a few times. Has anyone seen this before?
