hi there, so there is no recently updated thread about what hardware you guys use and/or recommend.
im looking for some reliable, small, easy to power, window/door contact switches in zigbee, if they can provider for two or more channels, cool, i dont need to put several units on each window to cover for tilt/open and shutters open/closed.
power: gladly off usb, since recently ive got power in every shutter box, so grid tied is preferred, but battery if AAA, is welcome too, I dont like the button batteries…
any recommendations?
would prefer them to be cheap of course. and klaut free configuration
(German: Klaut is pronounced like cloud and means stealing, exactly what happens with my data in a Chinese cloud…)
For general window and door sensors I currently use
You can look into getting battery eliminator cables at the lengths you need to make clean runs where it makes sense to use them so you would just make a slight notch into the casing of the device to allow the cable through.
https://batteryeliminatorstore.com/ - just one store out there but its where I got my cables from currently even with the extra cost to get them out here in Australia since we have little to no options locally.
The other option is to go the DIY route to male your own tilt and reed switch based sensors using ESP32 and go from there.
iirc this setup had a DIY tilt sensor setup for his crank motor automation in this video so one example here if needed:
Those tilt sensors look interesting, I had considered using 2 contact sensors to detect my tilt/turn windows, but might consider these.
FWIW I also use the Aqara T1 sensors and they work well, batteries are button but they seem to last a while. I also tried one of the Sonoff contact sensors and works mostly, but I have had some door openings it has not detected reliably.
The Sonoff sensors are known to be … not awesome.
For Aqara’s sensors I usually get a few years out of the batteries, less for the temperature/humidity sensors, but even those I get a year to 18 months typically.
Battery levels will depend on how much usage each device gets activated and is out of “sleep” mode.
I use this blueprint to have my instance run a weekly check of the battery levels of devices I have yet or a need to run a battery eliminator cable due to where they are setup etc:
It’s set to notify me once a battery gets down to 10% and puts it into the todo list with the battery type it uses, I am also taking advantage of the label feature in HA to make it even easier to filter them heh
