I got my first Zigbee door contact sensor, in this case a Sonoff SNZB-04, and realized that double sided sticky tape is less than ideal for when the battery needs to be changed. Are all of them like this or are there some that use some sort of a snap on mount that is friendlier at battery replacement time?
Thanks
As long as leave enough space around the larger enclosure then you should still be able to lever off the casing when it is stuck in place using the sticky pads. The following link shows this being opened at timestamp 02:40.
Another option which I generally use for the temperature/humidity sensors is to mount these onto a surface using “Blu Tac” or something simillar which makes removing these to replace batteries much easier.
I had opened the casing previously to get the battery insulating tape out. (The contacts were very loose and the battery rattled around inside but that is another story!)
The cover is actually pretty hard to open so maybe “Blu Tac” is a better solution as a mount
Thanks
This caught my eye. I have bought the drill bits.
Fascinating!
I’m not sure my skills are up to the task and my wife will kill me if I damage the door.
That’s why I have gone no further than buying the drill bit.
Fun fact: our house is fully wired with hidden contact sensors but I could not find a modern alarm controller to put in place of the old Ademco/Honeywell one. Hence these experiments with Zigbee sensors
Aeotech do a Zwave recessed door sensor, it is more expensive but requires less drilling to install. As you can see, I did not even bother to install the retaining screws as it fits in the top of the door quite snugly.
I finally got fed up with the Aeotec hidden sensors and will be replacing them with Aqara. Main problem is that Aeotec at a distance seem to lose their battery over the course of a few months and none of them will mesh with the mains-powered nearby Zwave devices, which ironically, are also Aeotec.
Fun part is adapting the deep center hole for the Aqara sensor. I use a magnetic neodymium magnet for the metal door frame, which works with the Aeotec & Aqara. Today I adapted my first Aeotec hole to Aqara and thank god it is on top of the door frame where nobody can see it. Is there a tool or method to cut nicely rectangular holes at a set depth? Maybe a chisel would work better than a drill?
