I'm after peoples opinions for a good temperature sensor that integrates easy with hubitat, I would prefer a mains powered one if possible, as the battery ones I've tried so far seem to go in to a sleep mode to save battery life and then when I go to turn my heating on via my virtual thermostat it goes in to a emergency mode and wont turn on the heating.
I'm engrossed with temp/humidity and luminance ...
I see your desire for mains but I've actually never seen one of those.
In the zigbee world I'm really impressed with the thirdreality unit the most. The AVT units pictured are an averaging driver I wrote for rooms with multiple devices so ignore those.
I've got 14 physical devices - all devices can report to 2 digits of precision. I choose not to display it, but I do calc on it in my averages.
Sonoff units are inaccurate and when you add a +/- delta it skews badly over the slope. it also doesn't allow changing the reporting rates which I really love on the 3rd reality units.
The 3rd reality units take 2 AAA batts and one of my units is nearly 16 months so far. The sonoff unit sort of eats batteries - about every 6 months.
A sunricher unit is actual the most accurate but has no display which sucks. Can't tell more about it I've only had it 6-8 months but battery life is nice.
The temp sensor in gen 4-5 Echo's - at first I thought it was garbage - I realized it's skewed by the ambient heat of the unit, so it's reporting was 2-3 degrees higher at all times. No battery needed there but not native to HE (I bring it in via HA).
Do have a reference device! It's hard to take at face value what any sensor reports until you get validation. I know my freezer temp detector and fridge temp both were way off. (not pictured). Again the 3rd reality units held well at extremes.
Also, be wary where you put a unit! if it's 6ft off the floor its totally different then say desk level. I used to have an outside wall at my office desk and in the winter my feet were always cold - floor level measurement was different by 9 degrees from the room!
So my recommend is the third reality unit - 2 units for $30 or 1 for $20 currently on amazon.
I setup a virtual thermostat, and connected my 1st floor avg to it. I created a virtual thermostat for my office and tied the 2nd floor avg to it to drive my floor heater. Also, my house has built in A/C, which is also managed by this, and I have a window A/C in my office that is connected to the office virtual thermostat as well
Thing with temp sensors is getting them to report at the frequency you want them to.
I use this driver with my Zigbee sensors:
That driver has advanced preferences that lets to set how often the sensor will report temperature based on a change. Mine report on a .05 temp change, as often as every minute. I need a quick reaction time to temp changes for my virtual thermostats.
Right now my go-to are the tiny MOES temp/humid sensors. I just ordered a few more of these from Ali Express.
1 Like
