Contact Sensors

It has been my experience with other aquara sensors that they are not, in fact, standard zigbee. Some folks have good luck with them, I have not. See thread here:

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I think it depends which xiaomi/aqara devices the video is referring to.

I believe they have newer, zigbee 3.0 devices. Their older devices are non-standard zigbee.

I've never used any of them.

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I took it at face value that they would work as the guy calls out Home Assistant, Start Things and Habitat in the video ..but that dent mean that he checked!
Might buy a couple just to see how they perform.
Cheers

Don't believe everything you hear on the internet :wink:.

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In my case once bitten, twice shy! Would be interesting to get HE's take and see if they want to add them to the compatibility list. That's always a pretty good indication!

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Can confirm that the older ones are not. The newer Aqara E1 sensors seem to be locked to Xiaomi hubs; although there are ways around it.

I had bad experiences with drop off despite a strong mesh and I really didn't want to have to buy additional repeaters for them just to keep them on the mesh. Sonoff on the other hand have been pretty solid for me.

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Are the newer "E1" sensors the Zigbee 3.0 versions?

His test was of the MCCGQ11LM, which I believe can be problematic for HE users. There is a new ZB 3.0 version coming, MCCGQ12LM, but it's not available outside of China yet as far as I can tell.

Aqara also has a true presence sensor coming that looks interesting.

Yup.

Well that sucks. Bummer.

I'm wrong. MCCGQ12LM are not Aqara E1. The E1 part number is MCCGQ14LM.

NOT a bummer! If the new versions preform as well as the ones he tested, is be very interested.

Cool usage mentioned in the comments for the video... User put it inside the deadbolt housing and a rare earth magnet embedded in the deadbolt to know if his door was locked.

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I saw that video and thought "Great. There goes a boost in the number of 'I'm having issues with my xiaomi' threads." I'm assuming he's using the older ones based on the link in the video description.

They are not on the supported list for a reason. They can be added with a community driver and just by looking at the driver you can see all the workarounds to the standard messages that had to be done just to get them working. They are also very problematic once routers start getting involved. Even with the right routers they will still give problems every now and then.

I was one of the stubborn ones. And while I do have them working pretty reliably now it took me a while and a lot of headache and it really isn't worth it. I'm now in the process of replacing all my xiaomi devices and throwing them up on marketplace for somebody else to enjoy.

I have to admit though, their batter life is great.

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Other methods are hit and mis. This is solid.

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I saw that and it does look tempting. But in reality, a lot of people buying these devices just want them to simply work and end up coming here when they don't work looking for help. I don't see a lot of the more "basic" users spinning up HA and grabbing a ConBee ect which are probably the same people that will be watching that video and now going to jump on the xiaomi train.

Last year I may have been willing to do this but I'm now in the mindset of keeping things simple even if it means dropping a little more money on a more reliable device. I've been working on reducing my other hubs/dockers that I use to integrate things via workarounds and reducing latency between my devices.

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I do something similar - a CC2652RB coordinator with zigbee2mqtt, and bring all my xiaomi sensors into Hubitat as virtual devices. This has also been rock solid.

I lost power for ~2 weeks (or a little less) during Hurricane Ida, and when the coordinator was powered up again, every single sensor rejoined my zigbee2mqtt with no intervention from me.

So I strongly second your perspective that even the older Xiaomi sensors can be part of a rock-solid zigbee network.

I should add Home Assistant Device Bridge didn’t exist when I decided to take my Xiaomi sensors off Hubitat, or I would have used that approach over the bespoke virtual driver approach that I currently use. And since it works, I’m loathe to go back and redo everything ..,.

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I get that, but the review points out that (given the right Zigbee connection, which Rob doesn’t really mention aside from an Aqara hub) the Aqara ARE the best of the lot he tested.

I had thought about NYCE sensors, but I already owned so many Xiaomi sensors, and after many months without a single problem with HA in this simple setup I run just for sensors, and no batteries changed, I decided this was how I would continue.

Agreed, setting up HA isn’t for the average consumer, but let’s face the fact that HE is just as much of a learning curve for an average consumer too. What’s nice about HA is that complete image they have created for a Raspberry Pi, so it’s so much easier for a beginner to get it going. There’s also this no-install image from AlexxIT that is great for anyone with a spare PC sitting around. I have not tried it because I run mine a on an old Mac, but it should be fine just for sensor import to HE. It doesn’t have Supervisor, but you don’t need it for just Xiaomi sensor input to HE. You can install HACS, and that’s been enough for everything I’ve wanted to do.

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HA has come a long way. I did load up HA in a docker a while ago to play with but I didn’t feel like learning a whole new language. I have to be more patient with it.

One day I may give it another shot. But HE just works well for me now. It took me a while to get to this point too. Lol.

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Yeah, YAML is still very much a thing that rears its ugly head every so often, but for just connecting Xiaomi sensors and bringing them into HE with Home Assistant Device Bridge, you don't have to touch YAML. This is one of the primary reasons I love HE. Automations are so easy to create in Rule Machine for a more advanced user, and Basic Rules makes it so easy for beginners, or when you just don't need to create anything complex. And yet, RM allows for really complex automation without a huge effort.

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I sent a message to Aquara tech support. They confirmed the current version of contact sensors use a proprietary ZIGBEE protocol and indicated that thy plan on releasing a ZIGBEE 3.0 protocol version later in 2022. Cheers