D-Link Motion Sensor support?

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Hello all,

My Hub is supposed to be showing up today. (As well as some lights). tl;dr I'm a 100% newbie with questions! :slight_smile:

I was looking around and I found this motion sensor I like. It's from D-Link, model # DCH-S150
( link: http://us.dlink.com/products/connected-home/wi-fi-motion-sensor/ )

Since there aren't too many hits for this brand here on the forum, I decided to post and ask a few questions.

  1. Will this work with the hubitat? It mentions IFTTT. Does this mean it has to relay thru the internet?
    Will this cause lag? Can it work directly?

  2. Is there a better choice? I specifically like how there's no battery - I just plop it into an electrical socket. Boom. Done. (And the refurb units are cheap to boot.)

  3. Would it be we worth waiting for the Swidget motion sensor instead? (Yeah I know it could be delayed or vaporware or just plain bad - cross your fingers)
    https://swidget.com/

Anyway, I'm looking forward to playing with my new gizmos and I would appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks
Ron

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Welcome to the community.
Motion sensors tend to take specific placement for best effect. I usually try several locations to see which works best for a specific room. Most of them work best 6 feet off the floor but it depends. A device that plugs into an outlet may work for some specific use cases but I wouldn't count on them for most locations. I would choose ZigBee or Zwave devices for sensors. Most of my battery powered motion or contact sensors last a couple of years on a single battery.

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Ah! This isn't something I thought about. Thanks for the tip!

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  1. The motion sensor does not work natively with Hubitat. Hubitat does have an IFTTT channel, so you could link the two together that way--something like have IFTTT toggle a virtual switch from Hubitat when IFTTT receives a "motion detected" event from the D-Link. This will introduce a least a little bit of lag, probably even more than "a little." I suspect it would be annoying to use for lighting automations. You're also dependent on the D-Link and IFTTT clouds as well as your own Internet connection for reaching the Hubitat cloud endpoint.
  1. Yes, literally any Z-Wave or Zigbee motion sensor would be a better choice. :slight_smile: Most are supported natively by Hubitat, plus these protocols are a lot faster (Zigbee more than Z-Wave in my experience but both undoubtedly better than IFTTT) and work entirely locally on Hubitat. Take your pick. The SmartThings Motion sensor (latest version is from 2018) is reasonably priced choice that works well, around $30 USD (by the way, that D-Link is listed on Amazon at $90 right now, an insane price for something that won't even work well). There are dozens of other choices. If no battery is important to you, the Aeon Multisensor 6 and HomeSeeer HS-MS100+ can both be powered via micro-USB. There aren't a lot of options (there are a couple more I can think of but none are readily available anymore). However, you may wish to consider that motion sensor batteries can last over a year or longer (l know lithium sizes like the CR2 and CR123A are a bit harder to find than, say, AAA cells, but they last a lot longer).
  2. Probably not. I suspect it will turn out to be vaporware, or at the very least, you'll be waiting a while. Plus as mentioned above, motion sensors often need specific placement to work well, and "outlet level" usually isn't one of those places. I'm sure they'll have thought of that and have their sensor/lens adjusted accordingly, but until I see it...
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That's exactly what I needed to know. Thanks @bertabcd1234

:+1:

I'll take a look at those products you suggested.

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