Looking for some new door sensors. Any suggestions are appreciated.
looking for a low profile door sensor. This would be my second set on a few of my doors. We have a ring alarm, i know there is an app/integration but i would rather be local. Also can't drill into the door for an inset sensor.
Separate use case, looking for garage door sensors to monitor if my doors are open. Upper Midwest and It gets cold here, so I'm sure battery life in the winter will be short.
I prefer those that work out of the box and don't need any major effort/gymnastics to get or keep running.
I have an echolink Garage Door Tilt sensor. It has given me absolutely no trouble. Its been in for 8 months.
It uses a CR123A lithium battery (i.e. not a button cell) lithium seem to handle the cold better than alkaline.
I use Samsung Multipurpose Sensor V2 for both cases. Contact sensor for doors and outdoor pool and driveway gates. Tilt sensor for garage door
Battery lasts about a year (it also sense temperature and vibration which I used it for outdoor fences), so it might use more battery than others. It was the cheapest option US$16 at the time but now might be the most expensive after it's discontinued.
I have sonoff snzb-04 (zigbee 3.0) door/window sensor coming soon to free up a more valuable samsung. It's dirt cheap at US$8 from Aliexpress. It's about 1.85in x 1.1in using CR2032
To make door/window sensor even lower profile, the magnet piece can be replaced by a tiny earth magnet which even works with bigger gap. I use epoxy coated earth magnet for outdoor.
There aren't many tilt sensor out there and usually expensive, another option is to use 2 reed switches with dry contact relay like Zooz Zen17 but require more work.
This might sound stupid, but I just use a standard Iris v1 sensor mounted sideways with the large part mounted on a cutoff piece of cut down piano hinge. All of it mounted with 3M mounting tape.
It's all mounted at the top of the garage door, such that once the top panel of the door starts to tilt in, the sensor swings far enough away from the magnet to break the magnetic field and trigger the open on the sensor.
This can be done with many contact sensors, however some are kind of delicate and don't like the opening / closing of a garage door.
