Hubitat Temp Sensors - Zwave and Zigbee - Best and Worst (to date)

[habitat]

I have been testing

Zigbee
Hue Motion Sensor (~£29) on Hue v2 Hub - using cocohue App
Hue Motion Sensor (~£29) on HE C7
Sonoff SNZB-02 (~£12) on HE C7
Tuya Temp and Humidity Sensor (~£14) on HE C7

Zwave
Secure SRT321 Thermostat - (~£65) on HE C7
Aeotec AERQ Temp and Humidity (~$30) on HE C7
Aeotec Multi Sensor 6 (~$39) on HE C7

Two factors play in these sensors, ability to reliably, consistently relay temp readings AND Battery life.

For reliability/accuracy the following did well

SRT321
Multi Sensor 6
AERQ
TUYA
Hue Motion Sensor on Hue (not on HE direct)

the Sonoff was highly unreliable as is the Hue Motion Sensor directly on HE C7 (could be MESH related) but other zigbee devices were reliable on the same mesh.

Then Battery consumption.

The Hue Motion Sensors on Hue Hub far exceed everything else on battery - out of 30 Hue Motion Sensors they all last 2 years and report like clockwork on two AAA or 2 AA batteries.

The Aeotec MultiSensor 6 can run on USB power so will run for ever.

Because I had 10 SRT321s and while reliable their battery life was not good, so have converted them all to USB battery eliminators and now they are solid and run forever.

The TUYAs are doing exceptionally well - very impressed by them.

The AERQ's too soon to tell, but two of the AERQs lost all their battery (supposed to last 2 years) during inclusion into the the HE C7 and at £5.99 are quite expensive.

The Sonoffs are burning through batteries and largely unreliable.

OVERALL WINNER
The Hue Motion Sensors on Hue Hub - the absolute best by a long way for reliability and battery consumption. Fo the price of £29 you get a lot of sensor for a good price.

RUNNERS UP
The TUYA are proving to be very good for reliability and battery - so if I did not already have a lot of Hue in the house and the Hue Hubs these are what I would go with and at £14 each a good price.

The AEOTEC AERQ is the best priced runner up for ZWAVE, unfortunately the built in Driver does not support offsetting the Temp in the Driver so unless a Community Driver comes out you can't fine tune it. The AERQ also has a nice add on of a Dew Point estimate that is not supported by the built in driver.

ONES TO AVOID
Sonoff Temp Sensor - cheap - with a cheap build that makes it too easy to break when pairing.
Hue Motion Sensors on HE C7 - not a good choice and only really viable if you need direct Motion Sensing which does work OK but the temp reporting does not.

[bobbles]

@habitat

ONES TO AVOID
Sonoff Temp Sensor - cheap - with a cheap build that makes it too easy to break when pairing.

I'm intrigued by this comment. With mine there is an external button that you press. I'm finding it hard to see how you can break it by pressing it. Is yours different?
I have mine in the fridge and it works ok.

[habitat]

Compared to the Tuya, Aeotec and Hue the Sonoff Temp and humidity sensor is a bit more 'fragile'

I have been testing 10 of them.

Two were not fully inserted correctly during manufacturing (I guess) and when the external button was depressed it pushed the button assembly off the circuit board breaking a connector.

From then on in it was a return.

Now if it does not have this issue and you can join it to the mesh first time and you don't need to do it again you are unlikely to have an issue.

As a cheap Temp sensor it is fine and fun to play with.

[afidel]

Fibaro smart implant (FBGS-222) is a cool option, can have up to 6 one-wire thermocouples attached. I've currently got 3x waterproof on mine, planning to put one in fridge, one in trailer basement and one in the outside fridge compartment to get outdoor temp. For me it's 12V powered so effectively infinite battery life in an RV application (in a home application any 9-30V DC source would work, one of the nimh 9V replacement batteries with 9.8V would work if you don't have any wall warts to steal from near where you want to put it).

The only downside is they only support firmware upgrades using their hub, IMHO Si labs shouldn't allow that under their certification process.

[jtmpush18]

I've just had a few issues with motion sensors, so I thought that here would be a good place to share a few lessons that I've learned.
(I know that some of these are simple, and stupid, but nonetheless...)

1. The bigger the battery the longer the device will last. I think that this is the secret for the Iris 3326-L V2, which is the "best" overall motion sensor that I know. (It's too bad that you can't get it anywhere!). It takes a CR2 battery. I've had one outside (under an eavestrough) in the cold Canadian winter. Still going strong.
2. Most of these devices are inexpensively made. The pieces of tin that hold down the battery (and make contact with it), are shoddily made. Whenever you take down a sensor to replace the battery, use a precision screwdriver to gently pull out the battery contacts. I've had devices that suddenly fail because the battery holder no longer made contact with the battery.
3. Don't rely on the %battery AT ALL. I've had many devices go from 87% to no longer reporting, in a few hours. The %battery figure is totally misleading. Instead, use the Device Watchdog app to see if your devices are still active (Activity Report). If they haven't made a report in X hours, the battery needs to be replaced.
4. If you are handy, and you have time on your hands, and a plug is nearby, then get rid of the battery altogether, and solder a usb connector wire to be plugged.

[habitat]

Some tracking of Sonoff Temp/Humidity Sensors against a zwave Secure SRT321 and a Hue Motion Sensor under a Hue Hub using cocohue app.

All 11 Temp sensors are on the same top in the same room.

All a few inches apart from each other

All ~2ft from their controlling Hub,

Of the 9 Sonoff Temp Sensors 6 report regularly albeit with multi hour breaks between their 5 min reporting requirement.

For every one Sonoff Temp report you got 20 from both the HUE Motion Sensor and the zwave SRT 321.

Both the Secure SRT321 and the Hue Motion Sensor under Hue Hub are extremely reliable.

Both devices use 2 AAA batteries.

The Zwave last ~30 days, the Hue lasts 2 years.

I now have battery eliminators in the zwave and they run off spare USB charger plugs.

The sonoffs used an even mix of lalalabs drivers and native built in drivers, did not appear to make much difference.

Here is a graph of the last 24 hours.

I am using Long Term Storage for the Hue and the SRT both does not appear to be working hence the cut off on the graph.

The ones with STARS are the Hue and the SRT.

I will include the Tuya sensors - but initial testing is extremely positive for these - reporting like clockwork for Temp and Humidity.

[habitat]

@jtmpush18

In general agree with you but there are exceptions.

The Hue Motion Sensors use two AAA (for indoor sensors and) two AA (for outdoor sensors)

They run for two years.

They report constantly and reliably reporting motion, illuminance, Temperature and battery.

They are entirely predictable and the battery reporting is good until they hit 20%, then they fall off a cliff.

The Hue Motion sensors continue operate in -20C in steel freezers without any noticeable degradation of reliability or battery life.

For the Secure SRT321 sensors I have replaced batteries with battery eliminators and run them off spare USB chargers.

But if it has to battery powered,

Has to be directly connected to HE Hub :

TUYA Temp/Humidity zigbee sensors appear to be good so far in all my testing. (~£15)

Aeotec AERQ zwave are looking promising - don't know about battery life and the built in driver is immature, but should improve. (about $30 each)

For Motion Sensors directly connected to HE Hub the Sonoff Motion Sensors are doing well so far. (very cheap)

and the zwave Aeotec Multi 6 sensors are just solid, benefit from being usb powered and just run and run and run. (but are expensive)

The absolute best Temp sensor to date is the Hue Motion Sensor running on a Hue Hub (not so great when directly connected to HE) they are battery powered (~£29) extremely reliable and great battery life.

[waynespringer79]

@habitat

not so great when directly connected to HE

Disagree, they work perfectly fine paired direct, I have two going on two years now and battery level is still 100%, not a single issue with either one

[habitat]

You are getting 10-12 temperature readings out of them an hour?

Running directly on a HE Hub c7?

Consistently?

Can you share a shot of the Events for last 50 readings?

I could not get this that reliable running on the HE and I have 30+ Hue Motion Sensors.

Something like this. Picked the first one Bathroom.

[waynespringer79]

@habitat

You are getting 10-12 temperature readings out of them an hour?

Why would I want this? I personally don't
The "built-in" driver for these does have that ability though.

[habitat]

When managing zone heating you need accurate, timely heating reports.

I set the default driver to report every 0.5c and I tried every 5 minutes neither worked reliably.

Can you share your Events for the last 50 events?

Because I was getting gaps of hours between temp reports over temperature changes that should have been reported.

I am curious by your reliable ones.

[waynespringer79]

If you are managing a sone heating then you would not want the default setting of 0.5c, instead the every 5 minutes.

Mine are only set to the default of 0.5c, and the temperature has not changed much in the last hour but it appears the driver is reporting accurately based upon the temperature change. This is what I could fit into a screen shot.

This is from last night duration hour and a half using the default 0.5c change in temp

[waynespringer79]

@habitat

I could not get this that reliable running on the HE and I have 30+ Hue Motion Sensors

If you have 30+ battery power device in just hue alone, how many repeaters do you have on your zigbee mesh? This would be were I would look if reliability were an issue.

[habitat]

The 30+ motions sensors are working GREAT on Hue no issues at all, so not a problem.

The He zigbee has 6 mains powered switches and 4 Repeaters. The Hue Motion sensors were unreliable with line of sight of the HE hub. So I if here is a mesh issue there....

The TUYA Temp sensors report great and are very reliable - and they are in the hard places a water closet a long way from the HE Hub and the other is inside the leaves of a radiator - not a good place for wireless signals, and they are just fine.

The TUYA switches all work all over the house just fine, the Ikea bulbs work fine.

The Sonoff Temp sensors are very unreliable on the HE Hub as are the Hue sensors.

It was when I added a couple to HE that they were unreliable, neither

[waynespringer79]

@habitat

The Hue Motion sensors were unreliable with line of sight of the HE hub

That's not how mesh networks work.

10 repeaters with 30+ (and now you're adding tuya into the mix) is very doubtful on any reliability.

The hub isn't the issue your mesh (or lack of) is the issue in my opinion.

[habitat]

@waynespringer79

If you are managing a sone heating then you would not want the default setting of 0.5c, instead the every 5 minutes.

Agreed - but don't have that level of granularity of reporting through Hue Hubs - I get whatever they do on their own and if it is does not impact battery life or bandwidth then the more reports I get the better, the more accurate heating control is.

When using the same Hue Motion Sensors on HE I was getting periods of hours and massive temp changes without reports.

It is difficult to get a feel for the reliability from the snippets you provide.

[waynespringer79]

@habitat

and if it is does not impact battery life or bandwidth then the more reports I get the better

This defies logic. A device requires battery power to send a report, if it reports more frequently then more battery power will be consumed.

[habitat]

So the Mesh is unreliable near the HE Hub and solid further away?

And some wireless devices are reliable and others brands are unreliable because of the mesh?

[habitat]

The Hue Motion Sensors last two years running under the Hue Hubs.

That remains consistent whether or not the HE Hub is connecting to Hue Hub to retrieve sensor updates.

The act of asking the Hue Hub does not reduce battery life in remote sensors

[waynespringer79]

@habitat

So the Mesh is unreliable near the HE Hub and solid further away?

No, a mesh network means the hub will NOT NECESSARILY communicate DIRECTLY WITH a battery powered device no matter how close you bring it to the hub.

The only way this happens is if you have NO repeaters on the mesh, and then you are limited to a very small number of total devices. Which would be less than your 30+ hue + Tuya+whatever else