Non-Battery powered temperature and humidity sensors

I have an Aeon MultiSensor 6 which has worked great using usb power and I happen to have just ordered 2 more.
but in hindsight I could have just cut an end off an old usb cord and wired 5 volts to my old xiaomi humidity/temp sensors.

Will they work with that input voltage or would you step it down? They all work off lithium coin cells which I think are maybe around 3.2V when new, but I don't know how tolerant they are of higher voltages. (Or if there's anything prettier than just soldering the wires to the battery compartment pins. I really need to read the threads I've mentioned but only kimmed😂)

Good to know, that's unfortunate.

I have done it on xiaomi motion sensors that use the same battery no problem.
I believe there are coin battery adapters on ebay or maybe amazon but they are more expensive and likely do not drop the voltage either.
I have also used usb adapters which give you a choice of voltage to 3.3 volts or 5 volts and wired them to battery powered sensors. Not as pretty but work well.
or
I have wired these to my door sensor
Door sensor

Here is a 24 hour graph and a 6 hour of my CT-100 thermostat and the Aeotec 6.


So far, it's looking pretty solid. The thermostat only reports in ½ degree increments. The Aeotec seems to swing between 2 tenths and 4 tenths of a degree around the thermostat. The temp range was 67F to 70.5F.

2 Likes

Looks promising, I ordered one to test with as well.

I did order a cheap 3v power supply and solder it to the Centralite 3325-S that I had laying around (with a dead battery no less) from my original ST bundle purchase. It shows 100% battery and seems to be displaying semi-accurate temperatures, despite the update timing being very slow obviously (10 minutes, the way it looks...)

Are you referring to this one?

Yes. Despite other's success I have never been able to get them to stay calibrated. They are constantly drifting Temp and Humidity wise.

Thanks for confirming. In never did test it for accuracy. Although, I've got a fair bit of experience with how inaccurate many of them are over a given range, so I don't expect much from anything that doesn't have mercury in it :wink:

It's concerning when are driving HVAC off it, if I'm out 2-3 degrees or 5-10% humidity (both of which I've seen with those sensors) it completely changes how the house feels..

I see. I'm an Ecobee user, so I'm relying on their remote sensors. I'm assuming they are accurate. Haven't really tried to verify. We don't have A/C, and for heating they seem good enough. The house stays much more evenly heated then when we just had a single programmable thermostat downstairs.

1 Like

I get I'm straying here from the "Non-Battery powered...", but I felt obligated to post this as I mentioned it earlier in the thread. I was able to recalibrate the radio signal and get my tags working again.

Here is a graph of an uncalibrated WirelessTag along with my Thermostat. There is a 2-3 minute delay as the path is WirelessTag -> Cloud -> SmartThings Hub -> Hublink -> HE. Still it's pretty impressive. It seems to be tracking within .4 of a degree F and changes within 3-4 minutes of the thermostat. I can tighten up the delay but that will hammer the CR2034 battery in the tag. If enough people get interested, maybe it'll help motivate a driver rewrite to work directly with HE.

The green line is my thermostat that only changes in .5 degree increments. The orange line is my Guest Room Wirelesstag.

Got my Aeotec MultiSensor 6 today. Plugged it in and got it going with @csteele's driver. Seems pretty stable so far and meets the requirements of being plugged in.

I'm experimenting with 'hiding advanced options' once they've been set in that driver.

as was discussed in that thread.

1 Like

Seems like a good idea.

I found a somewhat hidden place for mine since LUX/Motion/IR are not my concern. Significant Other somewhat approves.

Nice spot. Is that cable long enough that you can tuck it under the cabinet?

any updates on this issue.. don't like the aeotec as had report spamming issues with them in the past..

have dehumidifiers in the basement and would like a usb powered multisensor or temp humidity that i dont have to worry about the battery going dead the months the house is empty.. I have switches on the dehumidifier i can turn off if need be..

thanks

@kahn-hubitat I have converted many battery powered motion and temp/humidity sensors to mains power via this method:

These have worked out very well. Only issue is a one motion sensor goes into pairing mode if power is cut and I have to rejoin the sensor each time. I ended up plugging the USB adapter into a smart plug so I can toggle it while starting the Zigbee join process. I dont understand why this one sensor does this because 5 others do not exhibit this behavior.

These are the temp/humidity sensors I am using:
https://www.amazon.com/Centralite-Motion-Sensor-SmartThings-platforms/dp/B0713STYJQ/

1 Like