Recommended sensor for mail slot?

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1

I am still fairly new to Hubitat (C-7 North America). I have a horizontal mailbox slot in my door and would like to receive notifications when mail comes in.

I just set up a Ring Security base station, and discovered that Ring Security is not directly compatible with Ring's own Mailbox Sensor, which uses LoRaWAN. In any event, the Ring Mailbox Sensor is a motion detection device, which probably would not work as intended on the door since the door moves all the time. It is probably better to sense when the mailbox slot is opened, or when mail passes through the plane directly underneath the slot hood.

What Hubitat-compatible sensor (Zigbee, Z-Wave) is recommended for this application? The mailbox slot is about 30ft from the Hubitat so I do not foresee much of a signal problem.

Here is the mail slot:

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IMG_5469

2

For completeness, here are the bridge devices that Ring requires to use its own Mailbox Sensor:

  • Ring Bridge
  • Echo (4th Generation)
  • Echo Show 10
  • Ring Alarm Pro

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Hubitat, of course, is not on this list, probably because of LoRaWAN.

3

You could just use a contact sensor and attach the magnet to the flap. You'll obviously need to play around with the spacing to make sure it triggers reliably.

4

Contact sensor. If you have to replace the magnet end with one of those tiny powerful magnets