The best motion sensor

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8

I have a house full of 6 or so of these and a few Peanut Plug and IKEA Zigbee repeaters. They work so well that we haven’t touched a light switch in months.

Now, when we travel or visit friends it takes a moment to remember to manually turn on a light when we walk into a room :smile:

There may be cheaper and better, but these have worked great so far. 6 months of use and not a hint of battery loss yet. Plus they detect temperature which is a nice bonus!

I have found Zigbee motion sensors to be a few seconds faster than zwave so far for what it’s worth.

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9

These have gone “unavailable” in the past..... I have signed up for email alerts and will order more if/when they become available. They’re very good motion sensors, though I don’t know how they compare with the new Zooz motion sensors. The original Zooz 4-in-1 motion sensors were atrocious and unusable—ghosts always setting them off and causing my security system to go into a panic.

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The original Zooz 4-in-1 firmware 5.9 was a generic device that was also branded Monoprice and it was horrible, but Zooz made some hardware and software improvements in 16.9 and fixed the rest of the motion related issues in 17.9 which they released as VER 2.0 so it's now a pretty good motion sensor.

If you're just looking for quick motion reporting I'd still go with the ZSE18 because you'll have the option of using it as a repeater and the motion clear time can go higher than 1 minute.

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11

I've become a huge fan of the Iris motion sensors cstory linked to. They've been mentioned many times on the forums and I finally picked up a lot a couple of weeks or so ago. They are listed as used but I swear mine were new. They all came with batteries and the battery pull tags in place. The listing states no batteries. They are the cheapest you will find and they are great. I have a zooz 4-in-1 v1 and 2 of the ZSE18's. I like them and they are very reliable but I find them to be a little slow, relative to Zigbee, which is known to be faster. I bought them specifically because you can plug them in as they are in very high traffic areas. I set up an Iris sensor along side one of the ZSE18 and the lights are already on(triggered by the Iris) just prior to the zooz going active. The Iris are very fast. We're not talking very long but it's a step or 2 difference when entering the room. I'm going to hardwire 2 of the Iris' to replace my ZSE18's. I still have use for the ZSE18's, just not in those 2 rooms. YMMV.

12

Thank you all of you for the answer.
I leave in Italy and it seems that I don't have so much choice.
I hoped for something cheaper than 25/35$ per sensor.
I see I have a Fibaro reseller here, otherwise I have to buy in london or states.

13

Not a cheap solution .. But I like the data.. I have a aeotec multisensor in every room..

14

The plug-in optionality / repeater capability is definitely a distinguishing feature of the new Zooz motion detector.

Have you tested the Haozee (Neo?) motion sensor at all? I just set up my first one of these, and so far, I like it a lot. I wanted a motion sensor that would have the same form factor as the Dome motion sensors that I generally have everywhere already (basically true of the Haozee motion sensor). Motion detection with high sensitivity and high specificity is also important to me, given use cases of both lighting and security; I'm willing to sacrifice a small amount of speed for my desired level of accuracy, but the Haozee sensor has so far seemed to satisfy my preference for accuracy without sacrificing speed. This device also offers temperature sensing, which can be customized and disabled; I have found the reported temperatures accurate enough so far.

My only complaint with this device at this stage is that it offers illuminance sensing that doesn't seem to be able to be turned off. I have never understood the value proposition of an indoor illuminance sensor and wish I could turn it off to save battery (though this complaint applies equally to the Dome motion sensor). I just wish I could trade illuminance for humidity to complement temperature...

15

I'd like to eventually have lux sensors in every room to use for controlling lighting. For example, if I walk into the bedroom I have motion lighting setup to turn on the lights. If I could get the light level in the room, then I'd only turn them on if the light was insufficient. You can't do that by time as there's too much variance in the light level in different seasons and if it's overcast outside. Additionally the shade position on the windows in the room may also allow for different levels of light. While LED lighting takes very little power, it irks me having the lights come on when not necessary.

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So you would rather spend hundreds of $$ in sensors to prevent the light being on unnecessarily? Odd, but hey - your money. :slight_smile:

Not like I haven't done things that were for convenience, and not a payout, before!

17

I do this in a few rooms with an Outdoor Hue Motion sensor. There's sort of a somewhat fixed relationship between outdoor brightness and interior illuminance levels.

Your point about blinds/shades is a good one. My Mrs insists that the blinds be open during daylight hours and typically they don't get closed until bedtime. So. In our house, @1500 on the Hue Illuinance scale, I turn on lights automagically in the living room and kitchen as it starts to get dim enough that reading might be hampered.

In the Master bedroom, we get a bit more direct light in the evening, so that one is set to 1000.

Not perfect but good enough for most of our use cases.

To me, using the outdoor sensor disconnects the sensor from interior lighting...in other words I can control both on and off without any special effort. An interior luminance sensor in a room that was automagically lit by rule, would be no good for determining illuminance for turning Off.

S.

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The quote "odd" describes me perfectly!

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I've been known to represent that remark myself. Lol :+1:

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I bought an Aeotec Multisensor 6 specifically for measuring Lux indoors and returned it (something I very rarely do) because it wasn't sensitive enough despite their website stating:

Automated lighting is only as smart as the system that powers it. With MultiSensor 6’s real-time, digital light sensor measuring the level of light in a room, your home control system will be able to intelligently maintain its ambiance. From opening and closing curtains, to setting lights to be the perfect level be it day or night, MultiSensor 6 is the smarts behind smart lighting.

When contacting their text support via email, I was informed:

the sensor is not accurate as it does not have a fresnel lens to help focus light into its sensor. It requires more directional lighting into one of the holes on the front of the sensor (non-LED one) to capture more lighting.

So back it went to Amazon. The room lux value portion of my home lighting is on hold for the duration. I have a lot of other projects in the works and decided to get my hands on one of Iharyadi's sensors first. Since I only have 5 rooms here, it shouldn't be very expensive to impliment.

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@hans.andersson
How's the HAOZEE Zwave PIR Motion Sensor working out for you?
They're selling for $26 on Amazon.ca, ordered one to try. :crossed_fingers:

23

While the best motion sensor topic has been inactive, I wanted to add my initial thoughts on the Sonoff versus Philips Hue motion sensors by way of comparison, for other newbies like me who are just researching the topic and really don't even understand what considerations makes one sensor "better." At this point, I have only had experience with these two Zigbee motion sensors (though I have a HomeSeer HSM200 zwave on the way to test, because it doesn't need batteries ).

Sonoff is significantly cheaper.

Both sensors were found with Hubitat, but the Sonoff need to be close to the hub, while the Philips paired from another room.

Sonoff takes a CR2450 coin battery, while the Philips takes two regular AAA (if I remember right). Sonoff requires you to pry off a plastic piece with a screwdriver which: (1) is likely to break at some point; and (2) is a pain once the sensor is mounted with sticky tape. Phillips has a screw held backing.

Sonoff is about 1 in x 1 in x 0.5 in. Philips is about twice the size. Sonoff sensor has a dimpled "golf ball" look, while the Philips has a smaller, and in my opinions better looking, dome. Here's a picture for comparison.

PXL_20210912_111817556
PXL_20210912_1118175563840×2160 245 KB

Sonoff is just a motion sensor, while Philips has motion and temperature and luminance. The Philips temperature seems right on in comparison to my other thermometers. I do not see any lux reporting right now on Philips, but, as I'm not using that feature, I haven't debugged this to see what is going on.

Both motion sensors are very responsive (as good as the famous Lutron Caseta Sensors that I also use). I cannot speak to range, the application was only about 10 feet away.

Sonoff will give a little flash of reddish-orange when it detects motion. Philips has no distracting visual indication.

Sonoff only gives double sided sticky tape to mount. This means—unless you rig something up—you can only mount flat to a wall. By contrast, the Philips has a clever magnetic mount that allows you to angle the sensor, and easily take the sensor down to replace the battery. Both are rectangular cuboids, so you can simply place them on a shelf.

Philips has a settable cool down period after sensing, and looks to default to 10 seconds. Sonoff is fixed at 1 minute. This is a big deal. If you walk in a room, then manually turn the lights off, then return in 11 to 59 seconds, the Sonoff will not turn the light back on, while the Philips will. If you never manually turn the lights off, you may be able to get more battery life by setting the Philips to have a higher (up to 30 minutes) cool down.

Conclusion: If you want a cheap and fast motion sensor, and do not care about aesthetics, fast cool down, or maintainability go with the Sonoff. If these features are important to you, and you can pay the price, go with Philips.

2020.09.18 Edit: Having had both sets of sensors up for about a week, I am experiencing false motion detections with the SonOff. This is a deal breaker for me, as I do not want my lights going on randomly or not shutting off after the inactivity time.

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24

Pretty good summary, though I will add a note of clarification regarding the Sonoff SNZB-03 cool down period:
1 minute = minimum time that a motion event will report as "active"
3 minutes = minimum time until the next motion event

Here is a snippet of the log for one that is on a hallway ceiling. If a cat just walks by, it sets as active for 1 minute. Of course, if they linger, then it stays active. However, the interval between "active" events is never less than 3 minutes. I learned this the hard way, by waving my hands in the dark like a fool to get the light to turn back on.

image

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I never noticed this. I think because I had a 2 minute delay, so 1 minute to go inactive and 2 minutes to turn off would put me right at the 3 minute mark to re-sense activity. That would have drove me crazy if I had an shorter time period. Good information, thanks!

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Hello, Do you need a Philips Hue hub or will the motion sensor work directly with HE without a Hue hub?
Thanks.

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The Philips Hue motion sensor can be be paired directly to Hubitat. No Hue hub required.