I keep running into reliability issues with my motion sensors. Whether they’re more expensive Fibaro Z-Wave devices, or cheap Sonoff PIR motion sensors: I often have issues with dropped motion on or motion off messages. Resulting in lamps staying on too long, or staying off when they shouldn’t.
I have both Zwave and Zigbee routers close to the sensors. I don’t have the option to add wall-powered sensors, so will always need battery powered ones.
Are there more trustworthy motion sensors that are battery powered? Maybe on wifi? Maybe just more reliable in general? I’m not sure how to continue my investigation.
Yeah, had a look there. I’ve got 5 of those types. But in the end it’s a marketing page. I need someone with real-life experience telling me which one never has issues and clearly shows things like battery life
Sounds to me it’s mainly about improving your z-wave and zigbee mesh networks.
Especially with zigbee you’re just very lucky if it works w/o any issue from the start.
Zigbee monitoring page: https://tools.developer.homey.app/tools/zigbee
For z-wave, make sure the 1st router device is within one or two meters from Homey (the z-wave range is terrible).
Z-wave monitoring page: https://tools.developer.homey.app/tools/zwave
Thanks! I followed this guide a year ago, very helpful! It resulted in most of my Zigbee devices running without issues (buttons, contact monitors, fire alarms, etc). Only running into issues with my motion sensors, even in areas where other devices work fine.
That’s why I’m thinking the devices themselves Arent reliable enough. But which are?
YW!
Well, about Sonoff sensors: I do have a few Sonoff contact sensors, and they go randomly offline with Zigbee2MQTT as well. Only re-pairing brings these back.
All other 60+ zigbee devices work fine, amongst those are a bunch of Sonoff buttons and relays.
It’s interesting to see how routes are shown in the Developer Tools of Homey, for Zigbee devices. Some devices are working correctly but show a question mark for the route, while others aren’t working correctly but show a working route. It’s difficult to analyze the issue for the battery powered devices.
My experience is that those are sleepy end devices (battery powered devices) for which Homey has not been able to obtain the full route info. It takes some while for the route to appear. And after every restart of your Homey, the Zigbee mesh network rebuilds, the question marks appear again and the process starts over.
I have a lot of Z-wave devices, including active (powered) ones through the house and have several NEO COOLCAM Smart Home Z-Wave Plus PIR Motion Sensor Detectors, bought via Ali which do the job for me and have long battery life and have good connection to Homey (868.4MHz for EU).
Mutch better than zigbee, because it does not fight in the 2.4 GHZ band with bluetooth and wifi, for exampel door sensors I use the Aquare ones, unfortunatly these are zigbee and sometimes loose connection in my house. So I do need to do every 6 months checks if all sensors are still working (during some seasons some windows are not closed or opened for weeks).
Among those I have tested over several years, I would say Hue connected to the bridge. When used more directly within Homey though you will get a lag between ‘sensor detection and light on’ due to a longwithstanding problem that has been widely discussed in this forum and reported to support plenty. Never addressed and why I stopped reporting to their support entirely. Second is the Fibaro cat-eye sensors. Third I would put the Aeotec 7 Sensors. They are great when on power, especially on temp etc. You will need stable zigbee and/or z-wave meshes for any of these things to work. You do not want these on wifi as it would add an additional transportation layer and thus issues with reliablity, latency and security down the road.
Thanks! I’ve been having issues with Aeotec multisensor 7 from the start. Often just hanging for hours without sending new reports.
The Fibaro cat eyes have been working generally fine for almost two years,but have started degrading in performance the last month. Tried several things to fix this (new battery, different 2.4ghz wifi channel) without effect. Switched positions now and it works a bit better. But if it misses a signal, you’re instantly screwed.
The sonoff ones are the worst, if they work is completely hit and miss. They can work fine on a specific location and then suddenly stop working completely.
I’ve now switched one of those with a hue sensor, and so far it works great. Don’t really notice the delay (atleast not compared to the sonoff). Also, haven’t seen any dropped packages yet. Interested to see how this develops.
Among those I have had directly connected to Homey, I think the cateyes are the best. Tried to rearrange the routers or buy a couple of more? Sounds like z-wave mesh issues to me. They have never failed me. As of Hue Zigbee and Homey do not get me started. @robertklep who has more insights than most has written plenty excellent posts about this and pointed out the exact issues for Athom to adress many times.
