TLDR; choosing between ZSE18 and Phillips hue motion sensor to fill out my house. Using a Hubitat. Any recommendations?
I am pretty big into home automation - pushing HomeKit WELL past what it was designed to do. Finally decided it was time to upgrade, and a brand new Hubitat is in the mail for me.
I currently use Aqara - kinds a great option for HomeKit - but have read they don’t play nice with other hubs like the Hubitat I’ve ordered. I am going to try to get them to work - but am likely not going to buy more, and am prepared to replace them should they not work.
I’ve narrowed it down to 2 main competitors with a third kinda on the side. I am in Canada so unfortunately my options are limited and some are just priced unreasonably north of the border. Hoping to get some people’s opinions on the options though.
The 2 main ones are the zooz motion sensor ZSE18, $40 my price (plus like $20 in shipping though), the Phillips hue motion sensor ($55 my price, free shipping). The third one I’m considering is the third reality motion sensor; mainly because it’s $20 each.
I really only want Motion. I could see myself maybe using light if I got the hue in some situations, but it’s definitely not something that’s affecting my buying decision. Reliability and speed is far more important. Wondering what experience anyone here has with them.
I have one of the outdoor Philips Hue motion sensors and it is very sensitive but it is fairly large.
I have several of the Third Reality motion sensors and they work great; the best thing about them is they are small, and run on two AAA batteries that are long-lasting. Even though they are indoor sensors, I have one mounted on the ceiling of the front door entrance where it is exposed to changing temperatures, but no way it can get wet.
Luna said:
I have one of the outdoor Philips Hue motion sensors and it is very sensitive but it is fairly large.
I have several of the Third Reality motion sensors and they work great; the best thing about them is they are small, and run on two AAA batteries that are long-lasting. Even though they are indoor sensors, I have one mounted on the ceiling of the front door entrance where it is exposed to changing temperatures, but no way it can get wet.
I have a three-car tandem garage which forms an L with two parking spots side-by-side and a third spot just beyond another spot. I use a Philips Hue Outdoor Motion Sensor to cover both points of the L, the door from the house and a door going to the side yard. The range is almost 40 ft and the sensor is very fast. It works great.
In the house I use quite a few regular Hue Motions and really like that they support LUX and temperature sensors, which I use in a lot of my automations. They are also very fast but trigger range is only 15 ft-ish.
Luna said:
I have one of the outdoor Philips Hue motion sensors and it is very sensitive but it is fairly large.
I have several of the Third Reality motion sensors and they work great; the best thing about them is they are small, and run on two AAA batteries that are long-lasting. Even though they are indoor sensors, I have one mounted on the ceiling of the front door entrance where it is exposed to changing temperatures, but no way it can get wet.
I have a three-car tandem garage which forms an L with two parking spots side-by-side and a third spot just beyond another spot. I use a Philips Hue Outdoor Motion Sensor to cover both points of the L, the door from the house and a door going to the side yard. The range is almost 40 ft and the sensor is very fast. It works great.
In the house I use quite a few regular Hue Motions and really like that they support LUX and temperature sensors, which I use in a lot of my automations. They are also very fast but trigger range is only 15 ft-ish.
I have a similar L-shaped region that I join three Hue Outdoor Motion using the Motion Zone app to form one large motion detector. That works really well. Are you using the Motion Zone app? I recommend it if you are not.
Aurora said: Luna said:
I have one of the outdoor Philips Hue motion sensors and it is very sensitive but it is fairly large.
I have several of the Third Reality motion sensors and they work great; the best thing about them is they are small, and run on two AAA batteries that are long-lasting. Even though they are indoor sensors, I have one mounted on the ceiling of the front door entrance where it is exposed to changing temperatures, but no way it can get wet.
I have a three-car tandem garage which forms an L with two parking spots side-by-side and a third spot just beyond another spot. I use a Philips Hue Outdoor Motion Sensor to cover both points of the L, the door from the house and a door going to the side yard. The range is almost 40 ft and the sensor is very fast. It works great.
In the house I use quite a few regular Hue Motions and really like that they support LUX and temperature sensors, which I use in a lot of my automations. They are also very fast but trigger range is only 15 ft-ish.
I have a similar L-shaped region that I join three Hue Outdoor Motion using the Motion Zone app to form one large motion detector. That works really well. Are you using the Motion Zone app? I recommend it if you are not.
I’ve used the motion zone app in another scenario in the past but not in my garage. With the one sensor I have pretty good coverage of the entire garage except behind my car and where my sprinkler timer is located near the far garage door. I’ve thought about adding another sensor to cover those areas but it has not been much of a problem.
I have the garage lights setup on a two-minute timer but I can press a button to switch the timer to be for one hour if I’m working in the garage a lot, or going in and out of the garage a lot and do not want the lights to turn off. I have this setup on an Inovelli Red Series switch, when I push a button it will pulse a different LED color to visibly indicate the mode. The mode resets back to a 2-minute timer once the light goes off either by the timer or if shut off another way.
Luna said:
I have one of the outdoor Philips Hue motion sensors and it is very sensitive but it is fairly large.
I have several of the Third Reality motion sensors and they work great; the best thing about them is they are small, and run on two AAA batteries that are long-lasting. Even though they are indoor sensors, I have one mounted on the ceiling of the front door entrance where it is exposed to changing temperatures, but no way it can get wet.
I’m considering Third Reality for a few places, but because I can’t angle them to adjust the detection area, I don’t think I can make them my go-to everywhere.
ashionaa said:
I buy Zooz sensors when they’re on sale below $30 (shipped) at thesmartesthouse.
Have a mix of the ZSE18 and the ZSE11, all hardwired to power, no complaints.
Any experience on battery (mine are probably going to be fully battery-powered)? I doubt it’s any different minus not being a repeater, but thought I’d ask in case.
Pretty instantaneous response? I know it’s stupid but I measure by steps into a room, and my current setup is about 1.5 steps into the room, and I’d like it to be similar or better.
ashionaa said:
I buy Zooz sensors when they’re on sale below $30 (shipped) at thesmartesthouse.
Have a mix of the ZSE18 and the ZSE11, all hardwired to power, no complaints.
Any experience on battery (mine are probably going to be fully battery-powered)? I doubt it’s any different minus not being a repeater, but thought I’d ask in case.
Pretty instantaneous response? I know it’s stupid but I measure by steps into a room, and my current setup is about 1.5 steps into the room, and I’d like it to be similar or better.
Seems to send “on” quickly, placement is key I tend to mount a sensor pretty much directly above the door into the room to get a quick reaction on entry.
Miranda said: ashionaa said:
I buy Zooz sensors when they’re on sale below $30 (shipped) at thesmartesthouse.
Have a mix of the ZSE18 and the ZSE11, all hardwired to power, no complaints.
Any experience on battery (mine are probably going to be fully battery-powered)? I doubt it’s any different minus not being a repeater, but thought I’d ask in case.
Pretty instantaneous response? I know it’s stupid but I measure by steps into a room, and my current setup is about 1.5 steps into the room, and I’d like it to be similar or better.
Seems to send “on” quickly, placement is key I tend to mount a sensor pretty much directly above the door into the room to get a quick reaction on entry.
Ah mine go in the corner of the rooms. So they can see the whole room. Usually on the same wall as the door but opposite corner. But I doubt that’ll make a huge difference. Any difference between the 11 and 18 in speed? 18 is significantly more pricey but I could see it being useful in the shower if for nothing else other than the humidity sensor.
Have a mix of the ZSE18 and the ZSE11, all hardwired to power, no complaints.
Any experience on battery (mine are probably going to be fully battery-powered)? I doubt it’s any different minus not being a repeater, but thought I’d ask in case.
Pretty instantaneous response? I know it’s stupid but I measure by steps into a room, and my current setup is about 1.5 steps into the room, and I’d like it to be similar or better.
Seems to send “on” quickly, placement is key I tend to mount a sensor pretty much directly above the door into the room to get a quick reaction on entry.
Ah mine go in the corner of the rooms. So they can see the whole room. Usually on the same wall as the door but opposite corner. But I doubt that’ll make a huge difference. Any difference between the 11 and 18 in speed? 18 is significantly more pricey but I could see it being useful in the shower if for nothing else other than the humidity sensor.
Same chipset in both, no apparent difference in responsiveness.
The “Q” sensor mounts with a base that has a small arm to slot into the device, so holds position better, but is slightly larger, in part because it uses not one, but two of the CR123A batteries (they came with, but I pulled them out as I do hardwired).
I suspect setting higher intervals between the temp + humidity reporting messages on the Q could result in longer battery change intervals due to dual batteries?
Miranda said: Ravine said:
Aqara works wonderfully with Hubitat, Home Assistant, Homebridge.
50% of people tell me that. 50% tell me it doesn’t work at all. I’m just going to find out for myself on that one.
I got this Aqara motion sensor a few days ago and it works perfectly with my RPi3 Home Assistant. https://a.co/eFUtD0G
I don’t have a Zigbee hub, I paired it directly with my RPi3 HA using that z-wave/zigbee combo USB stick.
I am looking into these sensors and getting into putting Home Assistant on a PI or a NUC. This sensor, though, says:
Aqara Motion Sensor, REQUIRES AQARA HUB
It looks like the hub is a separate $50 purchase - did you get this hub or can you skip that and just use HA on the Pi? Regardless, could you share your setup with this?
50% of people tell me that. 50% tell me it doesn’t work at all. I’m just going to find out for myself on that one.
I got this Aqara motion sensor a few days ago and it works perfectly with my RPi3 Home Assistant. https://a.co/eFUtD0G
I don’t have a Zigbee hub, I paired it directly with my RPi3 HA using that z-wave/zigbee combo USB stick.
I am looking into these sensors and getting into putting Home Assistant on a PI or a NUC. This sensor, though, says:
Aqara Motion Sensor, REQUIRES AQARA HUB
It looks like the hub is a separate $50 purchase - did you get this hub or can you skip that and just use HA on the Pi? Regardless, could you share your setup with this?
Yeah, you’ll have to get some sort of device that can interface with Zigbee and Z-wave. I chose the USB stick method and have my Home Assistant NUC be the Zigbee/Zwave hub, rather than have a separate Zigbee/Zwave Hub + HA device.
I’ve also seen people say that X Zigbee devices don’t work with Y Hubs, so I chose to not deal with trying to figure out compatibility issues and have HA be a universal hub.
Miranda said: Ravine said:
Aqara works wonderfully with Hubitat, Home Assistant, Homebridge.
50% of people tell me that. 50% tell me it doesn’t work at all. I’m just going to find out for myself on that one.
It’s worth trying before shelling out on a brand-new system. Zigbee is pretty darn universal. Works well with every ecosystem I’ve paired it with.
It is absolutely worth trying - and I will be. But I’m also very prepared that it won’t work. Aqara do use a proprietary version of Zigbee. I’ve heard they have lots of dropouts, especially if they are going through repeaters.