Best motion sensor?

Hardware Home Automation
1

Hello,

I have had two X10 motion sensors for years and have always thought they pretty much stink. I have a lot of Insteon devices, so I was thinking of trying out these motion sensors, but what I am really looking for is a motion sensor that plugs in (or otherwise doesn’t need a battery) and, either communicates over the powerline or wireless Ethernet (preferably over mqtt). Anyone have good/bad experiences with motion sensors?

1 Like
2

It doesn’t match your requirements, but this little guy is pretty nice :

Ton of features, quick, and battery life seems to be just short of ridiculous. I’m going on a year and change with one of mine, and it’s still sitting at 100% battery.

3

Thanks bhomeyer,

I saw that one and it looks pretty awesome. What else do I need to buy to get it to talk to openHAB? Some kind of Zwave hub?

4

if this could be hacked it would be nice.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/d-link-wi-fi-motion-sensor-white/8428648.p

5

What I have done with my Insteon motion sensor is buy a 9v power supply and put a battery connector on the end. something like

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Hi LexLuther422,

What is the hacking that needs to be done? Does it not work well stock?

7

I don’t know I have never had one in my hands. it looks like it olny communicates with the proprietary d-link app

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Ah - gotcha. I guess i don’t see an openHAB dlink binding.

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I’m also looking for motion sensors that work properly with openHAB 2. There seems to be quite some devices out there for this purpose. However, it’s at the moment very time consuming to find out which of them are well supported by openHAB. It’s really a pitty that openHAB does not have a wiki like FHEM yet where you can easily search for compatible hardware components. For instance take a look at http://www.fhemwiki.de/wiki/Kategorie:Bewegungs-_und_Anwesenheitsmelder. Sorry, it’s in German. Anyway I think it’s a very good example how it could be done. It’s a simple media wiki that describes hardware products and tags them by the manufacturer and sensor type. That allows you, for instance, to easily list all supported motion sensors.

I think this is a must have for openHAB. The only question is how it should be implemented (with mediawiki or something else?) and where it should be hosted. In order to keep this thread focussed I have created a new topic to discuss this: Wiki listing all compatible hardware

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Has anyone tried the Orvibo motion sensor? This brand seems to do a lot in the smart home department. Does anyone know if their products work well with OH?

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Would building one work for you?

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There is a kickstarter project with pir and esp, maybe that would work for you @QuagmireMan

13

I really want powered sensors that constantly fire. I’m trying to “see” what’s going on in the house and it’s hard when it only triggers every x minutes. I wonder if I hack one of these to take power if it’s easy enough to change the update time to seconds. Are there any good powered ones?

14

The xiaomi smarthome line could also be interesting. Its cheap and has a nice design. There is a thread on a xiaomi home binding somewhere on the forum, or just google xiaomi smarthome. They make a small and pretty pir sensor

15

Im looking to buy an aeon Labs multisensor. You could power it by batteries or with usb.
Are there any expiriences about this Sensor?

16

Yes, from the list of features you would think that this is the best choice. However, my experiences are not so excellent. Battery life is short and battery powered operation in general does not work reliably (I own 5 of these devices). So conencting to USB power works better for reliability. But motion detection is also not the best, the range of coverage as well as the speed of reporting motion alarm is much better with the Fibaro Device (FGMS001). The Fibaro device even fits in the wall mounts from the Aeon Device. So I switched to Fibaro.

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17

Thank you for the hint! In this case i would try the fibaro

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@vossivossi thank you for sharing your experience with the Fibaro motion sensors compared to the Aeotec. I’m looking into the Fibaros as well. Could you share your experience with the battery life for the Fibaro FGMS001?

Bernd

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I have 6 fibaro motion eyes. The report at 10 mins interval or when motion is detected. Status led indicating temp by color is deactivated. Depending on location and how often they “fire” battery lasts between 9 months and 1,5 years.

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I’m having good success with the aeotec multisensor 6 plugged in. I’d be surprised if battery didn’t work acceptably.