Sonoff Motion Sensors - These are Really Bad
Sonoff Motion Sensors - These are Really Bad
I installed 6 Sonoff SN-ZB03 motion sensors this morning, and I'm getting so many false positives that they're essentially useless. I could understand having one that's bad, but 6?
Three of them seem to randomly trigger for no reason at all. One triggers any time the heater comes on, regardless of where I place it. The last two usually work but still give random false positives.
From what I'm reading, there are a lot of complaints about these. I probably should have done some research before I bought them. I can't shake the feeling that I'm doing something wrong. Is ITEAD really selling a motion sensor that just doesn't work properly?
I don't see any commands listed under "Manage Zigbee Device" that allow for a sensitivity change, and I can't find a datasheet or a manual for these other than the basic "quick start" guide. As far as I can tell, there's no firmware update available, either.
Am I stuck replacing all of these? If so, any suggestions on better ones? I've read good reviews of the Hue motion sensors, but they're not cheap.
EDIT: I've had some time to experiment with these a bit more. They can be made to work, but only in very specific circumstances. The ones I had outside would trigger constantly, as would the one I had in a room with a heater. They also seem to interfere with each other if they're too close to each other. I placed one in an attic area, and one in the stairs leading up; these are working flawlessly. So if you need a motion sensor for an indoor area that isn't climate controlled, doesn't have another sensor nearby, and doesn't have frequent lighting changes, these might work. Maybe for a closet? I won't be throwing these away, but there won't be a lot of cases where I use them.
good reliable motion sensing is hard, anything solely PIR based is going to be unreliable and give false positives when sensitive enough to "work" but if the sensitivity is turned down to avoid false positives they barely detect anything reliably, the middle ground is pointless to try to tune as it varies so much all the time. there are better ones out there that are a bit smarter or use multiple sensor types combined, but they usually cost 3-5x as much as the Sonoffs.
Look for microwave presence sensors for something actually useable. its a newer tech that has started to drop in price dramatically and works so much better as it doesnt rely on IR or temperature in any way.
I have two Tuya mmWave sensors in my workshop; I've only had them going for a few days, but they seem to be working flawlessly; I had to use two to get full coverage, but I expected as much.
I hadn't considered these for motion sensor replacements, though. With the exception of one of my motion sensors, none are near power, and I haven't seen any microwave sensors that operate on battery power. I'm not sure how well these would work outdoors, either, but I haven't tried.
Unfortunately the PIR sensors you're using only detect active motion not presence so apart from setting a long "off" delay or a lot of movement while sitting, they won't be very useful for things like lighting. I think Innovelli and a few other companies make wall switches with mmWave so those might be an option if you don't have electrical outlets where you need them for standalone sensors.
Yeah I gave up with them and went with Aqara ones. I just gradually replaced all the Sonoff motion sensors.
The Hue motion sensors are great, but quite expensive. I've found the Aqara ones to be best value for money. Haven't had many issues with them.
I was really surprised that the Sonoff ones are so bad. I used ITEAD's custom PCB service for years (when they still offered it), and it was always fantastic. I have a lot of their plug-in switches and their temperature sensors, and all have worked perfectly. Seems like their motion sensors are the exception.
Yeah I still use their temp sensors and they seem to work fine. The door/window sensors seem to work ok too, but for the most part I've just swapped over to Aqara for anything new I've bought.
I moved all of my movement/presence sensors to mm wave RADAR, they're relatively cheap and much more reliable than PIR.
Which ones are you getting? I am looking for mm wave with zigbee. Can you recommend one?
I've been looking for a year or two and the selection is pretty limited for off the shelf solutions. Most are $60+ each like the FP1, the Tuya options, or the one from the EverythingSmartHome youtube guy.
I've given up on having presence detection for the time being as PIR definitely doesn't cut it, though hopefully that guy responds with his DIY solution as I also have a 3D printer and electronics experience.
Interesting, I have had extremely few false positives, and more complaints about their 1 minute timeout after activating :/
I'm in this camp as well. I've had one motion sensor of theirs since June that supplemented an IKEA one to catch movement at a different part of my hallway and had no real problems with it. I ordered another couple recently as well and put one in my kitchen and another in my office.
I might have been seeing odd behaviour on my office one but I've not had time to investigate it though and I was more inclined to believe it was bad positioning than a faulty sensor.
I did notice though that if I enter the room just as the lights are turning off then the lights don't turn back on but I just go straight to the light switch and do a quick turn off and back on again job to fix it.
You can modify timeout to 30sec
The Tuya 5ghz and 24ghz zigbee ones are amazing
I grabbed a bunch of Xiaomi ones - they are cheap and reliable.
I will also pick up a couple of Tuya presence sensors soon.
I build my own using EspHome. I tend to use a D1 Mini as the microcontroller as it has a small footprint and a LD2411S sensor module (very cheap on AliExpress ) I'm lucky enough to have a 3d printer to make my own enclosures.