Does anyone have any recommendations for an automated way to alert me if I leave my garage door open? I'm thinking about either a magnetic contact switch sensor or a vibration / tilt sensor. I don't know if I can mount a magnetic switch sensor on the door though.
@JoeCotellese@homeassistant@homeassistant I started with a Xiaomi zigbee vibration / tilt sensor, but it would come out of sync. I replaced them with zigbee door contact sensors and they work great. Mounted with E6000 craft glue. The worst is in winter, sometimes the door “closes” but has snow or ice compacted under so it shows as open in HA until I clear it.
Good callout on range, I had issues with drops until I put a zigbee light switch in the garage too.
The post I saw did mention that you don't want the magnet part on the hinge side or it could stick to the door instead of dangling and triggering the sensor to report 'open', so put the sensor receiver on the dangle bit
I'm going to experiment with the Aqara contact switch. I can't mount it inside the garage door so I've mounted it outside. It's slightly covered so I'm hoping the adhesive will hold.
Setting up the automation was easy in #homeassistant. I'm going to check the state of the sensor at 10pm and send a notification if the door is open.
@JoeCotellese@homeassistant@homeassistant I use meross garage opener. Makes my dumb garage opener smart, I can open it/close remotely, I get notifications if opened for x amount of time, controlled by app, no hub needed, compatible with Google, Amazon and Apple https://a.co/d/06hhIU8
@JoeCotellese@homeassistant@homeassistant I cannot speak for this website/retailer but I have a version of these sensors on my garage doors (one is fully manual like yours)
They are good for simple notifications but I have seen a couple false positives (reporting open when actually closed), so I wouldn’t recommend them for a critical application or alarm without doing some testing.
@amd@JoeCotellese@homeassistant@homeassistant I’ve had these for years in my garage door too. They work great. Make sure you have good zwave reach into the garage though to avoid any false positives.
@amd@JoeCotellese@homeassistant@homeassistant These use a ball switch that in my experience eventually (years later) stops working properly. They supposedly have a way to attach an external sensor, though I've never tried.
There are sites online with instructions for replacing the ball switch with a mercury switch. It requires soldering, and a steadier hand than I have.
I just replace the whole thing when I have to.
@amd
I've bought from that site before and have never had any problems (shipped to US).
For me, I bought a 10-pack of reed switches that look like these from AliExpress and put the magnet end on the garage door I think on my door, that part is metal, so it self-sticks and used a few blocks of wood to mount the sensor and then used some LED wire to run to an ESP8266 with ESPHome loaded up to connect it to Home Assistant.
DIY wins on cheapness and versatility since I also use it to also trigger the garage doors to open/close and sense motion, but that tilt sensor would probably beat it in convenience alone as long as the z-wave network is good.
@JoeCotellese@homeassistant@homeassistant I used a reed switch connected to a Shelly to note the status in and control from #HomeAssistant. I think I would probably use something like an Aqara door/window sensor for that now. The reed switches were very finicky and you don't need to control anything with the Shelly.
Add comment