Best Door/window sensors for Homey

Hi guys,

I would like to know what is the best door sensors (battery life) open detection, fiability, security and connection with Homey ?

Zwave or Zigbee device, I would like to use with a security app like Heimdall.

Thanks in advance for your advises.

Thanks for your reply Roy,

I have zigbee (philips hue) devices but even more Zwave (Fibaro) devices. Also for the motion sensor I will chose philips hue motion sensor for fiability and bescause I have hue environment too.

For door sensor :
I like the thin design of sensative strip guard and they claim 10 years of battery life.
Fibaro door sensor is known for the battery issue.
Aqara look strange with EU and Chinese gateway, thanks for your neo coolcam feedback.

Most important for me is the battery, homey connectivity and flow and fiability/none false positive.

Take Neo Coolcam. Run for me without any problems. Battery life approx. 12 to 14 months. Good range.

I’m using 6 Sensative Strip Guards and they do what they have to do.
I cannot say much about the battery life at the moment. I had one strip in use which showed only 25% battery capacity after about 2 years. This one I got replaced by Sensitive without any problems. Therefore I recommend to fill in the “Extendend Battery Warranty” after purchase.
But you should know that the batteries are not exchangeable.

By the way, the Strip with 25% battery capacity still runs without problems.

Edit: I cannot recommend the Fibaro sensors.

Me neither. Batteries are drained too fast. Indoor they used 4 batteries a year. Also had one in the shed, it swallowed 6-7 batteries a year.
Now i have Neo Coolcam sensors in the same places and they are running for over a year already on 1 battery. Shed and kitchen door currently show 95%.

Aeotec Door/Window 7, small, replaceable batteries. Aeotec claims 3 years life on a battery. (I don’t own one, thought)
Aeotec Door/Window 6, not small and weird shape but rechargeable battery (via USB), I own a couple of them, on a highly used door I charge them about 4 times per year on a less often use window just once per year.

And yeah, forget about the Fibaro, useless sensor, search the forum.
I do have one in the fridge since beside door left open it gives me also the temperature.

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Agreed. The support for aqara is very decent with thanks to the community. There price quality ratio is very good if you ask me. They work find in my Zigbee mesh. Also have my house full of Philips hue for a decent zigbee mesh.

I use the sensitive strips for over 3 years now. They still have 75% Battery :wink:

Unfortunately I cannot confirm the 3 years. 1 year, maybe 1.5 years, depending on how often the door/window is opened and closed.

The Aeotec and the identical Popp Sensor have an additional tilt function. This function is currently only supported by the Popp App.

I’m assuming these work with Homey? Via an App?
Can you get these in Australia? Not sure where you are located.

Yes, of course: Sensative

The company comes from Sweden, so I don’t know if they are available in Australia.

I use a mix of sensitives for doors and when sensor must be “hidden” and aquara sensors on windows, not for alarm, but to know when the window is open and I have to switch off the heating in that room.

Sensitives are used for alarm.

Battery life for both are very good.

Don’t by the fibaros. I had two of them and both always had problems (battery drain and manipulation error which could not be resettet). I had neo coolcams in the house and aqara sensors. Both work as good as your network is. I find it easier to setup a stable zwave network then zigbee, but that is a different story.
I moved all door sensors now to aqara cause I don’t want to maintain two iot networks. If you are interested, I have about 10 neo coolcams laying around and also one fibaro.

This is often a problem with the housing/cover. After a relatively short time the cover is not tight enough to press the TMP switch firmly.

Still very annoying, as in the overview it looks like a open window in the first place and there is no option to just ignore it (afaik). Doesn’t matter anymore, no zwave anymore in my house :wink:

The problem with the housing only applies to Fibaro sensors. I had good experiences with Sensative, Aeotec, Popp and Neo.
That you cannot see if the window is open or the tamper alarm is active is the problem of the Homey GUI, not of Z-Wave.

Just superglue the &@#& mini switch button… Or sell them and buy 2 times more Neo Coolcams for the money you get for it.

Any update on this thread for the Homey Pro?

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In the meantime, various new sensors are supported by Homey. The question is, what exactly do you want?

I’ll just mention a few keywords:
– Connectivity standard (Z-Wave, Zigbee, WiFi, Bluetooth, 433 MHz, Matter, Thread)
– Additional functions (tamper alarm, tilt detection, temperature, brightness measurement, PIR motion detection)
– Size
– Battery (type, quantity, replaceable)
– Price
– …

Yeah how long is a rope…
I went for Aqara Door and Window Sensor T1.
ZigBee, ok price, small and easy to connect to Homey.