Comment by kadoban
2 days ago
Do _not_ get the Aqara ones. The things will not stay connected for shit.
I have a couple of the Tuya ones and I'm pleased with them. The humidity accuracy is questionable, but it's fine.
I also have an airgradient (not zigbee, uses wifi) for high accuracy the one place I care about that. Works great in Home Assistant with esphome.
Ah, I've read what the problem is (90% sure).
Aqara sensors use zigbee, but NOT the full protocol, like Ikea ones for example. So they work fine, until they lose a connection to a router. Zigbee protocol dictates that it will need to try connecting to another router, but aqara does not.
I have a lot of these sensors in my home, normally the connection is fine (5+ years) but sometimes I lose one. Because somebody turned off the lamp (ikea one, acting as a router) (by cutting the electricity to it) by mistake. Then, the connection is lost to that router and it will not try to reconnect.
When the router does not switch, the connection stays. I don't even need to re-pair when changing the batteries!
I've read this somewhere, take it with a grain of salt and validate it yourself if possible.
Hmm interesting I have 4-5 of them and quite like them. They've all stayed connected over a year except 1 which I just replaced the battery in and I think that fixed it. It was reporting 40% battery but would drop off shortly after connecting.
Aqara might be the ones with a crappy ZigBee implementation that doesn't roam right so if you move them or your topology changes, they'll drop off.
Same, I have scads of them (~8) and have never had connection issues with any of them. I made sure to only pull the battery tab and turn them on for the first time in their target location, maybe that makes a difference, and my zigbee network is quite dense, so there's no lack of mesh for them to connect to.
I'm 2 years in, I think, and I have never noticed any issues.
Very interesting. I wonder if there's some compatability thing or network topology/density/something that screws them up.
Half of people seem to swear by them, and half hate them. They did seem great until I kept having to reconnect them every couple days, so I get why the lucky ones are happy.
I have about 15 Aquara sensors in my house and had no real issues for the last ~3 years. Only real annoyance with the Aquara ones is that the battery opening mechanism has the worst piece of plastic I have ever seen. I still have not found a reliably way of opening those damn things without breaking the soft plastic. If anyone has found a way to do that I am all ears
I can't open those with a coin, the plastic is too soft indeed. But if I stick them to another object using the included sticker I can just rotate the device itself to reach the battery. If you want it to be mobile you can stick it to something small or a 3d printed piece of plastic.
I also do the stick and twist method for opening them, but it always require new adhesive, so not a good solution. I also tried multiple 3d printed jigs for opening but those also didn't work very well
You need the right sized coin. A nickel works best. Anything else doesn't fit right and tears up the plastic or slips out.
I have a bunch of Aqara sensors and they stay connected most of the time, but if there's an extended power outage, usually about 1/3rd of them won't reconnect. It's annoying having to hunt them all down and reboot them. Sometimes the button won't work either and I have to fuss with the battery to get them situated.
I have to agree. Aqara make some excellent hardware, but their Zigbee firmware is typically awful. Their battery-powered switches also drop off the network at random.
I have several E1 wired switches and had to resort to replacing the firmware on them[0]. They don't drop off the network as their sleepy end devices tend to, but they also can't be bound to other devices.
[0] https://www.ducktoast.com/blog/electronics-projects/aqara-e1...
Yep... I have had the same issue with the Aqara ones (on top of the battery life being the worst).
> Do _not_ get the Aqara ones. The things will not stay connected for shit.
+1, complete waste of time and money. I thought my Zigbee network or HA was the problem, but the sensors are just garbage.
It's a known issue with them that they don't ever change their routing. If you connect them in a different place than you use them, you're going to have suboptimal to unusable routes.
Agreed. After the headache of getting them paired and dealing with repeated disconnections, I tried out a few bluetooth sensors and was pleasantly surprised. Specifically Govee H5074 and similar. No pairing troubles. They just work. Battery life is definitely over a year, possibly 2. A pack of three can be had for <$40.
I have one Bluetooth sensor, but its range is not enough to cover the distance to the router. Zigbee carries a lot further in my experience. I need 15-20 meters with two heavy walls in between.
My Zigbee sensors are these Aqaras, and the initial pairing has worked just fine.
I haven't any issues with them, and I've had them for years. In fact, they were the foundation of my smart home setup, and continue to be central.
They worked fine with the ConBee 2, and work fine with the ZBT-1 that replaced it.
That said, they're used within a relatively small area, and have direct connection to the coordinator. My one (major) annoyance with them is how hard it is to open the battery compartment, the plastic is too soft.
I've since added some Sonoff T+H sensors which are fine, though twice as big.
My one disappointment is the Arre (Thread) sensor, which has low resolution and bad battery life.
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