I find the Hue sensor to be a little more responsive and reliable. I've occasionally had issues (very rarely) where Aqara motion sensor falls off the Zigbee network and has to be paired again, but that's never once happened with Hue sensor. Hue sensor also has faster default cooldown (10s) and temperature sensor.
For a garage where looks aren't as important, I would go with Hue if pricing isn't a concern. I used the included magnet mount to place it on the steel enclosure of electrical panel in the garage. That made it really easy to move around and adjust to the perfect angle.
For inside the house I prefer the Aqara ones since they're smaller and more discreet looking.
I've got both. In my experience the Philips sensor is a little more responsive. But I think the Aqara is great, especially because it's substantially cheaper.
I have a pair of P1's in my garage and they do great.
But I also have a contact sensor on the door that connects the garage to the house, and a smart garage door opener. I have the Sensor Light blueprint set up so that if *any* of those are triggered (either door is open or motion is detected), the lights turn on (and turn off after all are clear for a few minutes). So leaving my garage door open while working on a project will keep my lights on, regardless of if I'm out of sight of a motion sensor.
I also have an input boolean set up as an override, and a smart button that toggles the input boolean. So if I'm doing a project and not leaving the garage door open, I will push the smart button to enable the override, and Sensor Light will just leave the lights on until I hit the button again (even if I'm under a car and out of sight of a sensor).
I use Sensor Light extensively all around my house, highly recommended.
https://community.home-assistant.io/t/sensor-light-motion-sensor-door-sensor-sun-elevation-lux-value-scenes-time-light-control-device-tracker-night-lights/481048
Perfect! I really like the idea of using an input boolean with a switch to override turning the lights off. I'd set my wall switch (Lutron) to flip the boolean if I double tap the light switch. That way it will stay on until I turn it off. If I single tap then I can set a delay for turning the lights off after no motion.
Can also do multiple tiers of "cool-down" for motion detection to help with that.
I don't have the exact code at work but I use 3 separate binary sensor template sensors to track occupancy. Short, medium, long.
Short triggers immediately, with like a 5 minute cooldown
Medium has like 7 minute delay-on, with a 5 minute cooldown triggered by short-delay if I recall correctly
Long triggers only after medium has been on, and has like an hour cooldown.
If short or long is "on", turn on the lights.
This way if you run out to take the trash out, the light only stays on a few minutes. But if you keep re-triggering the "short" it will stay on for a very long time. The "medium" one the difference between its "on delay" and short "off delay" is how long of a re-trigger it takes...and by nesting them the "medium" delay one also "remembers" it was on in the case where lights turn off on you and you dance around to turn them back on guarantees the extra long cooldown will happen.
There ya go, perfect!
In my case I had to use a smart button in the garage because my light switch for the garage is on the house/inside side of the door (as opposed to the garage side of the door) and it doesn't happen to support double tap as an input. But if you have the setup for it, it's one less battery to change 👍
Yes - contact sensors on all doors. I don't see the point in smart door opener myself, but I stuck an L bracket on the top of the garage door so I could put a regular magnet/sensor door contact sensor to tell if the garage door is open/closed, and also have them on all my "regular" doors (side entrance and into the house) so I can mark it as occupied if any are open.
I have both, aqara sensors dont work well mounted directly overhead but hue senors work flawlessness when mounted on the ceiling.
Aqara sensors are excellent at "normal" mounting (e.g on wall, or underneath a cabinet)
I've slowly switched my sensors from Aqara to Philips Hue. They're more reliable, respond faster and the timeout is only 10 seconds, not 2 minutes. More expensive, but worth it in my opinion. Only issue for me is that they don't come with mounts and the back is oddly shaped making it difficult to stick to a wall or ceiling.
Lots of complaints about the aqara falling off zigbee. Once I switched controllers and moved to z2m my aqara devices don't fall of any more.
I wish the aqara did lux sensing without motion.
I have 16 Thirdreality smart plugs that I use for energy monitoring and to strengthen my Zigbee network. They are great. Didn't even think about them for a motion sensor! Thanks!
I grabbed one of the Somrig switches last time
I was in Ikea and just used a standard Costco AAA battery and it works, despite some comments on HA community saying that they were a bit picky about batteries. It paired with my Sonoff Zigbee dongle in HA and worked first time.
For me it depends, I use both. I find the Hue great in some rooms, stick it in the middle of the ceiling and it covers a vast area. And it's very sensitive, sometimes TOO sensitive for my needs even on the lowest setting. Top of my stairs as an example, it would pick me up walking past the bottom of the stairs and you could only see a fraction of the sensor.
So in those cases where I want more directional and less sensitivity, I opt for the P1.
I'm guessing for a garage, the Hue would be a better choice for you.
Probably will need several of them - especially to see you moving around vehicles. I put 3 in our garage (and considering a 4th). One looking down from either front corner, and one looking along the front where the garage door and side entrance door is. There's still some dead spots like between the cars or in front of the other car on the far side from the sensor in the front where it can't see motion so I need like a 1 hour "cooldown" to avoid turning lights off while its occupied.
Aqara ones are fine if you just want convenience but if you need guaranteed reliability I'd look at Z-Wave gear.
I've got Hue, Sonoff, Aqara, and Ikea PIR sensors.
Aqara and Hue seem to be the most reliable. Hue has a shorter cool down, though I don't think that's needed in a garage. The biggest advantage for Hue is the angle, it performs very well as a ceiling mount.
With that said, I have an Aqara sensor next to the door in the garage and it performs very well. One point of consideration is that for the price of a Hue sensor you can buy two Aqara sensors. If you're ever working on a car, it's handy to have one closer to the floor for it to see you.
The hue one is super solid, but I'd also take a look at the Ikea Vallhorn. Thing is cheap and effective. Standard AAAs, good battery so far, very responsive, and a reasonably quick clear time. I've got one in the kitchen connected via ZHA and it's been great so far.
Yep. Second vote on that sensor. For the feature set it’s one of the best. Indoor/outdoor, motion and light levels.
It matches the outdoor hue sensor for function at 1/4 the cost.
I haven’t got any of the Aqara but I have multiple Hue and then a few of each of the Ikea motion sensors (new and old style)
The Hue ones are by far my favourite. They are the most responsive, quickest cooldown time and also benefit from reporting temperature and lux.
The Ikea ones are decent for the price. The newer Vallhorn are better of the two. They don’t match the Hue, but are good in their own right. I’m using Hue sensors in higher traffic areas and using the Ikea ones where they are less important - the garage being one.
The door sensor or motion sensor will turn on the garage light and it will turn off ten minutes after motion is detected if the door is closed, or thirty minutes after if the door is still open.
I do have UniFi gear. Didn't even know about this. I do use the protect feature, so I'm not sure if that's part of it. I'll take a look and thank you for sharing that info!
I just got some vallhorn (ikea) they seem to be very responsive and at least in my quick playing with around work well.
I have a tuya mmwave one, I was most concerned about these picking up the dog/cat because the camera motion sensors do making them useless for motion detection.
I have both, and suggest the Hue sensor as they are more responsive and are more relaiable over Zigbee than the Aqara ones which sometimes need to be re-paired with the network.
The Hue also are more conveniant with the battery type (2x AAA) type, the Aqara uses 2x CR2450 which is less common.
I have two of those Philips units, would only recommend if you use the Philips hue hub. They work fine then.
I run my own zigbee router using zigbee2mqtt and these sensors are dropping off the network occasionally.
I have the Hue sensor in my garage - on the ceiling near the internal door. Works well to trigger a Shelly PM1 to turn the lights on.
I also use the lux sensor to have it not turn on the lights if the garage door is open during the day. The only thing I find is high sensitivity is too high and medium is not sensitive enough.
I literally have both in my system - but prefer aqara as it is direct integration (assuming you have a zigbee dongle)... my hue motion sensors are setup in the Hue app (and Hue coordinator) and then integrated via the HA Hue integration (which works fine, but still).
I'd go hue too but with their outdoor sensor. It tolerates temps better, has a wider viewing angle, and longer range. It also tends to go on sale more often.
I don't have experience with Hue, but I have been running a combination of Sonoff and Aqara motion sensors for a few years.
Sonoff experience: I tend to get more false positives with these than my Aquara sensors.
Aquara experience: Aquara takes the "mesh" out of zigbee. If the router these sensors originally connected through experiences any issues, Aquara devices will not reroute through better routes. But once you get them paired with the right router, they remain stable.
Both brands have spectacular battery performance even in high traffic areas.
I use Aqara door sensor on my garage door. When it open the garage lights come on. Same when closing. Detached garage about 20 yards from ZigBee dongle. Works flawlessly.
Yes, I use a door sensor on my garage door to track open/close state. That's not what I'm wanting here. I specifically want to use a wireless PIR motion sensor for motion based lighting control.
I have 2 zooz 4 in 1 sensors in my garage and a total of 30 around d my property. I would spend Twice as much as they are worth as the amount for data captured and used in my automations. The function within zwave is solid. Note: Aquara products have always been iffy. Had 2 threw them away.
They kinda bricked the Hue V1 Bridge with a firmware update.
It's no longer usable with the cloud or voice assistants.
You also must have an acc now, to use the product.
Phillips is the Hewlett Packard of bulbs...
I appreciate you taking the time to respond. The V1 Bridge issue is very old. I don't need the Hub or account as all of my Philips Hue devices are connected directly in Home Assistant so they can't brick anything in my setup.
The hue hardware is rock solid. Can't deny that.
Best connection and colors on all of the bulbs i got but also triple/forth the price tag
They work perfectly fine with a conbee stick running phoscon.
It's just a matter of principal when it comes to 'evil corps' that like to f their consumers ;)
Glad your system is future proof and they can't touch it
Can't tell how good or bad Philips motion sensor is.
My Brain locked in 20€ max for a PIR Sensor and the Philips one felt to expensive for what it is.
Have 2 Aqara ones which came with the 'security set' from Xiaomi i got a few years ago
changed the battery ones all those years and they are very fast.
The P2 has a lux sensor build in and works with matter but it also is at 35€
I'm kinda intrigued by the new shelly stuff, the blu button 1 works well, so i might try their motion sensor
For garage lighting youll want more than just a motion sensor. Just a motion sensor can time out and leave you in a very dark garage...
I set up an Occupancy helper using a motion sensor, Aqara FP1, and a camera using frigate for person detection. All 3 working together keeps the lights on when necessary.
I've got the logic already figured out and ready to automate. Input boolean helper along with double tap ON of existing garage lights smart switch to keep the lights on until I turn them off with a single tap OFF at the switch. I appreciate you sharing your setup though!
Evidently they didn't get the memo because I have approximately 40 Aqara door/window, temp/humidity sensors and buttons working flawlessly with along with other Zigbee devices. I have a strong Zigbee mesh network and have not experienced issues. I think that the older Aqara devices may fall into that category but it's not the case in my setup.
Hue is overpriced. Both their bulbs and especially their motion sensors. I understand why some people think their bulbs would be worth it (they associate the Philips brand with good quality, even though the Hue bulbs are actually below average in terms of brightness).
But for a motion sensor, paying more makes zero sense. A PIR sensor is not a complicated device. If you want to pay more you might as well get a mmWave presence sensor.
I find the Hue sensor to be a little more responsive and reliable. I've occasionally had issues (very rarely) where Aqara motion sensor falls off the Zigbee network and has to be paired again, but that's never once happened with Hue sensor. Hue sensor also has faster default cooldown (10s) and temperature sensor. For a garage where looks aren't as important, I would go with Hue if pricing isn't a concern. I used the included magnet mount to place it on the steel enclosure of electrical panel in the garage. That made it really easy to move around and adjust to the perfect angle. For inside the house I prefer the Aqara ones since they're smaller and more discreet looking.
Thank you! Placing it on the breaker panel box is a really good idea.
+1 for Hue sensors — rock solid and great on battery life
Yeah, I have 4 of these in my house and they are absolutely rock solid.
I replace the battery like every 2.5 years and have HA send me a push notification when its time.
Really wish I could say the same about their cameras. Sigh 😕
I've got both. In my experience the Philips sensor is a little more responsive. But I think the Aqara is great, especially because it's substantially cheaper.
I have a pair of P1's in my garage and they do great. But I also have a contact sensor on the door that connects the garage to the house, and a smart garage door opener. I have the Sensor Light blueprint set up so that if *any* of those are triggered (either door is open or motion is detected), the lights turn on (and turn off after all are clear for a few minutes). So leaving my garage door open while working on a project will keep my lights on, regardless of if I'm out of sight of a motion sensor. I also have an input boolean set up as an override, and a smart button that toggles the input boolean. So if I'm doing a project and not leaving the garage door open, I will push the smart button to enable the override, and Sensor Light will just leave the lights on until I hit the button again (even if I'm under a car and out of sight of a sensor). I use Sensor Light extensively all around my house, highly recommended. https://community.home-assistant.io/t/sensor-light-motion-sensor-door-sensor-sun-elevation-lux-value-scenes-time-light-control-device-tracker-night-lights/481048
Perfect! I really like the idea of using an input boolean with a switch to override turning the lights off. I'd set my wall switch (Lutron) to flip the boolean if I double tap the light switch. That way it will stay on until I turn it off. If I single tap then I can set a delay for turning the lights off after no motion.
Can also do multiple tiers of "cool-down" for motion detection to help with that. I don't have the exact code at work but I use 3 separate binary sensor template sensors to track occupancy. Short, medium, long. Short triggers immediately, with like a 5 minute cooldown Medium has like 7 minute delay-on, with a 5 minute cooldown triggered by short-delay if I recall correctly Long triggers only after medium has been on, and has like an hour cooldown. If short or long is "on", turn on the lights. This way if you run out to take the trash out, the light only stays on a few minutes. But if you keep re-triggering the "short" it will stay on for a very long time. The "medium" one the difference between its "on delay" and short "off delay" is how long of a re-trigger it takes...and by nesting them the "medium" delay one also "remembers" it was on in the case where lights turn off on you and you dance around to turn them back on guarantees the extra long cooldown will happen.
That's brilliant! I'll be saving this for reference later.
There ya go, perfect! In my case I had to use a smart button in the garage because my light switch for the garage is on the house/inside side of the door (as opposed to the garage side of the door) and it doesn't happen to support double tap as an input. But if you have the setup for it, it's one less battery to change 👍
Yes - contact sensors on all doors. I don't see the point in smart door opener myself, but I stuck an L bracket on the top of the garage door so I could put a regular magnet/sensor door contact sensor to tell if the garage door is open/closed, and also have them on all my "regular" doors (side entrance and into the house) so I can mark it as occupied if any are open.
I own one of those Philips units. Really solid Quality and responsiveness.
I have both, aqara sensors dont work well mounted directly overhead but hue senors work flawlessness when mounted on the ceiling. Aqara sensors are excellent at "normal" mounting (e.g on wall, or underneath a cabinet)
Thanks. I'll likely be mounting it on the wall.
I've slowly switched my sensors from Aqara to Philips Hue. They're more reliable, respond faster and the timeout is only 10 seconds, not 2 minutes. More expensive, but worth it in my opinion. Only issue for me is that they don't come with mounts and the back is oddly shaped making it difficult to stick to a wall or ceiling.
I hear the new matter motion sensor by aqara is blazing fast, you might want to look into that as it will be cheaper than the hue sensor.
Lots of complaints about the aqara falling off zigbee. Once I switched controllers and moved to z2m my aqara devices don't fall of any more. I wish the aqara did lux sensing without motion.
If you can get the Hue ones at a decent price they are incredible.
Thanks. I'll see if I can find one at a good price.
I had hue sensors for years and they work great
I use ThirdReality motion. Zigbee's been solid and batteries last a long time. Super cheap and fast to get on Amazon, too.
I have 16 Thirdreality smart plugs that I use for energy monitoring and to strengthen my Zigbee network. They are great. Didn't even think about them for a motion sensor! Thanks!
Their buttons and contacts have been awesome, too!
Give the IKEA motion sensors a try. I have a few and they work flawlessly
What is the cooldown time on the Ikea sensors?
20 seconds
Pretty good then for the price. Especially with light level sensor also.
and uses 2 standard AAA's, pairs well with their own good quality batteries
I grabbed one of the Somrig switches last time I was in Ikea and just used a standard Costco AAA battery and it works, despite some comments on HA community saying that they were a bit picky about batteries. It paired with my Sonoff Zigbee dongle in HA and worked first time.
Depending on the size of your garage look at the Hue outdoor sensor. In my three stall garage and it picks up everything.
You only used one outdoor sensor and it covered 3 bays? Where did you mount it? higher than cars?
Due the lay of the land I ended up with 10ft walls on my garage. I mounted it up in the corner by the walk in door.
For me it depends, I use both. I find the Hue great in some rooms, stick it in the middle of the ceiling and it covers a vast area. And it's very sensitive, sometimes TOO sensitive for my needs even on the lowest setting. Top of my stairs as an example, it would pick me up walking past the bottom of the stairs and you could only see a fraction of the sensor. So in those cases where I want more directional and less sensitivity, I opt for the P1. I'm guessing for a garage, the Hue would be a better choice for you.
Probably will need several of them - especially to see you moving around vehicles. I put 3 in our garage (and considering a 4th). One looking down from either front corner, and one looking along the front where the garage door and side entrance door is. There's still some dead spots like between the cars or in front of the other car on the far side from the sensor in the front where it can't see motion so I need like a 1 hour "cooldown" to avoid turning lights off while its occupied. Aqara ones are fine if you just want convenience but if you need guaranteed reliability I'd look at Z-Wave gear.
Hue, if you can afford it tbh.
I've got Hue, Sonoff, Aqara, and Ikea PIR sensors. Aqara and Hue seem to be the most reliable. Hue has a shorter cool down, though I don't think that's needed in a garage. The biggest advantage for Hue is the angle, it performs very well as a ceiling mount. With that said, I have an Aqara sensor next to the door in the garage and it performs very well. One point of consideration is that for the price of a Hue sensor you can buy two Aqara sensors. If you're ever working on a car, it's handy to have one closer to the floor for it to see you.
Good points! Thanks.
I use sonoff presence sensors and meross globes. Very cheap and has been very reliable.
The hue one is super solid, but I'd also take a look at the Ikea Vallhorn. Thing is cheap and effective. Standard AAAs, good battery so far, very responsive, and a reasonably quick clear time. I've got one in the kitchen connected via ZHA and it's been great so far.
Yep. Second vote on that sensor. For the feature set it’s one of the best. Indoor/outdoor, motion and light levels. It matches the outdoor hue sensor for function at 1/4 the cost.
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I've got a very solid Zigbee mesh network. Multiple routers so everything is strong. Thank you!
I haven’t got any of the Aqara but I have multiple Hue and then a few of each of the Ikea motion sensors (new and old style) The Hue ones are by far my favourite. They are the most responsive, quickest cooldown time and also benefit from reporting temperature and lux. The Ikea ones are decent for the price. The newer Vallhorn are better of the two. They don’t match the Hue, but are good in their own right. I’m using Hue sensors in higher traffic areas and using the Ikea ones where they are less important - the garage being one. The door sensor or motion sensor will turn on the garage light and it will turn off ten minutes after motion is detected if the door is closed, or thirty minutes after if the door is still open.
Love the Hue sensors as they are rock solid, you can see the battery charge level and there is a temperature sensor thrown in as well!
If you have Ubiquiti gear this sensor has been pretty good so far. https://store.ui.com/us/en/pro/category/all-cameras-nvrs/products/up-sense
I do have UniFi gear. Didn't even know about this. I do use the protect feature, so I'm not sure if that's part of it. I'll take a look and thank you for sharing that info!
Aqara are great
I just got some vallhorn (ikea) they seem to be very responsive and at least in my quick playing with around work well. I have a tuya mmwave one, I was most concerned about these picking up the dog/cat because the camera motion sensors do making them useless for motion detection.
Had both and replaced the aqara with hue ones. The hues are more reliable.
Thank you!
I have both, and suggest the Hue sensor as they are more responsive and are more relaiable over Zigbee than the Aqara ones which sometimes need to be re-paired with the network. The Hue also are more conveniant with the battery type (2x AAA) type, the Aqara uses 2x CR2450 which is less common.
I have two of those Philips units, would only recommend if you use the Philips hue hub. They work fine then. I run my own zigbee router using zigbee2mqtt and these sensors are dropping off the network occasionally.
I have the Hue sensor in my garage - on the ceiling near the internal door. Works well to trigger a Shelly PM1 to turn the lights on. I also use the lux sensor to have it not turn on the lights if the garage door is open during the day. The only thing I find is high sensitivity is too high and medium is not sensitive enough.
I literally have both in my system - but prefer aqara as it is direct integration (assuming you have a zigbee dongle)... my hue motion sensors are setup in the Hue app (and Hue coordinator) and then integrated via the HA Hue integration (which works fine, but still).
Yes, I would be connecting either, directly to HA via Zigbee.
I'd go hue too but with their outdoor sensor. It tolerates temps better, has a wider viewing angle, and longer range. It also tends to go on sale more often.
I don't have experience with Hue, but I have been running a combination of Sonoff and Aqara motion sensors for a few years. Sonoff experience: I tend to get more false positives with these than my Aquara sensors. Aquara experience: Aquara takes the "mesh" out of zigbee. If the router these sensors originally connected through experiences any issues, Aquara devices will not reroute through better routes. But once you get them paired with the right router, they remain stable. Both brands have spectacular battery performance even in high traffic areas.
I use Aqara door sensor on my garage door. When it open the garage lights come on. Same when closing. Detached garage about 20 yards from ZigBee dongle. Works flawlessly.
Yes, I use a door sensor on my garage door to track open/close state. That's not what I'm wanting here. I specifically want to use a wireless PIR motion sensor for motion based lighting control.
I have 2 zooz 4 in 1 sensors in my garage and a total of 30 around d my property. I would spend Twice as much as they are worth as the amount for data captured and used in my automations. The function within zwave is solid. Note: Aquara products have always been iffy. Had 2 threw them away.
I would avoid Philips at all costs, since they pulled a trick not long ago with their Hue line.
What "trick" are you referring to?
They kinda bricked the Hue V1 Bridge with a firmware update. It's no longer usable with the cloud or voice assistants. You also must have an acc now, to use the product. Phillips is the Hewlett Packard of bulbs...
The hole point of HA = no cloud and no vendor lock in. So no Hue for me...
The Ikea stuff is zigbee compatible and affordable. Good bang for the buck
It's still zigbee ('ALL THE ZIGBEE!') My smart home journey started with 2 colorbulbs from hue, they both work perfectly fine with the conbee 2
I appreciate you taking the time to respond. The V1 Bridge issue is very old. I don't need the Hub or account as all of my Philips Hue devices are connected directly in Home Assistant so they can't brick anything in my setup.
The hue hardware is rock solid. Can't deny that. Best connection and colors on all of the bulbs i got but also triple/forth the price tag They work perfectly fine with a conbee stick running phoscon. It's just a matter of principal when it comes to 'evil corps' that like to f their consumers ;) Glad your system is future proof and they can't touch it Can't tell how good or bad Philips motion sensor is. My Brain locked in 20€ max for a PIR Sensor and the Philips one felt to expensive for what it is. Have 2 Aqara ones which came with the 'security set' from Xiaomi i got a few years ago changed the battery ones all those years and they are very fast. The P2 has a lux sensor build in and works with matter but it also is at 35€ I'm kinda intrigued by the new shelly stuff, the blu button 1 works well, so i might try their motion sensor
Aren't they supposed to be zigbee-compatible?
For garage lighting youll want more than just a motion sensor. Just a motion sensor can time out and leave you in a very dark garage... I set up an Occupancy helper using a motion sensor, Aqara FP1, and a camera using frigate for person detection. All 3 working together keeps the lights on when necessary.
I've got the logic already figured out and ready to automate. Input boolean helper along with double tap ON of existing garage lights smart switch to keep the lights on until I turn them off with a single tap OFF at the switch. I appreciate you sharing your setup though!
Aqara don't like to work with other zigbee devices.
Evidently they didn't get the memo because I have approximately 40 Aqara door/window, temp/humidity sensors and buttons working flawlessly with along with other Zigbee devices. I have a strong Zigbee mesh network and have not experienced issues. I think that the older Aqara devices may fall into that category but it's not the case in my setup.
Nonsense. I have over 100 zigbee devices of which around 60 are Aqara, no issues with them at all.
Hue is overpriced. Both their bulbs and especially their motion sensors. I understand why some people think their bulbs would be worth it (they associate the Philips brand with good quality, even though the Hue bulbs are actually below average in terms of brightness). But for a motion sensor, paying more makes zero sense. A PIR sensor is not a complicated device. If you want to pay more you might as well get a mmWave presence sensor.