Affiliate links: I may earn a small commission if you purchase through these links, at no extra cost to you.
Description #
Affiliate links below. If you buy through these links, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Buy on Aliexpress https://s.click.AliExpress.com/e/_Dchgw7d make sure you pick the right version as both WiFi and Zigbee versions are for sale. $10 Zigbee gateway https://youtu.be/i4n3TW5uYdM
Hey everyone! In this video, I unbox and set up the Tuya Zigbee Motion Sensor from AliExpress. This tiny but powerful gadget helps automate my bathroom lights using Home Assistant and ZigBee to MQTT.
📦 Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction and Unboxing 00:27 - Sensor Features and Functions 00:38 - Setting Up with Home Assistant 01:14 - Motion Sensor Activation Demonstration 01:54 - Device Details in Home Assistant 02:23 - Automations and Battery Life 03:27 - Conclusion and Final Thoughts
🌟 Features: Built-in light sensor Motion detection Manual scene switch Requires a ZigBee Gateway
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Hope you find this helpful, and see you in the next video!
#TuyaZigbee #SmartHome #HomeAutomation #HomeAssistant #TechReview #Unboxing #MotionSensor #ZigBeeToMQTT #AliExpress #TechGadgets
Original Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFxw5Vw_VBk
Transcript #
Hey everybody, I got another gadget — this time it’s this very tiny Tuya motion sensor. I got this on AliExpress so that my bathroom lights can turn on and off all by themselves. Let’s open it up.
Inside the box you get the motion sensor and a little bit of sticky tape to adhere it to a wall. What does this have? A light sensor up there, the motion sensor here, and a scene switch button so you can turn lights on and off manually if you wish. This is the Zigbee version, meaning you need to have a Zigbee controller. I purchased one of those and I’ll do a video on that separately, but you need to have that all set up. I’ll be doing this with Home Assistant and Zigbee2MQTT.
It uses two AAA batteries, so you just pop them in the back here. I’ve already paired mine, but when you first turn it on that red light will flash over and over until you pair it in your Zigbee system. The PIR is set up on the other side of this wall, so when I walk in it should activate. Here we go — lights are on. Perfect. If I want to turn them off I can just push the button, or the automation will turn them off in about 30 minutes.
I’m dressed up from my other tech channel right now, but I thought I’d take the opportunity to show you what the bathroom sensor looks like in Home Assistant. I use Zigbee2MQTT with an adapter — I did a separate video on that and I’ll put a link in the description, and maybe on the end card too. If we click on the device we can see everything that’s exposed: the battery, which is 17% — I’ll show the battery graph shortly, but I don’t exactly know how long it’s going to last yet because they haven’t died. We also get the occupancy status (currently clear, meaning no one’s been seen), the action button, the illuminance (dark in the bathroom right now because the lights are off), and the link quality. That’s everything this adapter exposes.
I have two automations. One is for the switch — when I push the button it turns off the lights. The other is for the bathroom PIR — I use the built-in “motion-activated light” automation in Home Assistant. It’s not perfect; the routine sometimes gets stuck. I think I need to cancel it when I push the button, because if I manually turn off the lights, the motion trigger doesn’t always kick in afterwards. It’s not the sensor, it’s definitely my automation that needs a little tweaking. But for my purposes it’s working totally fine and I’m pretty happy with it. People visit, use the bathroom and go “whoa, that’s cool” — which is weird.
One more thing: let’s look at the battery. On the 24th of May I put some fully-charged Eneloop Pros in here, and I thought it was going to die much faster than this — the drop was pretty steep at first. Now it’s just a slow drain, and it’s still reading around 77%, and it’s been almost a month, so the battery life’s pretty good. I’ll make a pinned comment with the exact date it eventually stops working, and I’ll put freshly charged batteries in again. So far so good — it’s reached a month, and maybe it will go for several months on a single pair. The battery percentage reporting itself is just awful and not very accurate.
Anyway, that pretty much sums up this adapter. I really like it, and you can find a link to buy it from AliExpress in the description. Check the pinned comment for battery life. I hope you found this useful, and I’ll see you in the next one. Don’t expect me to be dressed like this in every video — this is for my other tech channel and I was too lazy to change. Bye.
Thanks for watching to the end. I don’t usually put end cards on these videos but here we are. Here’s a link to the Zigbee adapter, and maybe another video. Like, subscribe, yada yada yada. See you next time.