What are people using for temperature monitoring in Home Assistant? I'd like to add 4-5 sensors across a few rooms in the house, but without having to buy proprietary hubs that appear to be a requirement for a lot of brands (Switchbot, Aqara). I've seen the cheapest seem to be something like this, but then you need a Zigbee compatible hub?
I also have HomeKit and HomeAssistant connected and an Apple TV acting as a HomeKit Hub, if that makes any difference.
I have a few too, but it does require a Zigbee hub.
Ecowitt, some of the most accurate in the budget price range. They talk back to the network via their gateway. I connected the gateway via Ethernet/Poe adapter.
This is what I use too and am happy with it. Reliable updates every 1 minute and batteries last for a long long time (I think it's like 2 years). Compatible with weather stations too.
Ecowitt official store has now a 15% discount ("DAD2025" coupon) which ends up being cheaper than Amazon even with shipping.
ESPHOME on ESP32 with bluetooth proxy enabled.
and these $5 Xiaomi Mijia Bluetooth Temperature and Humidity sensors, you can flash them with open firmware from here
This is the way!
This is what I used to create a heat map with a house plan by having few of them around the house.
This is what I use as it runs on batteries and last months. They do not need a hub.
However, their updates are less frequent. If you need the temperature to be updated every few seconds, you need to have it AC powered. I'm using the usual ESP tasmota temperature sensors. Relative humidity should not be updated every few seconds as the probes will die quickly.
What are you doing that needs the temp updates every few seconds!?
I loaded custom FW, mine update every 5mins and that is more than enough for temp monitoring.
Running AC or seeing precisely when the peaks are.
Thinking about it, it probably doesn't need to be every few seconds and is a waste of energy. Probably should swap them all over to bluetooth one day. Keep in mind that sometimes updates get missed on bluetooth.
+1 for the $5 ali express zigbee ones, bought a handful and they're solid.
Yep I've got the Ali express ones, but use a sonoff dongle as the main hub, connect via z2mqtt or zha and it all integrates seemlessly.
Have a few wifi ones but they drain batteries too quick, ZigBee ones last much longer per charge
I’ve been using these SONOFF SNZB-02P
then you need a Zigbee compatible hub?
Just a USB dongle. Do it.
ZigBee is the way to go for any battery powered sensors. Cheap on AliExpress.
Okay got it, sounds like Zigbee is a non-negotiable. The little Sonoff USB coordinator doesn’t seem so bad so I’ll probably go that way.
Thanks for the input all.
Zigbee is great as long as you don't live in a RF-noisy neighbourhood. If you do, you will need to work out what channel Zigbee will be best suited on.
I have a mix of Bluetooth and ZigBee. The Xiaomi Bluetooth ones can actually be flashed to run as ZigBee if you want. Zigbee can be a bit annoying with many routers not following standards though ive found this less of an issue for my temperature sensors. BT proxies via ESP32 work really well to extend BT range throughout the house via wifi so I'd recommend this path first. It's also cheaper as you don't need a ZigBee dongle or hub and I'm presuming you have BT on board for your HA device.
The other benefit is the BT Xiaomi sensors have a LCD and are also highly configurable to tweak power and frequency.
I have these in my setup
Xiaomi BT
Xiaomi zigbee
Aqara zigbee via temp sensors with humidity and pressure and buttons with temp only
Smartthings zigbee via motion, button or door sensors (no humidity though)
Also those tuya ones look OK as they use Aaa batteries which will last forever and are cheap to replace. If I were to buy again I'd choose AAA battery devices any day as I've hacked AA and AAA battery holders onto many of my devices
I believe the Xiaomi BT have inbuilt mesh with each other. Have you noticed that?
Don't know but I wouldn't have thought battery devices mesh?
These devices are bluetooth LE 5 which have a mesh function (obviously not with your wifi, but with each other). I was getting quite a long range when I daisy chained them. Since breaking the chain, I'm getting poor signal through a closed room. Not sure if that's just me.
HomePods have temp and humidity sensors built in, get a mini for the rooms and a pair of biggies for the living room 👍
I use a Sonoff USB dongle and I've got 6 Aqara temperature sensors scattered around the house and 1 outdoor. I've also got a lot of other zigbee relays and other things too. Just go zigbee.
I use the QingPing Temp & RH Monitor which comes in three versions. I've got the T version which supports Bluetooth & Thread and Apple HomeKit compatible. The two other versions are, H which is also HomeKit compatible but no Thread support & M for Mi Home. It's got a e-ink Display and runs off a CR2430. For my setup the battery lasted about 8 months before I had to swap them. I got them off AliExpress in a 3 pack for $100.
Zero issues adding them into HomeKit but I have to reboot them every so often because they seem to lock up. I've not had a firmware update since I got them, still on the shipping version of 1.2.1. If they didn't lock up every so often I'd happily recommend them but I can't till they fix it but since I've not had a firmware update ever I don't think they will. At first I thought it was a range issue as the one that is the furtherest from a AppleTV is the one that did it first but the one that I've got about 3 meters from a AppleTV does it as well. It could also be becasue only one of my AppleTV's is Thread capable. Need to look into it a bit more.
I’d previously used tapo sensors with the tapo hub before launching into HA. Agree, the hub is an annoying step if you already have HA set up. (But thankfully still works well with HA, so no need to replace it).
Have since set up the HA zigbee dongle and zigbee has been great. Haven’t had any temp sensors with it yet, because we already have enough, but have been using it with ikea bulbs, switches and will now go for zigbee first for sure.
I have a couple of hue lights, so just added hue motion sensors which have the temperature function included