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I've got a bunch of Xiaomi Aqara Zigbee water leak sensors and they have alerted me to leaks which could have caused a lot of damage if not caught right away.

I've got a bunch of Xiaomi Aqara Zigbee water leak sensors and they have alerted me to leaks which could have caused a lot of damage if not caught right away. The siren on this Ikea one is a very obvious improvement and the price seems to be in line with the Xiaomi sensors that I currently use. The motion sensor looks like a decent improvement on the existing one. I have to admit that I don't have the battery life issues that many people seem to have with the current model, but I've only got two of these sensors so maybe I got lucky. The door sensor looks weird though. It seems a lot larger than the equivalent Xiaomi Aqara sensor. Maybe it uses AAA batteries instead of coin cells or something. Generally speaking, I really like the Ikea Zigbee stuff. Everything I've got is well-supported by Zigbee2MQTT, including OTA updates. Most of my Ikea stuff has never even been paired to Ikea's hub.

twisteriffic 3y ago
How have you found the battery life to be on your Ikea zigbee devices? Mine have been generally disappointing. In the range of 3 months on the dimmers that are maybe 10 feet from the hub. Just got a couple of their newer dimmers, hoping those will be better. The pairing experience was certainly less painful. Zigbee2mqtt is the bomb. ZHA can't hold a candle to it in terms of reliability, features and device support. The tiny increase in complexity is so worth it.
- Mister_Snuggles 3y ago
  I find that the battery life seems fine, but I haven't tracked it closely. I have noticed a difference between Duracell coin cells purchased at Costco and Amazon Basics coin cells. The Amazon Basics ones didn't last long at all, the Duracells seem much better. The newer dimmers (STYRBAR) use AAA cells instead of coin cells, so I'd expect them to last a lot longer.
  - twisteriffic 3y ago
    I'll try switching up battery brands. The out of the box cells from Ikea were dead in weeks, the store brand ones at least gave me a few months.
    - filterfiber 3y ago
      Battery brands (or even skus in the brands) can matter a _lot_. Related, Panasonic's rechargable eneloop have worked very well for me, I'm kind of excited to see AAA be used in the IOT devices where it can fit. I have a lot less of a problem swapping batteries if I just have a few charged ones on hand and get at least many months in-between replacements.
      - joecool1029 3y ago
        >Related, Panasonic's rechargable eneloop have worked very well for me Just a heads up: IKEA's brand of rechargables are likely rebadged eneloops at about half the price, also made in japan. Though for the AAA's they only have eneloop regular equivalents not eneloop pros.
      - ssl232 3y ago
        Top tip: IKEA rechargeable batteries are probably rebadged Eneloop Pros.
- sowbug 3y ago
  What exactly do you mean by a "dimmer"? Everything I have in my home that dims lights is mains-powered, so battery isn't a concern. I have 45 Zigbee devices in my home, 33 of which are battery-powered. Those are door contact sensors, PIR motion sensors, climate sensors, and a few button remotes to control lighting. They're mostly from Sonoff and Aqara, with a few unbranded Aliexpress devices that identify themselves as TUYATEC, and a couple from Third Reality. In almost every case, the battery life has been extraordinarily good -- well over a year. The only exception is the Sonoff SNZB-04 contact sensor, which seems to need battery changes about every six months. Probably not coincidentally, it's the only sensor that uses CR2032 batteries, rather than AA or AAA. I would happily replace with a slightly larger sensor to get both longer battery life and less e-waste through the ability to use a standard rechargeable AA/AAA battery.
  - twisteriffic 3y ago
    Ikea refers to several of their zigbee remotes as dimmers. This is the older one that I've had issues with: https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/tradfri-wireless-dimmer-smart-white-10408598/ https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/tradfri-wireless-dimmer-smart-w... This is the newer one: https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/rodret-wireless-dimmer-power-switch-smart-white-80559800/ https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/rodret-wireless-dimmer-power-sw... I have a few SmartThings motion sensors that are at 2-3 years battery life, though they use big lithium cells so that isn't surprising. A few sonoff temp/humidity sensors on coin cells seem to be heading for at least a year battery life as well. So far it's only the Ikea buttons that have issues.
    - avel 3y ago
      You probably have battery issues because you are using SmartThings as the zigbee hub and it's polling the remote way too much. I have switched to HomeAssistant with a Zigbee USB adaptor and there are no more battery issues. SmartThings are aware of the issue but do not care enough to fix it.
      - twisteriffic 3y ago
        I do use a few SmartThings branded zigbee sensors but not the hub. I'm using homeassistant with the sonoff efr32mg21 dongle. I'm well aware of how terrible SmartThings the company is. I'd suffered through their inadequacies until April 2023 when they deleted my account during a failed backup purge. After 3 months of waiting on their support to unlock my hub I gave up and went to homeassistant.
- thesh4d0w 3y ago
  You need to upgrade the firmware on both your devices + controllers, this is a known problem that I think is mostly resolved now.
  - twisteriffic 3y ago
    I'm up to date on both the coordinator firmware and device firmware. Updating the coordinator firmware was necessary to get device updates working on the newer Ikea devices, but I haven't noticed a difference in power consumption. Adding repeaters and reconverging didn't seem to make a difference either.
- Toutouxc 3y ago
  My STYRBAR dimmers last for more than a year, definitely. But they’re only used like < 10 times a day.
  - twisteriffic 3y ago
    I'm seeing poor life regardless of usage. I'm guessing that either something is chatty in that part of the network, or some config is set incorrectly and causing them to wake more often or more fully than they should. No idea how to troubleshoot either case, just hoping the newer aaa-powered buttons might be better.
- jq-r 3y ago
  I got at least a dozen on/off/dimmer switches and couple of sensors. They last months, and I would maybe say even a year. I do use those coin Duracell batteries most of the time, makes quite a difference.
moogly 3y ago
All the new contact sensors seem to be that large now, including Philips' and Aqara's new ones. They do indeed use larger batteries and they claim several years of use. But man they are so bulky I don't see myself using them. Total eyesores.
- andylynch 3y ago
  I really like this change and suspect the reason why is part of their motivation; they button cells used in the common smaller ones are non-rechargeable and this is really quite wasteful given how popular and good AA/AAA Rechargeables are
  - moogly 3y ago
    Are they good really? Like half of my AAA devices don't even work on 1.2V. I've dabbled in USB-C rechargeable Li- Ion AA/AAA, but they're quite expensive and the charge lasts a short time. They're mostly useful in remotes and things like that, kind of like NiMH rechargeables. Meanwhile nonrechargeable batteries get cheaper and cheaper so I just buy them in bulk now. Call me selfish, I guess.
    - andylynch 3y ago
      The USB-C ones trade on capacity and different ones have different self-discharge rates. Some manufacturers specify Panasonic Eneloop batteries. Some other brands’ are made by the same company and are very similar (including IKEA)
  - sangnoir 3y ago
    You can purchase rechargeable coin-cell batteries. Device manufactures tend not to care about batteries except for the crappy one they ship in the box - if they bother to do so.
UberFly 3y ago
I would be worried about putting anything Xiaomi into my home. They have repeatedly proven to be a major privacy concern. Maybe security concern as well.
- andylynch 3y ago
  That is a valid concern, but not such an issue with Zigbee stuff since you can run it with your own hub giving the sensors 0 external connectivity.
- orphea 3y ago
  Their sensors are fine, just use a non-Xiaomi hub like SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle.
  - NicoJuicy 3y ago
    Sonoff is chinese, doesn't fix the security issue
    - blacksmith_tb 3y ago
      What's the threat model for a usb dongle? It won't have network access... I suppose it could spontaneously become an HID device and try typing its way to trouble, but that'd be very OS-specific...
      - nickthegreek 3y ago
        USB is like the most well known physical threat. Look up OMG Cables.
        blacksmith_tb 3y ago
        Right, but that's intended for the attacker to connect to from nearby? Also of course presumably if it's got enough hardware crammed in there to cost $170 random Chinese tech companies are not going to include all of that in their $25 dongle "just in case" you turn out to be worth compromising?
dheera 3y ago
I have a handful of Aqara motion sensors because some idiots on Youtube recommended them. They're shit compared to the Hue motion sensors though, and take 3+ seconds to respond while I look like an idiot waving my hands around and sometimes even need to take off my shirt and wave it like a flag to get the lights to turn on. The Hue motion sensors respond almost instantly in comparison. All this low power electronics designed to run 3 years on a coin battery bothers me. If it's that low power why not get rid of the battery, slap a tiny solar panel (the kind they used on calculators in the 90s) and a supercapacitor, it should be able to power itself indefinitely on normal levels of room light, never go into deep sleep states, and can even turn the room lights on automatically if it needs more power.
- Mister_Snuggles 3y ago
  I don't have any Aqara motion sensors. I do have two Ikea ones though and they work fine. One is in my home office to turn the lights on and off, it works fine and I've never had problems with it not detecting me. It's not instant, but always responds within a second or two. The other one is sitting by the cat litter boxes and is used to trigger an automation involving an air cleaner. It senses the cats at a range of about 1.5m just fine. The next thing I'm interested in is the crop of mmWave presence sensors. There are a lot out there and I'm not sure if there's a clear winner in this space yet.
  - dheera 3y ago
    Ironically, I do I have the Aqara mmWave presence sensor and my experience with it has been pretty good. It is powered on 5V from the wall though, which makes aesthetics a little harder to manage.
Modified3019 3y ago
Do you put water sensors anywhere besides the obvious places, like under the sink and water heater?
- fostware 3y ago
  Back of the toilets. Quite a number of leaks come from the braided pipe feeding water to your cistern, as they often only have a five-year lifetime
- 0cVlTeIATBs 3y ago
  Next to any condensate pumps, like you'd have for air conditioning, maybe for a dehumidifier.
- Mister_Snuggles 3y ago
  Mine are basically under every water-using appliance, plus some extra ones in the basement in places where there is a risk of water ingress. I've also built a sensor (HC-SR04, ESP32, ESPHome, Home Assistant) to monitor the water level in my sump pit so that I can make sure the pumps are working.
jackvalentine 3y ago
> Maybe it uses AAA batteries instead of coin cells or something. It does, which is a big selling point for me. I’m trying to standardise on rechargable AA/AAA batteries wherever possible. A lot of devices recommend you only use alkaline batteries because of the extra voltage but I haven’t actually found one that doesn’t function on 1.2v eneloops yet.

twisteriffic 3y ago

How have you found the battery life to be on your Ikea zigbee devices? Mine have been generally disappointing. In the range of 3 months on the dimmers that are maybe 10 feet from the hub. Just got a couple of their newer dimmers, hoping those will be better. The pairing experience was certainly less painful. Zigbee2mqtt is the bomb. ZHA can't hold a candle to it in terms of reliability, features and device support. The tiny increase in complexity is so worth it.

Mister_Snuggles 3y ago
I find that the battery life seems fine, but I haven't tracked it closely. I have noticed a difference between Duracell coin cells purchased at Costco and Amazon Basics coin cells. The Amazon Basics ones didn't last long at all, the Duracells seem much better. The newer dimmers (STYRBAR) use AAA cells instead of coin cells, so I'd expect them to last a lot longer.
- twisteriffic 3y ago
  I'll try switching up battery brands. The out of the box cells from Ikea were dead in weeks, the store brand ones at least gave me a few months.
  - filterfiber 3y ago
    Battery brands (or even skus in the brands) can matter a _lot_. Related, Panasonic's rechargable eneloop have worked very well for me, I'm kind of excited to see AAA be used in the IOT devices where it can fit. I have a lot less of a problem swapping batteries if I just have a few charged ones on hand and get at least many months in-between replacements.
    - joecool1029 3y ago
      >Related, Panasonic's rechargable eneloop have worked very well for me Just a heads up: IKEA's brand of rechargables are likely rebadged eneloops at about half the price, also made in japan. Though for the AAA's they only have eneloop regular equivalents not eneloop pros.
    - ssl232 3y ago
      Top tip: IKEA rechargeable batteries are probably rebadged Eneloop Pros.
sowbug 3y ago
What exactly do you mean by a "dimmer"? Everything I have in my home that dims lights is mains-powered, so battery isn't a concern. I have 45 Zigbee devices in my home, 33 of which are battery-powered. Those are door contact sensors, PIR motion sensors, climate sensors, and a few button remotes to control lighting. They're mostly from Sonoff and Aqara, with a few unbranded Aliexpress devices that identify themselves as TUYATEC, and a couple from Third Reality. In almost every case, the battery life has been extraordinarily good -- well over a year. The only exception is the Sonoff SNZB-04 contact sensor, which seems to need battery changes about every six months. Probably not coincidentally, it's the only sensor that uses CR2032 batteries, rather than AA or AAA. I would happily replace with a slightly larger sensor to get both longer battery life and less e-waste through the ability to use a standard rechargeable AA/AAA battery.
- twisteriffic 3y ago
  Ikea refers to several of their zigbee remotes as dimmers. This is the older one that I've had issues with: https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/tradfri-wireless-dimmer-smart-white-10408598/ https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/tradfri-wireless-dimmer-smart-w... This is the newer one: https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/rodret-wireless-dimmer-power-switch-smart-white-80559800/ https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/rodret-wireless-dimmer-power-sw... I have a few SmartThings motion sensors that are at 2-3 years battery life, though they use big lithium cells so that isn't surprising. A few sonoff temp/humidity sensors on coin cells seem to be heading for at least a year battery life as well. So far it's only the Ikea buttons that have issues.
  - avel 3y ago
    You probably have battery issues because you are using SmartThings as the zigbee hub and it's polling the remote way too much. I have switched to HomeAssistant with a Zigbee USB adaptor and there are no more battery issues. SmartThings are aware of the issue but do not care enough to fix it.
    - twisteriffic 3y ago
      I do use a few SmartThings branded zigbee sensors but not the hub. I'm using homeassistant with the sonoff efr32mg21 dongle. I'm well aware of how terrible SmartThings the company is. I'd suffered through their inadequacies until April 2023 when they deleted my account during a failed backup purge. After 3 months of waiting on their support to unlock my hub I gave up and went to homeassistant.
thesh4d0w 3y ago
You need to upgrade the firmware on both your devices + controllers, this is a known problem that I think is mostly resolved now.
- twisteriffic 3y ago
  I'm up to date on both the coordinator firmware and device firmware. Updating the coordinator firmware was necessary to get device updates working on the newer Ikea devices, but I haven't noticed a difference in power consumption. Adding repeaters and reconverging didn't seem to make a difference either.
Toutouxc 3y ago
My STYRBAR dimmers last for more than a year, definitely. But they’re only used like < 10 times a day.
- twisteriffic 3y ago
  I'm seeing poor life regardless of usage. I'm guessing that either something is chatty in that part of the network, or some config is set incorrectly and causing them to wake more often or more fully than they should. No idea how to troubleshoot either case, just hoping the newer aaa-powered buttons might be better.
jq-r 3y ago
I got at least a dozen on/off/dimmer switches and couple of sensors. They last months, and I would maybe say even a year. I do use those coin Duracell batteries most of the time, makes quite a difference.

moogly 3y ago

All the new contact sensors seem to be that large now, including Philips' and Aqara's new ones. They do indeed use larger batteries and they claim several years of use. But man they are so bulky I don't see myself using them. Total eyesores.

andylynch 3y ago
I really like this change and suspect the reason why is part of their motivation; they button cells used in the common smaller ones are non-rechargeable and this is really quite wasteful given how popular and good AA/AAA Rechargeables are
- moogly 3y ago
  Are they good really? Like half of my AAA devices don't even work on 1.2V. I've dabbled in USB-C rechargeable Li- Ion AA/AAA, but they're quite expensive and the charge lasts a short time. They're mostly useful in remotes and things like that, kind of like NiMH rechargeables. Meanwhile nonrechargeable batteries get cheaper and cheaper so I just buy them in bulk now. Call me selfish, I guess.
  - andylynch 3y ago
    The USB-C ones trade on capacity and different ones have different self-discharge rates. Some manufacturers specify Panasonic Eneloop batteries. Some other brands’ are made by the same company and are very similar (including IKEA)
- sangnoir 3y ago
  You can purchase rechargeable coin-cell batteries. Device manufactures tend not to care about batteries except for the crappy one they ship in the box - if they bother to do so.

UberFly 3y ago

I would be worried about putting anything Xiaomi into my home. They have repeatedly proven to be a major privacy concern. Maybe security concern as well.

andylynch 3y ago
That is a valid concern, but not such an issue with Zigbee stuff since you can run it with your own hub giving the sensors 0 external connectivity.
orphea 3y ago
Their sensors are fine, just use a non-Xiaomi hub like SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle.
- NicoJuicy 3y ago
  Sonoff is chinese, doesn't fix the security issue
  - blacksmith_tb 3y ago
    What's the threat model for a usb dongle? It won't have network access... I suppose it could spontaneously become an HID device and try typing its way to trouble, but that'd be very OS-specific...
    - nickthegreek 3y ago
      USB is like the most well known physical threat. Look up OMG Cables.
      - blacksmith_tb 3y ago
        Right, but that's intended for the attacker to connect to from nearby? Also of course presumably if it's got enough hardware crammed in there to cost $170 random Chinese tech companies are not going to include all of that in their $25 dongle "just in case" you turn out to be worth compromising?

dheera 3y ago

I have a handful of Aqara motion sensors because some idiots on Youtube recommended them. They're shit compared to the Hue motion sensors though, and take 3+ seconds to respond while I look like an idiot waving my hands around and sometimes even need to take off my shirt and wave it like a flag to get the lights to turn on. The Hue motion sensors respond almost instantly in comparison. All this low power electronics designed to run 3 years on a coin battery bothers me. If it's that low power why not get rid of the battery, slap a tiny solar panel (the kind they used on calculators in the 90s) and a supercapacitor, it should be able to power itself indefinitely on normal levels of room light, never go into deep sleep states, and can even turn the room lights on automatically if it needs more power.

Mister_Snuggles 3y ago
I don't have any Aqara motion sensors. I do have two Ikea ones though and they work fine. One is in my home office to turn the lights on and off, it works fine and I've never had problems with it not detecting me. It's not instant, but always responds within a second or two. The other one is sitting by the cat litter boxes and is used to trigger an automation involving an air cleaner. It senses the cats at a range of about 1.5m just fine. The next thing I'm interested in is the crop of mmWave presence sensors. There are a lot out there and I'm not sure if there's a clear winner in this space yet.
- dheera 3y ago
  Ironically, I do I have the Aqara mmWave presence sensor and my experience with it has been pretty good. It is powered on 5V from the wall though, which makes aesthetics a little harder to manage.

Modified3019 3y ago

Do you put water sensors anywhere besides the obvious places, like under the sink and water heater?

fostware 3y ago
Back of the toilets. Quite a number of leaks come from the braided pipe feeding water to your cistern, as they often only have a five-year lifetime
0cVlTeIATBs 3y ago
Next to any condensate pumps, like you'd have for air conditioning, maybe for a dehumidifier.
Mister_Snuggles 3y ago
Mine are basically under every water-using appliance, plus some extra ones in the basement in places where there is a risk of water ingress. I've also built a sensor (HC-SR04, ESP32, ESPHome, Home Assistant) to monitor the water level in my sump pit so that I can make sure the pumps are working.

jackvalentine 3y ago

> Maybe it uses AAA batteries instead of coin cells or something. It does, which is a big selling point for me. I’m trying to standardise on rechargable AA/AAA batteries wherever possible. A lot of devices recommend you only use alkaline batteries because of the extra voltage but I haven’t actually found one that doesn’t function on 1.2v eneloops yet.