AC Powered Door Sensor for Cold Weather

What exactly are you looking for in a door sensor. Is it a contact sensor that will just tell you if the door is open or closed? Or is it a tilt sensor that will tell you when a door is moving?

The reason I ask is that there are a couple of different options, but it depends on the specific use case.

Quite a few people in Canada or Minnesota have used a nonnetworked gate sensor for open/close and then run its contacts to a smart things – compatible sensor inside the house. It’s similar to what people do with doorbells. That can work quite well and we’ve discussed some of the options previously.

Here’s a typical gate sensor:

http://www.smarthome.com/seco-larm-sm-226l-3-magnetic-garage-door-contact-switch.html

And then you would connect it to a networked sensor in the same way that people do for a pressure Mat:

If you’re looking for a tilt sensor, the Kumo wireless tags are an option. They can be used even inside the freezer and have an operating range going down to -40 Fahrenheit. There’s a community – created device type handler for them. Each tag cost about $40 and you also have to buy their ethernet bridge for $60 (one Bridge for up to 40 tags).