Has anyone come up with an elegant/discreet way of providing constant power to these sensors?
I use spare cellphone charger power supplies for all of mine ā the 1" Apple iPhone cube charger works very well for thisā¦
I appreciate the suggestion, thatās actually the thing Iām trying to avoid. Tiny little sensor on the wall/ceiling right next to a outlet tethered to a cable and a wall wart.
You can install an A/C receptacle by it and run a very short USB cable. Snappower sells a outlet plate that has the USB charger built in. There are also receptacles you can buy with USB charges built in.
How many volts and Amps would it need to operate safely and show 100% battery?
If the USB cable from the sensor went through the wall or ceiling, it could connect to anything: a wall wart in the attic or basement, for example. Yeah, you might need to pull some wire through walls!
Mine are all located near outlets: perched on top of a TV, in a bookcase, on top of a curio cabinet, etc.
Thatās what Iām going to end up doing, I was just hoping someone had found a very clean way of doing it.
Aeon makes an in wall ārecessorā. I just installed one in my bathroom ceiling:
Did you use USB or battery power? Iāve seen that accessory and it looks pretty cool!
It seems like it would be fine for motion or luminance, but does it affect the temperature & humidity readings, being in the wall or ceiling? Running on external USB power requires temperature calibration, as the device runs hotterā¦
I am running it on USB as I have an outlet in the attic just above it.
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Yup, Iāve got the recessor as well.
Looks like outlet in the attic will be the route I take too.
What room are you using the sensor in? Wall mounted, or ceiling?
We are adding on to our house with a downstairs master. I put this in the ceiling so I could automate shower fan and bathroom lights. My wife doesnāt seen to know how to turn off a light switch so I have to automate these things.
I wonder if yours is related to mine?
Master bathroom for me as well, or rather, to automate the fan as she-who-shall-not-be-named refuses to turn on the exhaust fan.
Iām curious to see if I can get a placement that will catch motion in the shower and movement elsewhere in the room.
Mine just happens to be within reach of the hub. I use the USB on the hub since you canāt use it for nothing else! Would be nice to be able to use it for 4g back up like IRIS can now.
At least its just your wife. My case it is both the wife and kids! 
My kids are better at turning off switches than my wife. If I could install a permanent proximity sensor in her I would. 
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So I had this same conundrum with mine. At least Aeon gives us external power, not everyone does. What I find annoying is the USB partā¦ Ok great, USB is wonderful for hooking up to a computer or āwall wartā BUT, and yeah I get it is 5v, what about the real world? What is 5 volts in a house? NOTHING!
how about thisā¦ a 12/24v AC to 5v DC converter? Every wired alarm system uses these so the wiring is oftentimes thereā¦ Imagine you replace a door and window switch thatās powered by your panel with a super low power door and window switch that ALSO does Z-Wave? I mentioned this to the folks at zooZ @TheSmartestHouse as a future product ideaā¦ A kind of retrofit sensor line. Iād buy the crap out of those. Instead I have all this redundant hardware that doesnāt talk to each other. And for me, honestly, I think battery powered door / window is a stop-gapā¦ I donāt relish the idea of changing / charging tons of little batteries on a periodic basisā¦ Plug it in and be done with itā¦
Also ONE of these days Iām going to write a device handler for the Envisalink 3 - EVL-3ā¦ to patch into my panel status and zone informationā¦ one dayā¦
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Hi Robert,
To our best knowledge, thereās no voltage coming to the traditional alarm door/window sensors - theyāre purely mechanical and work on the basis of circuit breaks. Unless we misunderstood your idea?
Itās possible though that wired motion sensors get some power and these wires could be used to power up Z-Wave devices - we will definitely look into it!
Also, the Sensative Strips with 10-year battery life is a good alternative for maintenance-free door window sensor:
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10 years? Thatās pretty hardcore. Iām not THAT lazy but heh good to know. So technically to monitor a switch you have to pass current into the loop. I honestly donāt know how much and what voltage. But the thing is, alarm panels have this big wad of wires going to motions and glass breaks which provide 24 volts or 12 volts. Either are easy to step down to whatever level the Zwave devices are happy with. I think 3.3 is happy land for the Z-wave chips but the regulators in front of them may like more. Regardless, youāve got this was of wires going all over your house. Why not ditch the crappy old panel and use the lines for powering Z-wave devices. Then you can use device association groups and lifeline to communicate with the SmartThings hub and to a Z-wave alarm panel. This in theory ought to work fine.
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So does this work with ST?