I am looking for a temp/humidity sensor that is small and unobtrusive to use in some reptile enclosures. I am currently automating the lighting using routines, but I am looking to also automate the humidity (misting) and temps (ceramic heat emitters and under tank heaters) for my reptiles. I am looking for durable sensors that can take the heat of a heat lamp on the hot side, but also the humidity of the environments that need it. They can be separate sensors, but they need to work with SmartThings either natively or through a community handler. Any suggestions?
Netatmo… small form, metal enclosure, long lasting battery integrates well with SmartThings as well as a gazillion other services…
Very nice. Do i need the base Netatmo station to use the modules, or can the modules be added to smartthings independently?
You need the base… and then you can add up to 3 additional indoor modules. The base is taller and requires power supply (no battery). I have 1 station + 3 modules. The base station also measures noise level so it could be a nice security feature, or you can use it to adjust speaker volumes (based on room noise)
Hmm, Do you know of any accurate ones that can just be synced to the hub? Preferably ZWave?
I wouldn’t trust the health of my animals to SmartThings. It’s just not reliable enough. In Fact, the official product usage guidelines say the same thing:
https://www.smartthings.com/guidelines
That said, you can see what some other people have done by using the quick browse lists in the community – created wiki and looking under pets or animals:
And while it doesn’t solve the problem of SmartThings reliability, you could consider The $34 Kumo wireless tags, which have a high degree of accuracy, a wide range of environmental tolerance, and you could set up a dual reporting system through both IFTTT ( they have their own IFTTT channel) and SmartThings. You have to buy their $39 Ethernet bridge as well (one Bridge supports about three dozen tags) so the whole thing may end up being too expensive for your needs, but it’s worth knowing about. And I think it would be a little more practical solution for your particular use case then the netatmo, if only because of the size. 
There are a number of community members using them for use cases where a high degree of precision is required.
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Hey @JDRoberts I agree, I dont trust my reptile’s lives to smartthings. Currently I have a Zilla thermostat plug for each enclosure, and it works fairly well, but I have no way of monitoring what the temps actually are while I am away from home, and I can only set a min and max temp. I would like to have a kind of hybrid setup where I can fine tune the temps during the day and night, but if we lose internet or whatnot, the manual zilla plug will at least keep the enclosure in a ‘livable’ temp range. Currently I have the misting system on a timer, which isnt ideal for me. I would to be able to trigger it when its needed, not every hour on the hour whether or not it needs it…if that makes sense.
I would like Z-wave based sensors so I can eventually roll them in to my OpenHAB setup once i have it completed and dont need the internet to make it work like SmartThings requires. I am basically looking to have the automations optimize the conditions in the enclosure while Smartthings/OpenHAB is working properly, and the times its not the old analog plug keeps my reptiles from dying of heat or cold.
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Understood.
I don’t know of any zwave sensors that operate with the precision you would require. The Truth is that mesh just isn’t a good topology for humidity monitoring. The Z wave ones that exist are intended for HVAC applications where sampling once every 15 minutes and a fairly high degree of imprecision is still OK.
I think the most popular zwave one that people use is the everspring ST814, so you can take a look and see if it meets your requirements. I’m not sure if it can take the environmental range or not, you would just need to check the specs.
You can get it a bit cheaper by buying direct from the retailer rather than going through their Amazon store:
All the multisensor ones are pretty famously imprecise. 
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Depends upon how hot the heat lamp gets. I’ve using the ZooZ ZSE-40 in up to 120F temperatures and so far so good. See the first post in the thread below for some details and link to the website. The added advantage is that it also has a lux sensor. It’s made of plastic so I don’t think excessive humidity should be a problem for it, however the temperature is what may be of concern.
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