What z-wave contact sensor is the most popular and/or best?
I currently have the SmartThings Multipurpose Sensors and they suck. The constantly need to be reset or batteries replaced. I have mostly z-wave switches in my house so I am hoping they reach the sensors better than the ST zigbees.
There are lots of popular ones, but the way the SmartThings architecture works, the fact that a sensor is zwave rather than Zigbee wonât help you as far as triggering the Z wave switches.
You could use Z wave direct association between them, and that should be faster, but then you wonât get status updates on the switches right away.
Perhaps it isnât the device thatâs bad, but where itâs located in your home compared to where the hub is and other interference?
As @JDRoberts said, you could use direct association but I donât think thatâs what you meant. A zigbee device that acts as a repeater, like a wall plug, may be the only thing you need to see improvement. I have a ton of both zigbee and zwave sensors like the ones mentioned in this discussion, and they all work great - especially - especially - after I added a few zigbee repeaters for my ST and Iris devices.
Aeon Labs also has several different door and windows sensors that use Z-Wave Plus, which is suppose to have better range and security than the older Z-Wave standard. More Z-Wave plus devices seem to be in the pipeline, and they are backward compatible with standard Z-Wave.
I have 9 of the Lowes Iris plugs, one in each room. In some case they just sit there plugged in being a repeater, but many cases I have stuff plugged in like TVâs, a projector, and audio equipment.
They can act as both zigbee and zwave (which Iâve seen posts on having some zwave issues), but out of the box zigbee is the default and thatâs all I set them up for. These little guys are awesome. SmartThings also has their version of it that works just as well and theyâre only zigbee.
I donât have any Iris plugs but I do have a few contact and motions sensors. All paired on the first try and havenât had any issues with functionality
Yup, thatâs what I have. The inclusion process requires it to be done twice for some reason if you use STâs default DH (SmartPower Outlet). Thereâs also a Community developed DH, but I use STâs.
The first inclusion works, but watts wonât auto update unless you tap on Refresh. Starting up âConnect New Deviceâ again and then following the reset process gets it included again and then watts reporting functions as expected.