Best z-wave contact sensor?

Devices & Integrations
1

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.

2

I have a few ecolink sensors purchased and installed in October 2015. No issues, run local, cheap.

3

There are lots of popular ones, but the way the SmartThings architecture works, the fact that a sensor is zwave rather than Zigbee wonā€™t 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 wonā€™t get status updates on the switches right away.

4

Perhaps it isnā€™t the device thatā€™s bad, but where itā€™s located in your home compared to where the hub is and other interference?

As @JDRoberts said, you could use direct association but I donā€™t think thatā€™s 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.

5

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.

6

What zigbee repeaters do you recommend?

7

Hi @dseg,

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 TVā€™s, a projector, and audio equipment.

They can act as both zigbee and zwave (which Iā€™ve seen posts on having some zwave issues), but out of the box zigbee is the default and thatā€™s all I set them up for. These little guys are awesome. SmartThings also has their version of it that works just as well and theyā€™re only zigbee.

8

There is a new discussion on these

9

Doesnā€™t look like the Iris are easily recognized by SmartThings?
Was look at these:
http://www.lowes.com/pd/Iris-120-Volt-White-Smart-Plug/999925330

10

I donā€™t have any Iris plugs but I do have a few contact and motions sensors. All paired on the first try and havenā€™t had any issues with functionality

11

Yup, thatā€™s what I have. The inclusion process requires it to be done twice for some reason if you use STā€™s default DH (SmartPower Outlet). Thereā€™s also a Community developed DH, but I use STā€™s.

The first inclusion works, but watts wonā€™t auto update unless you tap on Refresh. Starting up ā€œConnect New Deviceā€ again and then following the reset process gets it included again and then watts reporting functions as expected.

12

I have one. Works fine.

I use the following DH

There is another DH that will work and runs local but I like this one better.

Here is the link to the DH authors thread. He also discusses the other version which runs locally.