Hey folks! Has anyone found a cheap temperature sensor that works with SmartThings? I would love to pepper my house with temperature sensors (basement, attic, furnace closet, garage, kids’ rooms, etc), but this just isn’t practical for me if I have to get a SmartSense Multi or a motion detector or something for each location, at $35-$50 each. In other threads, I’ve seen that people like the Everspring ST814, but this device is also not particularly cheap.
Basically, I’m looking for a device that has a battery, a temp sensor, and a zigbee radio, and they should come in a 5-pack for $50. Am I dreaming?
Pretty much dreaming. Even if you made your own with like a Particle (Spark) and a temperature sensor you’re looking at $25+ complete with troubleshooting and other headaches.
This is one area i’d shy you away from going cheap on. There are a lot of wildly inaccurate zwave/zigbee temp sensors on the market. Some are off by as much as 10deg. From the posts I’ve read the Smartthings multi is actually one of the better temp sensors on the market in general, personally i find them very reliable and accurate enough… with in 2deg. Buying a bunch of cheap inaccurate temp sensors just means you are getting a bunch of inaccurate data and you can get plenty of that with out spending a dime
When the PEQ sensors are on sale you can get water sensor @ temp, or motion and temp or open/close and temp for $20 each. I haven’t seen them at Bestbuy for that price recently, but Walmart has them for $25 right now.
These look just like the Smartthings sensors, particularly the motion sensor and lamp module. Are these the same hardware under a different brand? I assume they light right up in ST when it’s time to connect them?
As long as a device uses the zigbee HA 1.2 protocol it will probably work with SmartThings.
Just be careful because centralite also sells to some of the companies that use a proprietary zigbee. So don’t just go by looks, look for the HA 1.2 protocol.
They’re rebranded and sold by others. SmartThings sells them under the SmartThings brand. Best Buy sells them as Peq, as does Walmart. Xfinity Home sells them under their brand, but with an added layer of encryption.
Best Buy on sale is usually the cheapest price, Walmart the cheapest every day price.
It is a ZigBee wireless battery powered temp sensor for $9 (current promotion) Since ZigBee is a mesh network it seems you could put these in every room in the house and then read them from some ZigBee hub.
My main problem at the moment is that all the information about this thing is in Chinese.
