Hi all,

I’m looking for zigbee temp and humidity sensors that work with HA, are pretty accurate and either are mains powered or have use a battery that can be recharged e.g. AA or AAA.

I like the Sonoff SNZB-02D, but they use disposable coin cell batteries.

One I found that looks like it might fulfill these criteria is

https://3reality.com/product/temperature-and-humidity-sensor-with-digital-lcd-display/

But they’re kinda spendy. Anyone have any recommendations?

  • RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    11 days ago

    If the screen isn’t important, Third Reality makes a slightly cheaper version with no screen that also takes AAA - conveniently on sale now

    https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B0D2NVJTS3

    I have a mix of those and an old version of these Govee Bluetooth sensors that are also fully offline, take AA batteries, and pair well with HA

    https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B07Y36FWTT

    Not strictly ZigBee, but cheaper, just as accurate as the 3R, and fully offline

      • RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        11 days ago

        Of course! From an end-user the experience between Bluetooth and ZigBee sensors is basically indistinguishable, except for range.

        I have a detached garage, on the opposite end of my property from my HA controller, so the Bluetooth sensor out there specifically was a little flaky. The BT sensor is rated for ~160 ft but realistically it’s 50-100 ft if your home has walls.

        Swapping that one sensor to ZigBee so it could tie into my mesh network solved the problem. All other BT sensors have had zero issues, and their AA batteries unsurprisingly last longer than the 3R ZigBee AAAs, but both last at least 6mo.

        Some Shelly devices can be used as “Bluetooth repeaters” but I’m unsure of the specifics of how that works.

        • ueiqkkwhuwjw@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          1·
          10 days ago

          Good to know, thank you. I think the only thing I worry about with BT is vulnerabilities. Not sure if ZigBee is any more secure but I’ve heard of a lot of BT vulns in the past. Probably doesn’t matter for a temp sensor, so probably just important for the dongle/driver being used with HA.

          • RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            1·
            10 days ago

            Fair point! As far as I can tell, the temp sensors are just beacons - anyone can connect and see that somewhere in your house it’s 72 °F, but who cares ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

            If you’re running on a Raspberry Pi, you can just use the onboard BT, whose drivers are updated regularly.

            ZigBee ones get occasional updates automatically detected through HA, and have to be moved to somewhere near the controller to update. I assume, as temperature and humidity sensing hasn’t changed, that these are security patches.

            BT ones get no updates, which either means their security goes unpatched, or it really doesn’t matter when all they do is shout out measurements into the void.

  • blargbluuk@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2·
    11 days ago

    I have one of the 3rd reality ones and it’s been good, only had it get stuck one time in a year and I think it was just a low battery thing. It indeed does use a AAA battery, but the sensor is expensive for what it is unfortunately.

  • thehatfox@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    11 days ago

    I think the options either that combination are limited. IKEA Zigbee devices use removable batteries, but they don’t have a temperature sensor. They do have a USB air quality sensor but it’s a bit more complex/expensive.

    There are some good WiFi, Bluetooth or RF options with removable batteries but they won’t be Zigbee.

    I’ve heard of some people modifying the coin cell devices to used a wired power supply, maybe that would be an option.