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Sonoff Motion Sensors - These are Really Bad
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2023
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good reliable motion sensing is hard, anything solely PIR based is going to be unreliable and give false positives when sensitive enough to "work" but if the sensitivity is turned down to avoid false positives they barely detect anything reliably, the middle ground is pointless to try to tune as it varies so much all the time. there are better ones out there that are a bit smarter or use multiple sensor types combined, but they usually cost 3-5x as much as the Sonoffs.
Look for microwave presence sensors for something actually useable. its a newer tech that has started to drop in price dramatically and works so much better as it doesnt rely on IR or temperature in any way.
I have two Tuya mmWave sensors in my workshop; I've only had them going for a few days, but they seem to be working flawlessly; I had to use two to get full coverage, but I expected as much.
I hadn't considered these for motion sensor replacements, though. With the exception of one of my motion sensors, none are near power, and I haven't seen any microwave sensors that operate on battery power. I'm not sure how well these would work outdoors, either, but I haven't tried.
Unfortunately the PIR sensors you're using only detect active motion not presence so apart from setting a long "off" delay or a lot of movement while sitting, they won't be very useful for things like lighting. I think Innovelli and a few other companies make wall switches with mmWave so those might be an option if you don't have electrical outlets where you need them for standalone sensors.