SmartThings Multipurpose Sensor

THE BEST! I am not a person who likes technology. I'm 50, I still can't use my tv remote- yes, I'm that person.Thanks to ST I installed a whole home surveillance and automation system in minutes! I connected ST multi-purpose sensors, 5 Wyze cameras, a Eufy outdoor cam, motion sensors, smart lights, multiple echo dots, smart locks, a smart thermostat and other google home tech.ST makes it so EASY to integrate EVERYTHING! It's impossible to fail. I was worried all the smart tech would weaken my Wifi but it's been over a month and everything is perfect. I control my whole home from my phone (I also rigged a couple of Kindle Fire pads framed on the wall as smart pad controls on both levels ). There are no monthly fees and I spent 1/10th of what it would have cost to hire someone.I can't tell you the peace of mind I have. When I'm at work and amazon leaves a package, I know immediately and can talk to the delivery person through the camera speakers. I heard a weird noise the other night and I could immediately check my night vision cameras. If someone opens a door I know immediately. The multi purpose sensors monitor noise, fire, water and vibration if someone breaks a window. I even talk to my dog through the speakers when I'm at work.EASY to use, GREAT features, GREAT integration, VERY EASY to add new components.

I purchased this device to sense when my garage door is open or closed. On several occasions we discovered that our garage door was open all night. It is rare but just once puts us at risk for someone to enter the house or garage at their leisure. A very scary proposition. I thought I closed the door but I did not wait to see it come to a halt and the interference sensor reopened the door when it closed on a towel I was using to dry my car.I purchased the multipurpose sensor that day. Installation is quite simple; the sensor sticks to the door with double sided tape. Within the SmartThings app you use setup to set the device as a garage door sensor and then create an automation to turn on a specific light (a LifX bulb in my case) when the door has just opened or closed. I can also ask Alexa if the door is closed and it will respond with, "The Garage Door is open", or "The Garage Door is closed" based on the doors current state.Using IFTTT I added a feature to flash the LifX bulb at 9:00 PM to show us if the door is open or closed. Red for open, green for closed in my case.A wonderful sensor that is easy to integrate and does exactly what it is supposed to do. Buy several! It has additional functionality, but this is how I used mine.

This is normally described as a door / window sensor. The way it works is that there's two parts to it, the sensor and the body. If the magnet is not close to the sensor, it detects that something has opened.Since this is a "multipurpose sensor", it also has other sensors in it. One is a temperature sensor, and it would report changes in temperature (in 1 degree resolution).What's more useful to me is that it has a tilt sensor. If you attach this to the top panel of a garage door, it can sense if it is horizontal (when garage door is open) or if it is vertical (when garage door is closed). This gives me much more freedom to place the sensor, since it can be anywhere along the top panel.There also appears to be an accelerometer, as I'm seeing reports of "acceleration is active" and "acceleration is inactive" before and after the "open" and "close" messages. This could be useful for detecting if it's being removed.While in actual use, it has been performing very well (sensor is about 65 ft from the hub, and there are a few walls in between), a few things does concern me.First, adding it to the hub is more difficult than it should have been. The new SmartThings app just wouldn't do it. It would start to do it, then abort. I finally had to use the classic app to add it.Next, documentation on this does not appear to exist. There's only a very brief quick start guide included with the sensor, and nothing online. I can't even find out what battery it uses or how to change it. Which brings me to the next point.In 5 days of use, with the garage door only moving a couple of times a day, I see battery drop from 100% to 89%. I'm not sure how accurate the battery reading is, as people have reported that sometimes it goes from 66% to dead. But I'm not reassured.The battery used is CR2450, which seems to go for about $3 each in single quantities. I guess I should stock up on a few. This looks like it could get expensive, and I may mod it to use an external battery in the near future.I'll update this review in the future when I have additional battery usage data.

I bought one of these and paired it up with a GoSund smart switch for our pantry. My wife thought it would be nice to have the pantry light turn on when the door was opened and off when it closed. Set up was pretty easy. I was relieved that I didn't have to place them in the typical position when closed. I wanted to put the sensor inside the pantry so you could only see it when the door was opened. To do this I put the thin portion on the frame horizontal to the floor and the large portion on the door perpendicular to the floor. The thin part actually connects with the front of the large piece when the door is shut and works. I'll try to add a picture later so you can see what I mean.Once I got it added I just went into the Alexa app and created a routine to turn the light on when the door was opened and off when it was closed. It works great. There is a slight delay from when the door opens/closes till the light turns off/on, maybe 5 seconds at most. The sensor also can tell you the temp which you can use to trigger routines. I don't really have a need for that right now, but it is a pretty cool option.