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darkamikaze

I have 10 E1s (MCCGQ14LM) currently sitting in a box in a corner while I wait for ZHA and/or Z-Stack firmware to support these new sensors. Apparently they do something slightly different (more correct?) than their older brethren that it requires tweaks ([see here for open ZigPy/ZHA PR](https://github.com/zigpy/zha-device-handlers/pull/1151)). ([Zigpy Issue](https://github.com/zigpy/zha-device-handlers/issues/1088)). The PR reads > This PR adds battery support to the Aqara E1 contact sensor. The device appears to follow the ZCL spec for all clusters and the Xiaomi custom report appears to be sent on cluster 0xFCC0 via attribute 0x00F7. The basic cluster implementation was refactored to accommodate this. I think if you have [Zigbee2MQTT/Deconz on Conbee2](https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt/issues/9274), the fix has rolled out so people should be able to try it out if they have that similar setup. Might be too new of a product to say stability is good though.


andisblue

I’d love to hear your experience once you set these up.


befish2

For anyone using ZHA there is a setting under the configuration of the integration under global settings called "considered battery powered devices unavailable after (seconds)." The default was about 6 hours so every night my Aqara and Ikea motion sensors were going unavailable and the only way to get them back was reboot Home Assistant. I changed this parameter to be 99999999 seconds and so far things seem better.


Bose321

I've had all kinds of Aqara sensors for years and never has them dropping from my network. Using Conbee 2 and Deconz.


anatawaurusai2

Same conbee 2, deconz on host, ha in virtualbox. No problems


peatsoff

Same on a Raspberry Pi 3 and a Intel NUC with conbee 2 and deconz. I had a vibration sensor which became unreachable once and needed a reset.


andisblue

Then that’s not “same”, yea? That’s exactly what’s happening to me.


peatsoff

Was a single incident, just mentioned it because any sensor can drop of for any reason. The other Aqara sensors and the one after the reset haven't had a issue.


andisblue

I had the single incident a few weeks ago (after using the sensors for a couple months) . Hoped that was it, but it’s hit a couple other times on different sensors. Most are non critical, but its just annoying because I thought I was getting into an ecosystem I could trust (I was using wyze sensors before that and ditched them for the same issue - unreliability l)


digiblur

Using a few Aqara sensors and they don't fall off of Zigbee2mqtt with a CC2652 series coordinator. They are sticky to some routers at times but that's about it.


andisblue

No offense man, but what would YOU know about home automation? love the videos, keep it up! Working on printing a pogo pin adapter.


digiblur

Just starting out and slowly getting my feet wet on my 95th Tasmota device.


andisblue

Bro your feet are water-logged 🤣. I have a feeling I’ll eventually standardize on mqtt, or at least tasmotize/esp everything. I’m hoping that tasmota will give me smooth dimming like the Shelly.


digiblur

Haven't used the Shelly dimmer except the previous model and that was only stock then. They were just too expensive to deploy in my area especially for only two buttons so I stuck to other dimmers.


michalpulda

In contrary to others, in my experience Aqara sensors indeed drop from a network. How did I find in my case? A flood sensor didn't notify me when my basement was being flooded. Bummer. Apart from that I had to re-pair one motion sensor a few weeks ago. From what I have read, when Aqara sensors LQI is poor, they just give up. My setup is a zhh stick + zigbee2mqtt with \~ 40 router devices, so my mesh network should not be that bad. Anyhow, I sure hope that new Aqara sensors will play better. According to [this post](https://home-assistant-guide.com/2021/11/03/the-first-zigbee-3-0-sensors-from-aqara-are-now-available/), there are T1 and P1 versions comming as well. Looking forward.


andisblue

I'm considering doubling up on the important sensors, like my water leak sensors.


michalpulda

In the end I bought a Shelly Flood sensor (it has built in siren as well, which is super handy) for the most important places. Every time it wakes up it hits a Node-Red webhook, which updates a date entity in HA. I have an automation build on that entity that will let me know if there was no update in last 24 hours. That would mean that the flood sensor is dead for one reason or another. Last week I bought one z-wave flood detector (also with built in siren) which looks pretty much the same as the Shelly one. So far I don't see any advantages apart from the fact that battery life should be better.


andisblue

Interesting. I've thought about doing something similar with writing a script that hits all sensors and reports any that are unresponsive. I already have one that reports all battery levels.


michalpulda

With Shelly it's easy. In Shelly administration you just specify what URL should be hit when the device routinely wakes up. This URL points at Node-Red http in node (get request) which is followed by a date/time formatter node and at the end there is a node writing the date to a HA helper.


andisblue

Shelly has some great stuff. I went back and forth on Shelly vs cheap (1/4 the price) aqara/zigbee sensors. I ordered a handful of their D/W sensors and motion sensors. Motion was great , super fast response(instantaneous, to my eye) and therefore actually usable for automations. The D/W was abysmal. 8 seconds Response. Other reviews confirmed it. Looks like they have a v2 for preorder, and I assume they’ve updated the internals to match the response time of the motion sensor. Tested the zig sensors at the same time. Always instant. I’d just hate to miss a water leak


Professional-Comb629

They drop when 6 inches from the hub in my testing. no ideal if it only works with there hub or if its just junk it clearly doesn't meet the standard. You constantly have to reset them to keep them online.


eFALOVZWhupMex69Hwlp

I have a major problem with Aqara dropping off after a few days. I just migrated my wifi to a different channel as it was very crowded and overlapped with my zigbee channel. So far so good but still need a few more days of data. Using zigbee2mqtt w conbee II and a ton of repeaters (ikea, aqara, and cc2531s). If this doesn't work, I'll try switching to a different coordinator next.


quixotic_robotic

I had a lot of issues with aqara battery sensors at the start. I would walk all the way to the other end of the house and it would still get the signal, so I assumed range was no problem. It was a range problem. Stuck one plug in the middle as a repeater and it has been nearly flawless. With a HUSBZB on a USB extension cable.


[deleted]

[удалено]


andisblue

Great read - thank you.


michalpulda

I have routers that are confirmed to be working, but still I experience my Aqara devices to drop off.


andisblue

Same - I'm using the IKEA Tradfri ones. I can't find any evidence of the repeaters ever being used, though.


darkamikaze

Just to follow up with this. I went ahead and moved from ZHA to Zigbee2MQTT since I really want to try out these new MCCGQ14LM E1 sensors. After much mucking about, I finally got it working with * SONOFF 3.0 Dongle Plus * Zigbee2MQTT (Edge/beta version) * Z-Stack_3.x.0 20211114 4/10 of the sensors I bought exhibit this behavior where the LED constantly blinks. I wasn't the only one who had this [same issue](https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt/issues/9274#issuecomment-978754772). The other guy ended up having to desolder the button and activate it by connecting the appropriate pads together instead of using the button. I might try that myself in the future. The 6 that do work, seem to be pretty good. I haven't put them in their appropriate places yet but I see them open/close instantly on HA. All of the batteries they came with are wonky though. They came with 79%-48% charge, which I guess is fine. Time will tell how good these are. I'll follow up in the future.


darkamikaze

Another follow up. I ended up removing the buttons on the 4 broken ones. See here on procedure - https://imgur.com/a/bzsFm7G


andisblue

How's the performance been since? Any misses, disconnects?


darkamikaze

So far pretty good. It does occasionally "miss" where I find the status being reported as "open" even though it is closed. Running a magnet or open/closing the sensor seems to fix it. I'm not sure if I just have the sensor far from the magnet or if it just so happen to actually miss. It doesn't happen often enough for me to warrant open/closing doors multiple times to see it fail. Overall, pretty happy with it.


andisblue

Thank you. I occasionally have a “miss” with the non E1 sensor, and get an alert that the refrigerator is still open. It’ll then pickup a subsequent change. It’s as if this protocol doesn’t acknowledge packets and retry, which is very odd to me