Budding · Taking shape, still changing
Zigbee flood sensors in Home Assistant
I wanted two or three flood sensors in the spots where a leak would hurt most: the kitchen, the bathroom and the garage. I considered Zigbee models (RTX ZWS1, Aqara SJCGQ11LM) and Wi-Fi ones. I went with Zigbee, assuming a network with a coordinator would be more reliable than battery sensors talking to Wi-Fi directly.
Setup
- Home Assistant with the ZHA integration on a Raspberry Pi,
- a SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus coordinator,
- an Aqara Smart Plug acting as a Zigbee router to extend the network,
- Aqara flood sensors in two versions.
Two versions of the Aqara sensor
| Model | Bought from | How it shows up in Home Assistant |
|---|---|---|
| WL-S02D | Allegro | lumi.flood.agl02 |
| SJCGQ11LM | AliExpress | lumi.sensor_wleak.aq1 |
Both work well enough, though the WL-S02D seems to cope slightly better.
Watch out for
- Coverage. The sensors need a fairly strong signal. Battery-powered Zigbee devices do not relay traffic, so you extend the network with mains-powered ones – in my case the Aqara plug.
- Coordinator firmware. Before I updated it, the sensors did not report battery level as a percentage, and ZHA dropped them from the network after about 6 hours. The update fixed it.
Source: my thread on elektroda.pl (in Polish) – Opinie o czujnikach zalania RTX ZWS1 i Aqara SJCGQ11LM – Zigbee vs Wifi (November 2023 – March 2024).