MultiSensor 6

These are fantastic sensors. I bought them to replace some GE motion sensors I have installed around the house for intrusion detection. Those units use the same batteries but burn thru them in about a month, whereas these units have been running for over a month and haven't cracked the 95% battery level yet AND they come with a whole mess of extra sensors like temperature, light, and humidity. I also found these units to be way less prone to false-positive motion detection (while still triggering for actual motion), which is probably a big part of their better battery efficiency. I do have one minor quibble, although I decided not to remove any points for it, which is in regard to how the units are powered. In addition to battery power, they have the ability to take a micro-usb cable plugged into an outlet for power, which was my initial plan for setting them up. However, I quickly discovered that because of how they place the micro-usb jack, you can't insert a cable and also use the wall mounting plate without some dremmel surgery on the case. Still, my plans were based upon the assumption that these units would drain battery power like the GE sensors and they don't, so in the end I didn't feel like this was a big negative. These sensors are also significantly more expensive than some other comparable brands, but considering how much better my experience was with these I think this may be a you-get-what-you-pay-for kind of thing.

I am a complete novice when it comes to Zwave protocols but it was immediately clear to me that misconfiguration of this device is going to cause you all sorts of troubles. High report rates when running in battery mode will drain the battery quickly. battery life statistics of Zwave devices are based on how often they wake up to send reports. Increase the report rate, decrease battery life. This is normal for battery powered z wave devices. If you want to pull lots of data from one of these sensors, plug it into external power. Make sure the device is in range of your other devices. Range is not like wifi, so don't think you can use one on one end of the house with your hub on the other end of the house. In an empty room you might get the advertised 80 feet of range, but go through a single wall and you'll probably want them to be within 20 feet of each other. Again, this seems to be related to Zwave devices in general rather than the product itself. The report rate can be adjusted by changing internal parameter settings, as well as dialing in calibrations for all the sensors. Firmware upgrades are available but can only be applied with a windows based Z-wave controller, There is no firmware update program for linux or OSX. This is probably the biggest downside I've come across. I'm not impressed with the feeling of the action button. pushing the action button feels like you're doing something to the device that you should not do. Tactile feel aside, the button works just fine. Takes 2 CR123A batteries, but can operate on a single battery as well. Include it into your network while running on whatever power source you intend to run it on. Battery powered Zwave devices will not act as repeaters, and this setting is configured by checking what power source the device is using when you include it into the network. I contacted their technical support for an issue with the temperature unit setting and they responded almost immediately with some good information on what might be the problem, and confirmation that I'd set the right parameters in the sensor. It turns out that the adjustment had to be done on the controller side of the network instead of the device. The problem I had wasn't with their device at all, but they were still able to give me the clues I needed to solve my issue. Very friendly too.

I bought this motion sensor to use with SmartThings Hub 2. I would give 4.5 stars but that isn't possible and really once all the kinks are worked out, it really deserves a 5. This motion sensor has the advantages of small size and being able to sit it anywhere without mounting it anywhere if desired. A mounting bracket is included but the battery is not. It is not fully supported by SmartThings but will pair and give reduced reports if added as Multisensor 6 in SmartThings. You can get the full range of reporting (motion, temperature, humidity, luminosity, uv, tamper and battery) by adding the specific device in the IED (via Git Hub code) then pairing it and changing to the device type added. This sounds complicated but is really quite easy. I had no problems pairing, then changing to the new device type. The motion sensor immediately started reporting but appeared to stay on motion without registering no motion. However, after a week the motion reporting sorted itself out and it is now registering motion/no motion correctly. I really like the luminosity reporting which now allows me to control lights based on natural lighting coming into the room. This is especially useful for automating lighting on those stormy days when lights are needed indoors. The tamper feature is a nice addition too! Performance does come with a price though as the additional reporting results in higher battery use. I have had this motion sensor in operation since late October and the battery is already at 50%. This could be due to the first week of extra reporting though. I'm not sure. All in all this is a very nicely designed motion sensor that performs nicely. I will certainly be adding another one to my system.

Very good product, easy to install, stable and fiability

Good device, easy to connect, great to have option of battery or plug in power, very useful light , temperature and motion to triggers devices and events. Only downside is the cost. Should be around 50 dollars (cdn) instead of 80 dollars.

Sensor worked perfectly right out of the box with my Z-Stick and Indigo V7 software. I am using this sensor in the bathroom to activate and dim lights based on the time of night as well as activating exhaust fans when the humidity level hits the threshold.

Excellent product! Looking to replace my Wireless Tag with these sensors as they integrate with my Samsung Smartthings Hub. Love that they have the option of being USB power driven and battery.

When it works it's alright, but that's only about 50% of the time (probably less). This device has been a constant source of troubleshooting, problems, and headaches. There aren't many ZWave motion sensors available, but you'd do well to avoid this one.