New equipment has joined my home automation system. This is a new Aqara sensor, which will join my sensors of temperature, humidity, and pressure . And like these, it will be compatible with the gateway of Xiaomi and therefore with the application Mi-Home of the brand, but it will also be integrated into Domoticz! Well, I'm talking about a new sensor, but in fact, I've already ordered two. And it may well be that I order others thereafter. What is the role of this sensor? It is a door or window opening detector. Let's see that together.
Characteristics of Aqara Aperture Detector
Door or window opening detection module
Wireless operation
Technology: ZigBee
White color
Easy to put in place
Works with the Xiaomi Mi-Home app
Built-in Domoticz
Unpacking the sensor
The Xiaomi door sensor package is white and understated, as always for Aqara products. Inside, there is, of course, the opening detector (consisting of two parts), as well as a manual and stickers to fix the 2 parts of the sensor.
The manual will not serve you much since it is only in Chinese. So you have to go intuition. But do not panic, as I indicated in the characteristics above, it is very easy to set up.
Presentation of the sensor and its operation
The sensor is composed of two parts. Thus, whether it is on a door or a window, one will stick a part on the amount and the other on the door (or the window). Here is an overview of the design of the bigger part of the two:
This part has a small button on the edge to achieve the association of the sensor.
On the back of the sensor (on both sides), there is already an adhesive to stick where you want.
Both parts of the sensor make sense. This one is identifiable thanks to the small mark present on each part. The two marks are to be positioned together (here understand one against the other).
The Aqara door opening detector is not very big. Seeing it on the Internet, I thought it was more cumbersome. Judge for yourself, compared to a 1 € coin.
Adding the sensor in the Mi-Home app
Before you even stick your Xiaomi door sensor on a door or window, do the pairing and test it. To do this, launch the Mi-Home app (install it first if you do not have it yet).
- To add a new device in Mi-Home, click the + icon at the top right.
- We will make the addition manually. So press down on Add manually.
- Search the list for the Aqara door and window sensor and select it.
- Now press the sensor pairing button for a few seconds, until the blue LED flashes.
- Once the sensor is paired with the Gateway Xiaomi, choose the room in which your sensor will be positioned.
- Now select the icon you want to associate with your sensor.
- Finally, give your sensor a name
- And now, the sensor is now visible in Mi-Home.
It is, therefore, possible to create scenes in Mi-Home to be alerted, for example, in case of change of sensor status etc. Well, the problem is that the application is 50% English and 50% Chinese ... So hard to find what you want ... But it's not very serious since we can integrate this sensor in a solution like Domoticz. And for my part, that's what I did!
Integration of the Aqara opening detector in Domoticz
Here we are now on the Domoticz homepage. Click on the top right of Settings then go to Devices.
- Click Settings and then Devices
- For more visibility, click the Unused button at the top right.
- Click Unused at the top right to display only devices that you do not use
- Locate the sensor called Xiaomi door sensor and at the end of the line press the small green arrow to integrate it.
- Click on the green arrow to add the sensor
- Give it an explicit name and click the Add Device button
- Give the sensor a name and click Add Device
And that's all! The Aqara door and window opening detector is now operational in Domoticz. You can now include it in all kinds of scenarios and events.
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