These sensors are the best smart home upgrade you’ve skipped
Sensors are some of the most important smart home devices you can buy. While products like smart bulbs and plugs make your home easy to control, sensors are things that can tell these devices when to spring into action. However, not all sensors are equal. You may be missing out on some of the most useful sensors you can buy.
What are multi-sensors?
Smart home sensors are the key to automating your smart home. Motion sensors can be used to turn on your lights when you enter a room, contact sensors can tell you when doors or windows open, and water leak sensors can save you a fortune in repairs.
Many smart home sensors are single-use. For example, a water leak sensor has only one function: to detect water. It can’t tell you the temperature or if anyone has entered the room. An alternative option is to purchase multi-sensors, which are single units containing several different sensors inside, such as temperature, humidity, motion and light.
For example, I have an Everything Presence Lite sensor that I use for presence detection. In addition to the mmWave sensor that tracks presence, it also includes a light sensor that makes it much more useful. Apollo Automation’s R PRO-1 is loaded with sensors including two mmWave sensors, a lux and UV sensor, as well as the ability to add CO2, temperature and humidity sensing as well.
5 Wild Smart Home Sensors You Can Integrate With Home Assistant
Great gifts for the smart home enthusiast in your life.
Why multi-sensors are better than purchasing separate sensors
There are several benefits to using multisensors in your smart home. First, instead of needing five different sensors cluttering up your living room, you can install a single multi-sensor that can do the same job. A single device also means you only need one power source, so you don’t have to worry about managing multiple cables or having five sets of batteries to change.
Having multiple sensors in a single device can also help reduce network traffic. Instead of five sensors each transmitting their own data to your smart home server, you have a single device that can provide information about multiple sensors. This means you have fewer devices chatting on the network, which can help reduce network congestion.
One of the main advantages of multiple sensors is that although they are more expensive than single-use sensors, the cost per function can often be lower. For example, the price of a multi-sensor including motion, brightness, humidity and temperature may be lower than the price of these four sensors individually.
Automations can be better with multi-sensors
Multi-sensors aren’t just a more cost-effective way to add sensors to your smart home. Combining multiple sensors can make your automations much more efficient.
For example, if you have a dedicated motion sensor that turns your lights on when you enter a room, this automation will work even when your room is flooded with daylight. Turning on the light at this point makes no sense.
Things are much improved if you have a multi-sensor with both motion detection and a lux sensor capable of measuring light levels. You can then create the same automation, but only run it when the room is dark enough for it to make sense.
You may have an automation that heats a room until it reaches a set temperature measured by a temperature sensor. However, if you use a multi-sensor that includes both temperature and presence detection, you can save money by only heating the room when someone is there.
Using your sensors together gives you additional context, which can give you more control over your automations. They can then behave with much more precision than using a single sensor.
Why people often skip multi-sensors
It’s easy to overlook multisensors when you’re building your smart home. This is often because you are looking for something to solve a specific problem. If you want your lights to turn on when you enter a room, you’ll probably look for a motion sensor, rather than a multi-sensor that includes a motion sensor.
The other big problem is the price. If you need a motion sensor, paying a lot more for a multi-sensor may not seem like the right choice. However, this could save you money in the long run because you are effectively purchasing multiple sensors at once. Even if you don’t plan to use them all right now, you may find that in the future the extra sensors in your multi-sensor can come in very handy.
Multi-sensors are not always the right option. If you just want to track humidity in your garage, having an expensive sensor that includes occupancy detection and light levels is almost certainly overkill. However, in many situations, a multi-sensor can not only save you money, but also improve the quality of your smart home automation.
