~derf / hardware / home-automation

Home Automation Hardware

Just some unprofessional, personal thoughts and bookmarks, largely based on my own experience.

IKEA FYRTUR / KADRILJ Roller Blinds

From what I gather, the motors are badly designed and prone to excess wear, and the lack of proper / lubricated bearings for the blinds probably does not help either. I've had two die on me (one while still in warranty, at least), and have now switched to manually-operated blinds. The remaining two occasionally do not respond to Zigbee commands, or stop mid-way when closing and need another command to fully close. Sometimes, they require a power cycle or a re-pairing to resume operation.

But hey, at least those BRAUNIT battery packs are quite neat, complete with built-in microUSB charger, balancing, and overtemperature protection. In my experience, a single charge easily lasts for half a year or more.

IKEA TRÅDFRI Control Outlet

Likely not suitable for switching inductive loads. We've had one nearly cause a fire at the local hackerspace.

IKEA TRÅDFRI Motion Sensor

Motion detection is working fine, battery status reporting is not (at least with the one I've got here). Every since I had to replace the batteries for the first time, it's been stuck at a reported battery level of 16%.

Tuya TS0201 / TS0601 Temperature and Humidity Sensor

No complaints. So far these seem much better than the Aqara sensors, and the LCD is an added bonus. Looks like they contain a Sensirion SHT3x sensor.

Tuya 24GHz Human Presence Sensor

Pretty damn useful, though they may report false positives depending on where they are installed. I've read reports about those devices spamming the Zigbee network, which I cannot confirm. The two sensors I've got here (identified as “CK-BL702-MWS-01(7016)”) send maybe three to ten messages per minute, and in both cases I found locations where they work reliably with no false positives or false negatives (or at least none that I notice).

Xiaomi Aqara MCCGQ11LM Door and Window sensor

I installed four sensors (one per window) in April 2020, and for the past five years they have worked flawlessly. As of December 2025, all are still running with the original (packaged) CR1632 coin cell, and reporting 60 to 100 % state of charge (2.94 to 3.00 V).

Unlike the WSDCGQ11LM ones, I did not have any Zigbee networking issues yet.

The temperature sensor is part of the IC itself, and has neither high accuracy nor high resolution. But it's there, and sufficient for finding out, e.g., whether the flat's heating is working, or whether the sun is shining onto a window.

Xiaomi Aqara WSDCGQ11LM Temperature / Pressure / Humidity Sensor

As the Zigbee2MQTT documentation states: these are not fully compatible with Zigbee, and fall off the network every now and then. They also report low (or even empty) battery for months on end before the battery actually runs out, which is kinda annoying. I do not recommend them. Apparently, these contain a Sensirion SHT30 sensor, which is quite good, as far as I can tell.