*The article below contains affiliate links. If you purchase an item after clicking on that link, I will receive a commission. Thank you!
Looking to add door and window sensors to your smart home but realize that they are mostly expensive? Some sensors are expensive because they offer more than just open/closed sensors. They may have temperature sensors and humidity sensors built-in. But if you just want to know if a door or window is open, then look no further than the Aqara Door and Window Sensor. The box says that an Aqara hub is required to work, but using the power of home assistant with a Zigbee stick, you can skip the hub altogether!
Prerequisites
You will need to have home assistant installed for this to work. You will also need to have a zigbee stick installed on your server in order to communicate with these sensors. If you don’t have one yet, I recommend the HUSBZB-1. This stick will allow you to communicate with a zigbee network as well as a z-wave network.
You will also need to have the Zigbee integration working on your Home Assistant server so make sure that has been added as well.
Unboxing
You will see on the box “Aqara hub is required” but don’t listen to that nonsense. These are zigbee sensors and you can add them to your existing zigbee ecosystem. Opening the box you will see the sensor, the magnet, double-sided install stickers, and a user manual. Again, we won’t be using the hub so the only real important information in the manual is how to reset the sensor and put it into pairing mode. There are two sets of install stickers, but you will only be needing one, so put one away in a safe place in case you want to move the sensor to a different location and can’t reuse the first one. There is a blue tab that goes in to the battery compartment that you will need to pull out to power the device, and then you’re ready to install your Aqara Door and Window Sensor.
Installation of Aqara Door and Window Sensor
To install the sensor, pull the backing from one side of the double-sided tape and install it to the sensor itself. Then do the same for the magnet. You will use the larger outer sticker for the sensor and the smaller inner sensor for the magnet. Once you have the stickers on, you can go to the door or window that you would like to install the sensors. Finding a location on the door and window to install each piece can be a challenge, so make sure you install them so that the gap between the two pieces isn’t too large and that they separate when the door or window is opened. You can install the sensor on the door or the door frame, whichever makes the install easier.
Pairing the Aqara Door and Window Sensor
You have your sensor installed and everything is ready to go. Now you want to go into your Home Assistant App and add a new Zigbee device.
Navigate to Settings –> Devices and Integrations, and then press the +Add Integration button in the bottom right corner of the screen.
Select the option for “Add Zigbee Device”
This will begin the zigbee pairing mode on your Home Assistant server.
In order to put the sensor into pairing mode, there is a small button on the bottom of the unit that you will hold for 3+ seconds. The blue light on the front of the sensor will flash while you are holding this button. It took me about 3 tries to get it to finally be found but once it is found it will conduct the interview.
And now the device is ready to use! Here you should change the device name to the door or window that you are monitoring, and select the area where it is installed. Once you have done that you can go back and check to make sure it works.
You will notice the main sensor “Opening” that tells you if the door is open or closed. There are also diagnostic sensors of battery level and device temperature. The battery sensor in an automation to send an alert that a battery needs to be changed when it gets below a certain threshold. Device temperature can be used to gauge the temperature of the room it is in if you would like to do that. Keep in mind that these temperatures are at the sensor and may not accurately depict the temperature of the room.
In Conclusion
These Aqara Door and Window Sensors are some of the more affordable sensors on the market today. Some people may get scared off or think that you need to buy the Aqara hub, but that is not the case, so you can consider these the next time you need a contact sensor like this.