Hi… I just got a couple Aqara vibration sensors and after a lot of fiddling these drivers seem to work best. however I am trying to set the sensitivity to high and it is not showing up in current states… I tried pushing the button on the sensor several times and disconnected and reconnected the sensor…is there a trick to getting the sensitivity level to show?
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I remember this being an issue early on, If you search for this in the hubitat community, there are specific instructions to solve this issue. It has to do with tricky pairing, if I remember right. Markus is away from the community for now developing. But I hope this will help to lead you in the right direction.
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I have been scouring the Hubitat community and cant seem to find a solution… I found this post:
but I will keep looking…
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Still no luck…does anyone have a link?
Ok on HE they can be extra tricky to get to set… Basically start pushing the button on the sensor about twice a second, do not stop pushing it. Now send the change via the drivers page then press refresh configure refresh, the entire time still pressing the button on the sensor…
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WOW! That worked? what a pain…LOL Thank you!
Maybe I should have said they are a major PITA to get to behave but I was trying to be nice. Glad you were finally able to get them to do what you wanted though 
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PITA is an understatement…LOL Now my issue is I can’t keep it connected… I have been experimenting with it as mailbox sensor and I even took a trip (quite far) to Ikea and bought 3 repeaters… I have 2 installed the last one I was going to put in the garage as last ditch effort… but thats a repeater every 10 feet or so and it just doesn’t seem right…but thats the last ditch b4 I give up these and go another route… the $30 Ring mailbox sensor seems like a more and more attractive option but the damn thing is HUGE!
Isn’t the Ring “Mailbox Sensor” just a repurposed generic motion sensor? I would assume any old motion sensor would work equally well. Now the only thing I would be weary of is the battery life in the heat and in the cold, but that is more of an issue with any battery powered sensor. As a side note, does anyone know how battery chemistries compare in the heat and cold?
I can’'t say what is at fault for them not being reliable as that is a huge debate, but getting them to reliably work with your current platform is unlikely. Now if you set up another zigbee network on a different channel using one of the CCxxxx chips with herdsman you can get very reliable performance out of them. But that is a more involved setup than most want.
Im using a $5 iris motion sensor from ebay as my mailbox sensor. I went through multiple solutions, vibration, contact, camera, ultimately a simple motion sensor proved most reliable.
Its 2 sided taped to the back of the mailbox at the top, out of the way of any mail.
Using a simple flow i check the time of day and current status of the mail, based on those two factors one of 3 things will occur. 1. the mail will be marked delivered and a audio notification will play every 15 minutes alerting the household the mail had been delivered. 2. will disabled the alert and mark the mail as retrieved 3. will do nothing
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How do you determine the current status of the mail? Is it as simple as a toggle on motion detection or is there something more in-depth?
In simplest terms I am using a toggle. In more depth, I am using file based context storage and reading from and writing to a variable named flow.mailstatus.
Motion active - > Status check - > delivered - > stop repeating alert timer and set status to retrieved
Motion active → Status check - > retrieved → time check - > outside of time do nothing or if inside of time - > change status to delivered, activate alert triggering repeat timer, activate first alert
The reason for the time check is so i can put mail out to be picked up the next day without triggering false delivery alerts through the house
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Yeah, I figured it was something like that. I was wondering if you thought up a way to prevent false positives such as someone checking the mailbox without an alert, which presumably would then start an alert thinking someone put mail in. But I guess that is an edge case that would only really be solved with computer vision and object detection.
i actually did. if the time limit on trigger isnt specific enough to prevent re-triggers what you can do is basically add in a counter that is reset at midnight. the counter you would place after the initial time check but before the trigger for the alert/setting mail as delivered. The counter you set to only allow 1 message a day to come through
This way mail gets delivered at 9am, you check it at 930am. the kid checks it at 10 am… it sees that its already been delivered today and terminates without altering the status of the mail or triggering any alarms 
Yes these are annoying… My buttons and motion sensors in the house are fine…Curious is your mailbox metal? this is a a metal box and right now the Vibration sensor is taped to the bottom…I tried inside also…I have an extra ring outdoor motion sensor which is the same size as the Ring mailbox sensor minus the antenna… another option … if it gets thru the Metal…b4 I spend any MORE money…ugh…LOL will check out your flow when I get a functioning notification! ( ihave an Aqara contact sensor… don’t know if I should bother with it…)
If you want to talk about further options we can… I do have a coral
Solid Metal. It really depends on the distance the box is from the nearest repeater/AP if you can maintain a connection. If its an aqara product, due to the issues your platform can have with the way they talk to the zigbee stack, I’d advice against trying to use it in your mailbox, as you will never really be able to tell if your having a signal strength issue or an underlying stack issue.
That being said if you have a window that is in direct line of sight with the mailbox stick a repeater/AP there to ensure the best possible strength to the mailbox. Alternatively you can add an outdoor outlet with a clear plastic weather covering and fit an outlet repeater in there. i actually ended up doing this as it has the added benefit of giving you a automated outlet you can also use for yard decorating
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Unfortunately no outlets outside… but yeah only aqara zigbee devices (argh)… and the ikea repeaters…before I spend more money on a sensor, I was going to try the extra Ring outdoor motion sensor I have… not sure what protocol those are…but yeah as unreliable as the aqara are…its not worth the headache… (I can use the gateway or hub and HA…but I am trying to simplify and I just recently disconnected the gateway and started use the homebridge app with HE)
I fully understand the desire to simplify! I’m down to a single device controlling every device in my home, a long time goal and one it feels odd to have finally reached. Meanwhile i have over 150 devices integrated together in harmony
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