I wanted some temperature sensor that can place outside my house, it is simple and not very expensive, which directly integrates with HA would be ideal but not 100% necessary.
I have seen these in Aliexpress, I don’t know if someone has them or if you think they can serve me https://acortar.link/5vbeT2
Thanks for the aid, I am starting with all this and I see good resources in this community
EDIT: Thank you very much for all the answers, it is incredible how fast you have helped me. You have also given me many interesting options to investigate more before making a decision
I use the air quality measurement devices from Air gradient. https://www.airgradient.com/
Really well made and everything is open source. I flashed esphome on it and it works great but a new official firmware version from airgradient has HA support built in.
They have indoor and outdoor devices, I have both.
I use Aqara zigbee sensors—they cost under $20 and measure temperature, humidity, and air pressure. I’ve been using one outside (in a covered location) for over a year with no issues.
The aqara are doing ai pressure as well? What model? I have a dozen or so but can’t seem to get pressure.
This one. (Note that “air pressure” is listed as a special feature.)
Well damn it’s the same type I use. What’s the trick to get it HA?
Using ZHA, it has an entity id of
sensor.[device name]_pressure. I don’t know how it works with Zigbee2MQTT.
I use the round version of the same Tuya temperature sensor in my refrigerator and with Home Assistant. For $4 I wouldn’t hesitate trying one in a protected area outside. As long as it’s not directly exposed to rain or sun it’ll probably work fine.
Is the reception in the fridge still reliable?
Yes for both of my refrigerator sensors. There’s a concrete floor and multiple concrete walls between one of the sensors and the hub and it still works perfectly.
$4?! Wow I have sonoff knes and I don’t think they were that cheap. Are they relatively accurate?
Seems to be. It reads within 1 degree of a digital refrigerator thermometer.
Do you have a link? I’ve been using the square Aqara ones for years but they are way more expensive than that
Well, the price is 16€. I don’t know when the promotion apply
I’m in the U.S. and it’s $4-$5. Free shipping with a $10 purchase. Surprised it’s so much more in the E.U.
You’re right! I’ve seen the offer and usually they’re just for the first piece, but for that item there are no limits.
If you’ve not ordered from Aliexpress be aware their website is set up to display deep discounts for first time orders by default. Once you log in after your first order the discounts disappear and the prices are much higher.
Pretty crappy business practices, but when a product is 1/4 the price of buying locally, still hard to pass up. For $4 a pop I put leak sensors under every sink and toilet in the house. At the time they were $17 each on Amazon. Also be aware it is very easy to buy a wifi version instead of Zigbee because of the way the website is set up. Many Tuya wifi devices require always on Internet access.
Sweet, thanks!
Well that’s going to be a lot more expensive now (tariffs and all).
Late to the party but I use several from third reality for temp/humidity both indoor and out. They’re ZigBee based and I just have a little ZigBee dongle attached to my server. Basically no setup needed once the dongle is up. Just add batteries and then add them in HA.
Do you use ZHA or Zigbee-MQTT?
Which model do you use?ZHA. Sensor model is 3RTHS0224Z and the ZigBee dingus is a SONOFF but I don’t know which model offhand
Thank you a lot.
happy to help!
I use an Ecowitt weather station and sensors inside and out.
And I use weewx on a Raspberry Pi to publish that data. Weewx also has a mqtt plugin so I created a weather topic and transmit all the sensors onto it.
Then I created all those sensors in HA :)
Unless you’re a weather nerd and wanna go that route there’s probably better ways. I was already using Ecowitt devices independent of my smart home stuff.
A number of esp32 based devices have temp sensors too. Or gpio pins to add a 1wire or 3wire sensor.
The ecowitt sensors last a whole season in battery, and they tend to have really good range.
Those are designed for indoors. I don’t have any experience with them, but they might not survive the harsh conditions of being outdoors… especially water intrusion if they get rained on. They might be fine if placed directly under an awning or soffit.
My favorite temp sensors, by far, are one of a few that you can hook up to a LOLIN D1 Mini or other ESP type board. This is temp sensors on hard mode, though. You have to buy the various parts, solder them together (read further for a no-solder option), and then flash software onto it. The software I use is Tasmota, but ESPHome is another popular option. Both integrate directly with HA.
The downsides to this is each D1 Mini needs a 5v power supply (phone charger, for example). The new ones are USB-C. I don’t know of a good battery option for these boards. These are wifi devices use more power than z-wave or zigbee.
Sensors that I’ve had good luck with are DS18B20 (also available in a waterproof version), and if you want something really good that includes humidity and barometric pressure, then BME688 is top of the line. The board that the BME688 comes on still needs a D1 Mini to hook up to. They are easier because you can use one of these cables to connect it to the D1 Mini, so no soldering required.
You can even go a step further and 3D print an enclosure for the electronics.
I know it’s not what you asked for since you’re looking for outdoor sensors, but maybe someone will find it interesting.
I’m using shelly sensors which work well with HA
Ecowitt has been really good. I’ve had my station for two years now. Great equipment.
If you want some honest advice: just use an internet source.
Unless you are a buying a scientific weather station to host at your home, none of the Ali* sensors will withstand what you’re expecting.
Either pay for the real thing and get results, or skip on the cheap junk that will almost certainly die in a few months with no warranty or recourse…just use a close weather station.
I use openweathermap and it works great for my needs and it’s free (they switched to an account based service recently but still free for small stuff)
For internal temp sensors, I use my ZigBee thermostat and a window AC unit that has a temp sensor available to Home Assistant.
Nothing fancy for me, yet anyways, but works for my needs.
Yeah, but this person is asking about outdoor sensors from Ali. Not gonna work.
Yeah, just seconding your internet source recommendation. The price was right.
For the most part I use SHT-35s with esp chips, although I got the Govee sensors with a base station for our reptile enclosures.
I also soldered some myself. I’m currently using Bosch’s BME280 and similar. Works well. Just don’t bother with the old DHT11 sensors, in my experience they don’t work well outdoors. But I’m not sure of OP prefers buying a proper product that doesn’t require soldering and coding/configuring.
I never had dht-11s that worked at all. Maybe one in ten was anywhere close to calibrated correctly. I need to check out the bme280, though.
Yeah, there’s a whole line of these sensors with BMPx80 and BMEx80 which include additional features, humidity, pressure, VoC… And I had my two or three DHT-11 work for some time. But mine also weren’t very accurate. Plus the humidity measurement were always way off. And they’d get saturated and just show 100% a lot of the time. And i think two just stopped working over the years, I’ve replaced the last one, one or two years ago.
