AEOTEC Zwave Door Sensor Recessed Door Sensor 7, Z-Wave Plus Enabled Smart Door Sensor Battery Powered, SmartStart S2, Zwave Hub Required SmartThings Fibaro Home Centre 3 Hubitat

This is my 3rd install of this kind of sensor - they work reliably and connected to my Hubitat easily. But I was actually very impressed with the packaging. There is hardly any single use plastic - just the little tab you pull out of the battery compartment to turn it on, and the tamper evidence tape securing the box. Everything else was cardboard. It was all cleverly cut and folded to provide protection during shipping, and even the mounting screws were in a little square of tag-board folded into a self closing envelope. Not 100% plastic free, but very close and I appreciate the thoughtfulness that went into the design.

I bought these sensors as the description clearly states The battery is a CR123A which for me is a much better choice than a CR2 battery (better availability and cheaper) So I decided to swap over my existing Aeotec sensors to the latest gen. I opened the box and surprise surprise a CR2 battery :( The boxes come with the smart scan sticker on the box I wish they would keep the sticker inside the box now I have to keep these stickers forever so I can securely add these devices. They added instantly to my hubitat hub and switch very quickly. I'm hoping since they're Zwave 700 the battery might last a bit longer on these. I wouldn't have bought these if the real battery was listed. A waste of $250...

I purchased two of these in May 2021. They are solid performers. Quick and reliable open/close detection to date, and battery life had been very good. The factory-installed battery in one unit lasted nearly 2 years while the other lasted only 10 months. Turns out it was starting to fail, with each battery needing to be replaces in about half the time of its predecessor. Finally the unit failed this week (Nov 2023), draining the battery in a matter of hours. An IR camera reveals a failed surface mount element overheating.The other unit still shows 100% battery level three months after its first battery replacement, so these things can and do last a while.

The sensor works (except for low battery warnings?). The mounting screws that came with it are utter garbage, and the heads stripped out during installation (even when I used the proper #1 Phillips bit size that the instructions never mentioned). I had to deal with these screws again only 1 week later when the OEM CR2 battery was dead (discovered because the sensor stopped responding). They estimate their battery will last 2-3 years with 20 activations per day, but ours lasted less than 10 days with 12-15 activations per day. I was extremely disappointed with the OEM peripherals, but the sensor itself seems pretty good. BEWARE that you should preemptively provide your own CR2 battery and 3/4” #4 flat head screws!UPDATE 6/26/21: I have now gone through 3 batteries across 2 units (1 replacement) in LESS THAN A MONTH! Aeotec will blame it on incorrect configuration settings, but I was extremely careful how I setup my replacement sensor after my first sensor SUDDENLY DECIDED TO COOK ITSELF. See the "constant red light on" that a few other reviews mention. The battery in my first device burned out in about 8 days (despite giving 100% battery reports the whole time). Shortly after I replaced the CR2 battery, the light came on solid red for at least 12 hours and wasn't reporting the correct state. Since it was late at night and screwed into the wall, I figured I'd deal with it in the morning. The battery was already dead when I came back to it mid-morning the next day. When I replaced the battery AGAIN (mind you these CR2's run $10/2 pack at Target), I quickly noticed as metallic smell that was quickly followed by the sensor getting warm to the touch. I quickly removed the battery and contacted Amazon to exchange the device. The replacement sensor I was sure to configure it to use a wakeup interval of 21,600 (6 hours) instead of the default 3,600 (1 hour). Aeotec specifically mentions changing that wakeup period to 4 hours or greater in order to get the 3+ year advertised battery life. I also configured the LED to be disabled completely to further preserve battery life. It improved 75%!!!....from 8 days to 14 days >:( BTW, I checked the logs, and even the replacement sensor has the faulty 100% battery report issue.I'm about to try 1 more battery in this replacement sensor before I lose my gosh darn temper. THIS IS DEFINITELY NOT A "PLUG-AND-PLAY" DEVICE. FWIW I'm using the latest Zwave JS driver on the latest version of Home Assistant OS.

I'm using Home Assistant (HA), Z Wave JS, Zooz 700 controller. These recessed sensors have been amazing for me. Before HA, I used SmartThings in 2015 and I relied on Visonic zigbee door sensors. They ate batteries and would often lose connectivity. I migrated to HA and still experienced problems with the zigbee sensors despite having a very robust network of repeaters (30+ devices). I then tried going to the highly reviewed Aquara zigbee door sensors. I thought they would be the answer, on top of being just ~$12, they were lightning fast on state changes, never dropped a connection BUT the huge downside was battery life. In less than a month they were dropping below 70%.I decided to spend more than triple $$$ just for one of these z wave sensors. I was afraid the signal would be weak and in turn create battery and even heat issues in a recessed hole. These things are AWESOME. They are just as fast as the Aquara zigbee sensors, they've never lost connectivity, they are easy to program leds to visibly see them flash red when opening or closing, AND they sip battery. It's been over a month and they still read 100% on the tester.I went ahead and went all in on them for my remaining doors. As they say, "buy once, cry once."