THIRDREALITYZigbee Temperature and Humidity Sensor Lite,Smart Thermometer and Hygrometer, Hub Required,Compatible with Echo Devices with Zigbee Hub Built-in,Home Assistant,SmartThings,Homey,Hubitat

I have a fairly extensive smart home and have found Third Reality sensors to be reliable and affordable. These temperature/humidity sensors are fantastic; they provide accurate data and seem to have a fairly good battery life. The only only trade off for this sensor is that it is larger than some other zigbee sensors I have used, but this trade off comes with the advantage of using standard AAA batteries rather than a coin battery. Being able to use the stash of AAA batteries I have instead of having to order different sized coin batteries is a huge plus to me. Would definitely recommend to anyone with a zigbee network and prefer using more standard batteries rather than coin batteries, if size is an important factor you might find other options to be a bit better in that department.

I have a Home Assistant server running at my house that controls a variety of devices and services (e.g. lights, switches, valves, etc.) and wanted to add temperature sensing.My old sensors from a different brand used Bluetooth Low-Energy, but their short-range signal couldn't reach the server (I had to use their phone app, which was not ideal).I had previously installed a Zigbee mesh network for several devices, and adding these Zigbee sensors to that network was simple: tell the Zigbee coordinator to look for new devices, insert the batteries into the sensors (or push and hold the button in the sensor for 5 seconds to enter pairing mode), wait 30 seconds, and they're good to go. I use Zigbee Home Automation (ZHA) and it got them set perfectly.The measurements are accurate (they match reality, as determined by other sensors I've previously calibrated) and precise/consistent (the Third Reality sensors all agreed with each other within the specified accuracy).For testing purposes, I moved several of the sensors around to different areas of the house and after a few hours they realized that there was a closer Zigbee router with stronger signal and automatically switched to connect to that, better signal. Certain other brands of sensors like "lock on" to a single router and if that router ever goes offline or they lose signal from it they never try to find another router on the network. That's not an issue with these sensors.Pros:- Simple: there's one button to put the sensor in pairing mode, and an LED that flashes to indicate when it's in pairing mode.- Checks for better signal/routers and will switch as needed. (That is, it's a good member of the mesh network.)- Accurate temperature and humidity readings.- Reliable data transmission. With the exception of the few times I rebooted the server or disconnected the Zigbee coordinator for testing purposes, the data from the sensors has been reliably sent to the server without issue. Several sensors were within a few feet of a WiFi hotspot (WiFi can sometimes cause interference with Zigbee since they share the 2.4 GHz band) and worked without any problems.- Use standard AA batteries rather than costly coin cells.- In addition to sending temperature and humidity data, they also send their battery charge level. Setting up an alert in Home Assistant so one knows when to change the batteries is recommended.- Very power efficient. Two AAA batteries should give years of service.Cons:- No option to calibrate the sensor. (While the sensors on mine are accurate, it would be nice to have an option to send calibration commands to them to correct for any error.)- No loop or other means of mounting or hanging it somewhere. My Bluetooth-based sensors are hung from a short string in the air in their various locations so they only measure air temperature and aren't influenced by sitting on a shelf or something. These sensors don't have a hole for threading a string or lanyard.

Edit: I stand corrected! It appears that my connection issues previously mentioned were due to interference with the Zigbee hub antenna. After several changes in orientation, and position, signal levels and stability are greatly improved. If I had any other complaint, it would be that when a sensor loses connection, you have to phyisically go to the sensor to reconnect it. This may be more of a Zigbee thing rather than a device issue, but for several of my sensors, this is a real pain. Hopefully after the recent changes, this won't be a problem.Units connected easily and seemed to function well. Problem is that out of 6, 3 have lost connection at least once. After some "fiddling", they can be reconnected but very annoying. 2 of the 3 that lost connection are the closest ones to the Zigby antenna. One literally about 15ft away has lost connection twice. Firmware is at latest revision. 3 have had no issues but 50% reliability after a few weeks won't cut it.

Why did you pick this product vs others?:Nice bit of additional information to make your "smart" home even smarter! Worked right out of the box with existing Home Assistant Green hub fitted with a Sonoff Zigbee dongle. Temperature and humidity information easily used for heat and a/c automations. Literally pulled it out of the box and threw it on my deck.

I ordered a three pack of these sensors. I pulled the activation tab on one and it wasn't pairing after quite some time, so I gave up and unpackaged the others, pulling their activation tabs as well. Out of the three, none of these sensors paired even when placed within inches my Zigbee hub (which is happily running other sensors and switches without an issue right now, including other Thirdreality products). I tried addtional troubleshooting steps including removing batteries and checking their voltages, changing zigbee channels, etc. After an hour of troubleshooting the three sensors, I gave up and came here to report my findings. If you are running a Sonoff hub for Home Assistant, DO NOT buy this product.

Works good with Smartthings. Hooked up via Zigbee immediately. I joined the Third Reality Smartthings channel and downloaded the edge drivers from their channel to my hub first before pulling the tab on the batteries to initiate the pairing process. Then the sensor hooked right up to the correct new edge driver without any issues. Temperature matches within .2 F degrees of another non-smart good thermometer in the room so it looks to be accurate as well.

Immediately connected to homeassistant. Seems accurate, and excellent battery life.