AEOTEC ZWave temperature, humidity, dew point sensor: aërQ, wireless, battery powered, SmartThings sensor, Z-Wave Plus, Z-Wave hub required

To start out, I'm totally blind. I had high hope for this sensor when reading the information on it.When I got the sensor, the sensor has only one button on it. This is the front of the sensor. The sensor is square for the most part. You need to pop off the square front face plait to be able to get to the battery. You must lift out the electronics and then you can pull out the battery tab to power up the sensor. Note! While you have the electronics out of the housing. This is where you need a sighted person to look in the case to be able to read the pen code. This you will need as part of the process to set it up. Yeh it is inside the case down in the corner of it.Now I initially tried setting up the sensor on my own without knowing about the pen code. A lot of sensors you can tell them to ignore secure setup and they'll work. But not this one. Basically, you need to press the button 3 times quickly on the front of the sensor to put it in discovery mode. Make sure your phone and the SmartThings hub is scanning for devices first. When it found the sensor at some point is when I was giving the option to scan for the QR code or enter the pen code. Tried the QR code but not knowing where the code was, couldn't get it to work. Even knowing the placement of the QR code still couldn't get it to work. Looks like you need to get the code within some lines on the screen that a totally blind person would have trouble with. So I told it to ignore secure setup. The only thing that worked at that point was battery status and mold sensing. I gave it a few hours and nothing changed. It showed up as a ZWave mold detector but nothing else worked. Ended up taking it off line. At that point, I was able to find where the LED is in order to do an full reset on it. As far as I can tell, the button is the LED.Next I tried taking it over to a friends house and had them give me the pen code that was inside of the case. Tried setting it up again. Now I got the Mold, Humidity, Dewpoint, temperature and battery. Leaving the sensor running for an hour, notice none of the values changed. The description says it will update every 15 minutes. That doesn't look to be the case if the information doesn't change much at all. Left it over night. Looks like it may update 2 or 3 times in a day if the information doesn't change much. Stuck it on top of my AC vent to see if information would change that away better. Yep that did it. The information would update more better like in a 15 minute time frame. But still not good. So even if the information changes by a lot, it will not update at all unless it has been 15 minutes.Next tried seeing what information if any I could get through Alexa. The only thing you can get is the last reported temperature from the sensor. I was hoping for Dewpoint. Already knew that humidity wouldn't be reported by Alexa doesn't see that at all.As far as Alexa routines, you cannot use this sensor at all.So for me, this sensor is going back. Poor updates on status as far as information. I want it to update when temperature changes over .5, humidity changes over .3 and so on. The description says it will do that but leaves out the fact it has to be over 15 minutes at least.

I started using the ZWA009 version of these sensors to monitor my 3d printing filament dry boxes.What was great about them was that they measured all the way down to 0% humidity. I verified this against other sensors. The low end of humidity is what is of interest to my use case.But about 1 in 4 of the ZWA009 sensors had a problem reporting battery level correctly. I demonstrated this to the Aeotec tech support, and they sent me replacement sensors. Very pleased with that.Battery life has been between 350 and 680 days on these devices, which is OK by me.Then Aeotec redesigned the sensor and made the ZWA039 version.The battery reporting problem seems to have been fixed, but the new devices no longer report humidity all the way down to 0%. They match my other sensors down to 8 or 9%, then stick there while my other sensors continue down to 0%. I contacted tech support, and they verified that they are using a different humidity sensor in the ZWA039 version.So these sensors no longer meet my need, and I am currently testing the Zooz ZSE44 as a replacement.

I can not suggest it as it kept having issues reporting the numbers that were needed to control other items. had to send back and got a Aeotec multisensor 6 in 1 and have not had any issues with that device.

If you need the super long battery life but don't need quick update intervals, then this may be a good choice for you. I initially had a very difficult time getting this device paired with my Z-Wave network. Instructions said it would just pair itself upon battery insertion but this is not true. I had to dig into the user manual to figure out that 3 quick taps of the front button are needed to put it into pairing mode. The inclusion/discovery process was simple and quick once I learned the need to triple-tap -- too bad the instructions never mentioned it. My application is to turn on heaters in the dog house when the temperature drops below 50°F (I'm using SmartThings and a Z-Wave network). This sensor is compatible but last night the temperature dropped 4.1°F over a period of nearly 7 hours without a single temperature report in between. My dogs could have potentially been too cold for 6 hours last night. This sensor was $40 but I also own 2 of another brand that cost $30 and report any temperature change of 0.1°F in 5 minutes. I'm sure the battery won't last as long but that is less important than the health of my dogs.

As far as the sensor functions go, the device is fine. Temperature and humidity readings are accurate, and the mold growth conditions calculation is probably fine, as it derivative of the readings. The problems begin when the factory-installed battery runs out. I use the sensor with Samsung's SmartThings and the SmartThings client shows device alerts on its main screen, which is fine, but after I have replaced the battery, the sensor hasn't noticed and it keeps reporting that less that 15% of the change is left. Which is really annoying.The manufacturer has a web site, and on the web site the only support option is to send them an e-mail with an invoice and description of the problem; which I did a couple of times only to receive a message that the e-mail couldn't be delivered after of a few days of waiting.If you want to throw the sensor away after it will have drained its first battery - go ahead, it is an accurate sensor. If you plan to use it longer than those several months (probably 6 or 8 months, depending on how many readings your software will request) - you won't get an accurate battery status.