28:44 Agreed! I have the night light turn on red when the garage door is open. I also use the illuminance sensor to control the lights in my living room, so that on cloudy or rainy days, the lights turn on earlier than the normal “turn on at sunset” automation. Plus they work fantastically as a simple night light too.
These are great products. Other than light bulbs, all my devices on Home Assistant are Third Reality. They are cheap, reliable and I personally like that these use AAA batteries instead of coin batteries.
I have the motion sensor and the night light. They work really well overall. My main complaint would be that there are not enough ways to tweak the cooldowns. The night light will also has a local mode that will make it function as a normal night light if it hasn't received a command after 12 hours. That I like. I plan on trying their whole line of devices except for the door sensors. I like those to be as small as possible.
I like third reality plugs, however, they will not trigger quickly. If you try to turn them on and off very quickly, they get confused whether they are on or off. If you give it a two second delay between the on in the office, you’re OK. I wish they’d fix that in the firmware. Thanks for reviewing all this for us.
Are the door/wimdow sensors and motion sensors rated for use outside? I want to use a door/window sensor in my mailbox to let me know when mail is delivered, and the motion sensor to notify me if someone is on my front porch /doorstep.
While it would work if the device is inside, if door/window sensor is left outside on rain, it would brake. Also, if you're putting it inside mailbox, made out of metal, that would block signal unfortunately. As for motion sensor, it should work outdoors, but it must be protected out from the rain as it's not water proof.
How quickly/frequent does the power plug report power consumption? Does it report changes almost immediately or does it take a couple of seconds for the sensors to update?
It's close to 1 second, I wasn't able to measure it very precisely. For example, I turn it on in HA and in around 1-1.5 second I have update of power consumption. But also this includes time to trigger the switch in plug too.
I can confirm that it's about one second. I've got 16 of the ThirdReality smart plugs and I also have an Emporia Vue 2 energy monitor with CTs connected to all of the circuits in my circuit breaker panel/load center. They're also very accurate. I bought them primarily to use as Zigbee repeaters to strengthen my mesh network in Home Assistant and they are far superior to the Sonoff Zigbee smart plugs.
Ooh, that's nice. 👍🏻 Still waiting to see how the upcoming IKEA energy measuring plugs are going to perform and cost. But these have definitely moved to the very top of my list.
BTW, is there a coil whine when the plug is in use? A lot of other plugs, especially many Tuya, have this issue. This can get really annoying if you use them in the bedroom.
You can hear it clicking when you power it on/off. Comparing to Shelly it's similar or just a fraction louder. But I don't hear the coil inside when device is powered and under load.
I got a 4 pack of plugs with PM, to extend my zigbee network, but ZHA says they have a terrible connection to my coordinator unless they are right next to it. Once they aren't in the room, it's awful in the visualization. But my other zigbee devices seem to have much better connections at comparable distances.
I haven't seen issue with 2 plugs I have - they work great through floor with reinforced concrete. Are end devices slowly moving to them or not and can you control them or are they not responsive? Those are the main questions. Map is good for visualisation, but actually doesn't represent anything if it shows bad signal and everything is working, or if signal is good in map, but devices are not reacting.
@BeardedTinker battery-powered (aqara sensor) end devices connected to them would be less responsive and more likely to drop out than when they were connected to vindstyrka AQ sensor. Ikea sensors show incredible connection and aqara motion sensor seems to pick me up more accurately.
You can get rechargeable coin cell batteries. I use them for most of my devices. The problem is occasionally you get a device that will just not work with rechargeable batteries, whereas with AAA I can’t think of an example I could not just replace them. Actually just thought of one, but it’s rare. The Google Nest Protect Smoke alarm insists on lithium non-rechargeable, but I wonder how the Lithium Ion one’s pretending to be AAA would get on. I would suggest getting a rechargeable coin cell charger and some batteries, but just remember some devices will just refuse to work. Sometimes the same sensor from the same company will work or not despite no observable differences so I can’t suggest devices that don’t work as I also have an example that does.
28:44 Agreed! I have the night light turn on red when the garage door is open. I also use the illuminance sensor to control the lights in my living room, so that on cloudy or rainy days, the lights turn on earlier than the normal “turn on at sunset” automation. Plus they work fantastically as a simple night light too.
That's really great use case! Yeah, was a bit sceptical really when device arrived, but it ended up being more than I though of it.
Using the door, plug and motion sensors with no issues, ZHA. Great pricing also.
Thanks for sharing
Thirtdreality are doing it well by using AAA batteries. I am shifting my hardware to them. Thank you Thirdreality!
These are great products. Other than light bulbs, all my devices on Home Assistant are Third Reality. They are cheap, reliable and I personally like that these use AAA batteries instead of coin batteries.
That's great to hear!
I have the motion sensor and the night light. They work really well overall. My main complaint would be that there are not enough ways to tweak the cooldowns. The night light will also has a local mode that will make it function as a normal night light if it hasn't received a command after 12 hours. That I like. I plan on trying their whole line of devices except for the door sensors. I like those to be as small as possible.
I like third reality plugs, however, they will not trigger quickly. If you try to turn them on and off very quickly, they get confused whether they are on or off. If you give it a two second delay between the on in the office, you’re OK. I wish they’d fix that in the firmware. Thanks for reviewing all this for us.
Those sensors are great. Thanks for the roundup.
Glad you like them!
Are the door/wimdow sensors and motion sensors rated for use outside? I want to use a door/window sensor in my mailbox to let me know when mail is delivered, and the motion sensor to notify me if someone is on my front porch /doorstep.
While it would work if the device is inside, if door/window sensor is left outside on rain, it would brake. Also, if you're putting it inside mailbox, made out of metal, that would block signal unfortunately.
As for motion sensor, it should work outdoors, but it must be protected out from the rain as it's not water proof.
Thanks
26:20 ... can this be the position of an internal switch in the device?
I don't think so - this one doesn't have it from what I've seen...
I like that they ship to my country for a reasonable charge :)
Yeah, shipping... That's always a problem unfortunately.
I must point ou that smart power socket is definitely not made by them. It's an OEM device. Ali is full of these with all sorts of different names.
The sensor are *huge* 😄
Yeah, they are very big... For motion sensor and button/switch, it's ok, but others are pretty big.
How quickly/frequent does the power plug report power consumption? Does it report changes almost immediately or does it take a couple of seconds for the sensors to update?
It's close to 1 second, I wasn't able to measure it very precisely.
For example, I turn it on in HA and in around 1-1.5 second I have update of power consumption. But also this includes time to trigger the switch in plug too.
I can confirm that it's about one second. I've got 16 of the ThirdReality smart plugs and I also have an Emporia Vue 2 energy monitor with CTs connected to all of the circuits in my circuit breaker panel/load center. They're also very accurate. I bought them primarily to use as Zigbee repeaters to strengthen my mesh network in Home Assistant and they are far superior to the Sonoff Zigbee smart plugs.
Ooh, that's nice. 👍🏻 Still waiting to see how the upcoming IKEA energy measuring plugs are going to perform and cost.
But these have definitely moved to the very top of my list.
BTW, is there a coil whine when the plug is in use? A lot of other plugs, especially many Tuya, have this issue. This can get really annoying if you use them in the bedroom.
You can hear it clicking when you power it on/off. Comparing to Shelly it's similar or just a fraction louder. But I don't hear the coil inside when device is powered and under load.
I got a 4 pack of plugs with PM, to extend my zigbee network, but ZHA says they have a terrible connection to my coordinator unless they are right next to it. Once they aren't in the room, it's awful in the visualization.
But my other zigbee devices seem to have much better connections at comparable distances.
I haven't seen issue with 2 plugs I have - they work great through floor with reinforced concrete. Are end devices slowly moving to them or not and can you control them or are they not responsive? Those are the main questions.
Map is good for visualisation, but actually doesn't represent anything if it shows bad signal and everything is working, or if signal is good in map, but devices are not reacting.
@BeardedTinker battery-powered (aqara sensor) end devices connected to them would be less responsive and more likely to drop out than when they were connected to vindstyrka AQ sensor.
Ikea sensors show incredible connection and aqara motion sensor seems to pick me up more accurately.
Hi, great product review! Did you test night light in kids room? Is it any good at night?
Looks nice shame no UK version of smart plug 😥
Time for the UK to adopt international standards :-)
You can get rechargeable coin cell batteries. I use them for most of my devices. The problem is occasionally you get a device that will just not work with rechargeable batteries, whereas with AAA I can’t think of an example I could not just replace them. Actually just thought of one, but it’s rare. The Google Nest Protect Smoke alarm insists on lithium non-rechargeable, but I wonder how the Lithium Ion one’s pretending to be AAA would get on. I would suggest getting a rechargeable coin cell charger and some batteries, but just remember some devices will just refuse to work. Sometimes the same sensor from the same company will work or not despite no observable differences so I can’t suggest devices that don’t work as I also have an example that does.
Would like some more UK compatible kit, it looks decent.
nice green hair 😀
I meant to say on and off not on in the office.
You can get reachablel coin battery