Zooz 800 Series Z-Wave Long Range S2 Motion Sensor ZSE18 800LR with Magnetic Mount, Works with Z-Box, Hubitat, and Home Assistant

OK, over the last 12 years I've gone a bit crazy in installing smart home devices. Over 200 devices total at 2 locations. And, as my oldest motion detectors started to get flaky, went looking for replacements. The various Hubitat discussion and community groups I follow consistently recommended these sensors, even seeing them referred to as "the gold standard." So, past couple of years, I have been transitioning over. Long ways to go but now have 6 Zooz 800 series sensors. Several have been in service for two years or so, and have not had to replace a battery yet. All are outside, albeit in locations sheltered from direct rain or sun. Easy inclusion with my Hubitat 8 Pro hub. I used "smartstart": devices --> add device --> z-wave --> smartstart --> Scan QR. Allow Hubitat to access your camera and scan the QR code located inside sensor, give the device a name, and wait a few beats for the hub to find it. Done. No problems with dropped connectivity. And sensitivity is fine for my purposes. Initially seemed a little spendy but I've found them worth it considering their quality.

I have a few of these motion sensors now that I use with Home Assistant. I use them to automate my bathroom lighting and entry way lights. In most cases, I have them operating Lutron Caseta smart switches, but also tied in a wifi plug for an LED strip. This is just a really nice "quality of life" thing to have. These units can operate as either a basic motion sensor or as a motion sensor and a z-wave repeater. The instructions on how to join them to your network as a basic motion sensor are provided in the supplied manual. I noticed my units weren't repeating and learned that I had to join them in a slightly different way to get that. (Press & hold button for 5 seconds for repeater mode, press 3x for basic motion sensor.) If you want to use them as a repeater, it's absolutely necessary to use USB power as it will kill your batteries quick. I haven't used battery operated mode, I bought these specifically because they used USB power. My units came with the CR123 battery, I think older models may have used a different battery. This is generally good for longer lifespans. Unfortunately for you, I haven't tested it much so I can't really offer much insight into battery life. I really dig the magnetic mount, it's so useful! In both my bathrooms, I was able to mount them on my vanity, which was fairly unobtrusive & discrete, as opposed to mounting to sheetrock. There's a fair bit of flexibility in the sensor's general direction too, thanks to the creative cup-like mount. The size is quite satisfying, I don't think "gawd that huge sensor" at all. I've had issues here and there with my z-wave network, but these have generally been reliable. As for cons? They aren't pet immune, my cats will frequently trigger the lighting when they enter the room. I also wish it had USB-C instead of micro-USB, I just find USB-C more physically reliable. (That said, this device will see infrequent plugins so it's less of a concern I guess.) I also found them slightly slower when I had them in regular motion sensor mode, but as a repeater they are almost instantaneous. (We're talking sub-second in both cases, though.) I do sort of wish they had a multi-sensor (i.e. temp, humidity, light, motion) in the same form factor as it might have saved me another sensor that I needed. On the other hand, having another sensor closer to the shower (for humidity detection) has also been beneficial. I've heard rumors that future firmware updates may add light detection capabilities, but that hasn't yet been confirmed. Overall, I'm glad that I've invested into this particular model. It has some unique things that you just won't find in other competing sensors. Zooz support is pretty good and they are active in the home automation community. It's always good to see a US based support system, too. Overall, I think this motion sensor should be up for your consideration!

Setting this sensor up with my Vera Secure was painless -- I added it as a Generic Zwave device and it was paired with no troubles. It creates two devices, one for the motion sensing function, and one parent device with which you can set the device parameters. The device is less sensitive than I expected. I'm using it in my kitchen as part of a motion controlled lights on/off setup, so I needed it to trigger no more than about 10 feet or so from where the sensor is. It didn't work reliably at all at the default sensitivity setting of 4, and I had to crank it up to the maximum value of 8 to get it to work for my case. My only "mild complaint" was that the battery was tightly shrink-wrapped in plastic. This "old guy" thinks that it should be a requirement to be arthritic in order for one to be allowed to design packaging! I really like the magnetic mount concept -- it's really flexible and easy to adjust. But in order to make it magnetic, the the sensor "ball" has a hemisphere of metal on the inside of the plastic cover. It makes me wonder if that affects the range of the Zwave signal or at least makes the antenna pattern very directional. I have not seen any signal reception problems though.

Updated Review: Well I moved this sensor from the office to the kitchen where there is a lot more traffic. The battery died within a month. I got a new battery and that one went down 30% in a couple of weeks. So I decided to buy a long cable and plug it in. Since then it has been great. I'm assuming the extra traffic made the battery die more quickly. So in high traffic areas I would highly recommend plugging it in otherwise you will be going through a lot of batteries. Original Review: I have this connected to my Hubitat hub. Connected without issues. The magnetic base makes it very easy to mount and position how you want it. It detects motion very well (my hand moving, cracking open the door 2 inches and the door is beneath it), however I did have to put the sensor on the max sensitivity level for it to be able to detect motion accurately. I have it monitoring a small 11x11 room. I've had it for almost 2 months and the battery is at 80%. I love that you can also plug it into power using a micro-usb and have it also act as a Z-Wave repeater. We've had 1 false positive in those 2 months. Overall I am very happy with it and it has done a great job.

I purchased 2 of these and one works flawlessly and the other works for about 2 days and tanks the battery. I’ve sent the bad one back and got another one from them in a beat up box without all the mounting parts and it did the same thing. I’m giving a 1 star review because I did NOT receive a new one, I received a crappy used one that worked for a couple of days. I’m going to return it again and see what they send back next. If they send another crappy one I’ll move on to another brand. I would buy these for the rest of my house and recommend them, but not if this is what happens when there’s a problem.

These sensors are very easy to add to z-wave controller and work great. I really really like the mounting and pointing facility; magnetic ball socket, makes it very easy for correct/desired detection.

After three attempts, each detecting the motion sensor as a switch (like a door sensor), I went into the "Groovy" PC app and set it as a motion detector. That seemed to fix the problem, but I downloaded and installed zooz-motion-sensor-zse18.groovy and published it. This allowed the motion sensor sensitivity to be adjusted, although the "acceleration sensor" and "tamper alert" still have the "no cloud" icon. Since it is doing what I bought it for now, these functions don't matter. I don't know if my problems with Zooz (I also have the outdoor motion sensor) are due to the 1st generation Smartthings hub, or something else. Other Z-wave devices have registered no problem, it seems that I have to fiddle with these devices to get them to work. Once they are configured and working there is no further problem, however. I suspect that non-technical people would have difficulty with this unit, I just happened to have the developer app on my PC that allowed me to fix it. As others have reported, this ZSE18 kills the CR123A battery in a couple of days. I also noticed that it seemed to stay in a continuous "motion" status on my Smartthings app. I have tried another "factory reset" and made sure that it is in the "battery" mode, not the "USB powered" mode by pressing the button 3 quick times. I connected it to a bench power supply and noticed a very brief 50mA spike, followed by about a 5mA draw for a few seconds. After that the idle current is about 30uA (microamps). This last time it seems to be working properly. I did have a problem where it was continuously reporting "motion", even though it actually was at the low current draw. If this 3x button trick doesn't work, I am going to replace this with another brand (that I already know works).

Simple device and works reliably. It's design is actually kind of cool and is unobstrusive, people really don't notice it. It's not rated for outdoor use but I have it mounted on our front porch facing towards the guest house door and out the side of the porch to the far side of the house. Sensitivity turned up all the way so it senses movement when people leave turning flood lights on after sunset and before sunrise and it will catch some movement outside of the porch area if someone approaches. It is under the porch roof so it's well protected from the elements and we live in SC so it gets cold but rarely below 20 degrees. Have not broken 28 degrees yet, curious to see how it will work on those rare 10-15 degree days we get every few years. Range is limited outside of the porch since it's partially blocked by the roof and handrails.

Fantastic! Works like a charm…