After all the nice things I said about the last two IoTorero products, this one I’m afraid is not doing quite so well for me.Firstly no product ID, instead, just the long name “IoTorero Door Sensor, Temperature Sensor, Humidity Sensor.That alone is too long for a blog title….
but I’m being facetious.The real problem is pairing – I just couldn’t manage it at first and I’ve paired MANY, MANY devices over the years.The device is paired into Home Assistant by Bluetooth integration or Bluetooth proxy – well I have both.
I can’t be sure but I think the only outstanding BT device (below left) is from another IoTorero product I reviewed earlier this week – I wasn’t interested in the BT angle so left it sitting there on the setup (it’s now magically disappeared but read on).This new (no product name that I can find) door sensor device has a tiny manual who’s text I can only see with my phone camera on magnify….and it seems to show a similar screen to that on the left but with a completely different sensor number – and that BTHome sensor stayed put on my HA screen long after I took the batteries out of this device so obviously nothing to do with IoTorero.
To be clear I tried rechargeable batteries as I’m all out of alkaline AAA batteries so it’s possible therein lay a problem? Step 2 in the “manual” says to key in a tiny 32 digit hexadecimal key and I could not convince my Samsung S24 Ultra to scan that in so I could copy/paste to my PC to enter the value should the opportunity arise.So firstly the company should perhaps have either supplied batteries or at least specified whether or not the device would start up on re-chargeables and secondly – expecting a user to manually type in an unformatted 32-digit number from a phone screen without risking a mistake is I think a step too far.I know the unit is doing SOMETHING as pressing the tiny button on the back brings up a sadly off-centre blue light (behind a hole in the front) which is easy to miss..
but that’s what you get.I was sent two of these and both manuals stated “BTHome Sensor 5fe8”.On connecting the second device (temporarily) using my remote control’s AA batteries, my Home Assistant screen “integrations” screen (not “devices” screen) eventually showed “IoTorero Sensor 5ec7”.
Progress – kind of.I hit ADD and was asked for the 32 character hexadecimal bind key.After several attempts (some spacing would have helped immensely) I got it and added the device to HA, then started back on the original device with the AAA batteries this time.
Now, “IoTorero Sensor 6099” appeared as a new integration.I saved it as “IoTorero sensor door temp hum 2”.Here’s the HA entry..
Note in the diagnostic section below, signal strength is disabled by default, presumably to save power.As I moved the included magnet towards and away from the sensor, the door sensor changed from open to closed and vice versa.That display updated immediately on change.
If I removed the batteries with the unit showing OPEN (for example), the readout stayed on open for some time – like several minutes – I got sick of waiting for it to go to unavailable (the other unit, now boxed with no batteries, says unavailable but I’ve no idea how long it took to get to that state).Ok, so, after hitting screen refresh on the device and typing the above, the door sensor still said “open”.I’m going to go make coffee.
I’m back – sensors say unavailable – better late than never….I’m guessing that’s down to default polling period in HA in the absence of change.In the end I closed down the HA screen and went to put some firelighters on the stove – when I returned and pulled up HA again, both units which by now had been sitting for at least 5 minutes without batteries, reported 0% battery but NOT unavailable.
Something inconsistent here but I can’t put my finger on it.I typed and checked that last paragraph then checked again, still 0%, 0 degrees etc but still not “unavailable”.I got sick of waiting and put in the re-chargeables into the one unit still unboxed.
While getting ready to do that I noticed one unit now said “unavailable” at last.I tried the re-chargeables in the unit that still showed open (but 0, 0, 0 and 0) (centre image above), perfect operation immediately – so I guess pairing is the only time that lower voltage batteries are an issue.The unit in the 2nd image above was showing open – 0% etc until I put in the rechargeable batteries in place, no change showed UNTIL I moved the magnet close – at which point the door status changed to closed, and magically humidity, temperature, voltage, and battery all came to life (rightmost image above).
Note that with somewhat charged rechargeable batteries, the battery diagnostic showed 52% – I can’t argue with that, but I can argue with the voltage reading of 3v, which is utter nonsense.My accurate meter showed the batteries in place to total 2.55v, which is kind of what you’d expect.1.2 Volt rechargeable are somewhat above fully charged for the pair, so 2.55 volts sounds about right – but 3v as indicated in HA is definitely out, so I I think we can ignore that voltage reading.
After all of that – the units work – but perhaps if the company made a few changes to the “manual” to show what to expect and to make that 32-digit encryption code more user-friendly (larger size digits – groups of 2 or 4 digits) the new-user experience could be improved.A product ID would also help – some info on what that 3v means (actual voltage – in which case it is wrong – or nominal voltage which makes it a bit useless) and right now, given that Ikea are at this moment announcing that their new IOT product range will be equally at home with alkaline and rechargeable batteries, this would be a great time to minimise confusion.Overall, operation seems ok – but that initial setup would have had me pulling my hair out if I had any.
