Firstly I’m going to check out the NOUS Door/Window Sensor E3 Immediately a nice-looking device – runs on Zigbee and I have of course used Zigbee2MQTT though NOUS no doubt have their own Zigbee hub.I’ve found Zigbee2MQTT running in Home Assistant to be very reliable – so that’s my starting point.I opened the very colourful box to find the NOUS device, magnet unit for the door or doorframe – and the realisation that this device uses another battery I’ve never used….
a CR2 – BUT they CLAIM up to 5 years life.Good start.I noted a small RESET button on the bottom of the device (and a blue LED visible from the front) – so no tools needed – anyway I could not resist having a look at the battery and the unit comes apart by hand only – no need for even a screwdriver.
I took off the protective shipping tab attached to the battery and held the reset button in for 10 seconds after which I added the device to my Zigbee network – it joined quickly with another of those utterly unreadable long numbers which I quickly replaced with the name nous-door-e3-1 (my choice).The device exposes open/closed status, battery percentage and voltage.Simple enough.
If the battery life is anywhere near what they claim – happy – if not – look back in here in X years time And here is the device in Zigbee2MQTT on my Windows PC in Chrome (Zigbee2MQTT and Home Assistant are operating on a small mini-pc).Finally the information the device exposes… Now the Nous Water Leakage Sensor E4 This Zigbee2MQTT device nearly caught me out as I could not find a reset button to pair it with Zigbee2MQTT – not until I realised what appeared to be just a logo on the front was actually a touch-area which responded to a little pressure.On closing and pressing that “button” area while having Zigbee2MQTT set to accept new devices, the sensor immediately paired with Zigbee2MQTT to expose the following: I believe this is the smallest, neatest leakage sensor I’ve come across to date.
I’m not sure about the battery life claim of 3 years but time will tell.Sonoff’s SNZB-05P comes in second for size but is not quite as easy for battery change – the Sonoff uses the more expensive CR2477 battery.
