Following on from my last article on new Meross devices (MS120 and MS700) here are the other two devices that arrived for me this week.Meross MS220 Smart Multi-function Door Sensor The MS220 is a neat if large door sensor but not like any door sensor I’ve seen to date.Like the other Meross devices here, the MS220 is not your usual WiFi, Zigbee or general RF sensor – it works on Bluetooth BLE.
Others may take you straight to the Meross APP and the recommendation to use a Meross HUB for these devices.Without the HUB you’re limited to the Bluetooth range between the device and your phone which is running the app.As you can imagine that’s not much fun.
Well I’ve gone a different route as you’ll see here – as I’m a home Assistant fan as you’ll see in the previous blog entry and recently discovered how easy it is to make BLE PROXIES – i.e.a VERY cheap and tiny USB-powered “relay” between Home Assistant in this case and the Bluetooth BLE device – i.e.the door sensor.
Th ESP-C3 is ideal for this – tiny – neat.I’ve yet to remove the pesky RED LED on my first proxies – not under software control – and totally pointless.Having quite an old 3D printer – I wish someone would make non-amateur-looking tiny boxes for the ESP32-C3 with USB-C out of one end – but of course at least in the EU, now they’ve introduced the rip-off tax against AliExpress and others, boxes for a couple of euros are off the menu.
I guess I should get a new printer.So, this time around I don’t even have my phone on for setup.I pulled the MS220 out of the box, inserted the supplied CR123a battery and with my tiny BLE proxy in the same room (my office) as the MS220 – and several rooms away from my Home Assistant box, I then opened my Chrome browser, Home Assistant integrations – MEROSS and went looking for the MS220 – that is, after pressing the little green button on the front of the latter to put it into pairing mode.
Seconds later – done – one MS220 inserted into Home Assistant and running.The MS220 comes with a little white magnet unit – and this should be place near the top with of the MS220 main unit – to show CLOSED.For most door sensors, that would be it – but not this one.
There is a large doorbell button on the front of the main unit.Press it and the device lets out a high pitched short beep and alerts Home Assistant.So I’m assuming (I HATE reading manuals) that this means the MS220 and it’s magnet should go on the OUTSIDE of the door – that’s unusual in itself, however the kit is waterproof.
Hah – I was about to say but what if the door is on the right and the door frame on the left? Turns out you can put the magnet on the top LEFT just as easily.Unusual and OK.You get adhesive pads for mounting both the MS220 and it’s magnet.
vibrating the MS220 sets off a slightly delayed vibration alert – both audible (loud) on the unit and back in Home Assistant – it also flashes the green light on the MS220 for a while.All of this is good up to now – the claim is for battery life of up to 3 years – clearly I can’t verify that.I really hope the claim is accurate as CR123a betteries are not cheap compared to the more usual CR2450 batteries popular in IOT devices.
Amazon (forever taking the mickey) charge 34 euros for a pack of 10 Duracell CR123A – that’s over 3 euros/dollars a battery or worse 4.29 for a pack of 2 VARTA CR123a.That’s just having a laugh.They also sell unbranded for maybe 2 Euros – but let’s compare this with CR2450 batteries which can be had for well under 50c.
There’s another feature on the MS220 – a button – I’ve yet to figure out what that does but I think that’ll come to me.Up to now, I like this device.You could of course go down the route of using the MS220 with the Meross app and their HUB (which I also have) to gain access to BT devices like this from anywhere and that’s fine – no doubt others will cover that in depth.
That is probably the best route if you have a house full of Meross kit but I have Aqara, Sonoff, Meross and countless devices from other manufacturers – if I were to go down the route of using their hubs – I’d have more hubs than devices Anyway I wrote about this in the last blog entry but the MEROSS integration (not the MEROSS WIFI integration which I also use) caters for all their new devices and is SO easy to install and use in Home Assistant.Good job.While I ponder what that “button” conrtol is for, lets take a quick look at the last item from the current mailbox… Meross MS220 Smart Multi-function Door Sensor The sensor beeps when you touch the main ensor area and underneath there are two short pins to which you can attach that lead with the extension sensor (though I think I’ll cover the connectors with silicon to be safe).
This device is similar looks-wise to the others in the range and has it’s own beeper as well as exposing sensors to Home Assistant when set up as I did the previous device.Ah and it seems to have a low-temperature sensor.Good.
The two connectors underneath that attach to that separate sensor are for water-leak detection – separate from the rain detector.Good gadget provided those sensor tracks don’t corrode – only time willl tell.All-in a good set of BLE devices!
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