More from Sonoff – SNZB-06P Zigbee Human Presence Sensor

This is my initial writeup also the follow-up on the brand-new SNZB-06P Presense Sensor whose box says “Microwave Radar”, “Presence Detection”, “Light Sensing” and “Intelligent Linkage” – not sure what that last one is about… maybe causing an action on another device…

The device was made available October 5, 2023 and I have one in my hands…

And for the sake of it, here’s the box…

Yes that’s a magnetic base which then sticks to a wall etc. with either the adhesive pad supplied, or the rawlplugs and screws provided. The actual device is held in place magnetically and is USB-C powered. Convenient and also unusual as most such sensors run on rather large disposable button batteries (CR2450 for example) … in this case, no rechargeable battery inside – it really does work on USB. ODD but then it doesn’t need battery replacements regularly – that’s a plus..

What I don’t understand is the power requirement notice on the side of the unit – 5V@1A. My handy desktop USB supply already has a camera on it and the PSU display shows 0.6A consumption – plug in the SNZB-06P and NO discernable difference in the display. Maybe that’s a short peak requirement.

So, I plugged the SNZB-06P into a handy USB supply and the red light on the side started flashing, maybe one cycle a second. Of Course I wanted it working with Zigbee2MQTT – but as it is so new, at first I figured there’d be no chance of it working yet with Zigbee2MQTT. Other Sonoff Zigbee devices work with Zigbee2MQTT.

So I first I tried adding the sensor to the Sonoff NSPANEL Pro – which decided it MUST update itself right now… probably because of the release of the new device. One cup of coffee later I tried again…

ADD DEVICE – START PAIRING – nothing. But of course, by then the ZNZB-06P had run out of patience thanks to waiting for the update to complete – and had stopped flashing – so I took out the USB-C lead, put it back in and tried again. Seconds later – “One new device – PERSON SENSOR”.

“Today’s log – 15:38 – Person Present” – I went back to the eWeLink APP and sure enough – same info. I like this already. And now, after leaving the living room for a moment and returning – MORE.

Firmware is up to date it seems – v1.0.3 and you can determine sensitivity and duration before the sensor declares the person is no longer there. You can also select push notifications. Update Jan 5, 2024 – Firmware is OTA updating – anyone know why it would take 41 minutes? (That’s what Zigbee2MQTT is saying. Ah, 20 of thos minutes just passed in about a minute, so maybe not).

Time will tell if it treats my cats as people – I have some so-called AI cameras which treat passing moths as people – but so far, so good. Works as advertised – what more could you want.

Let’s have a look at the log page in the NSPanel Pro – identical to (but prettier than) the logs in the eWeLink APP.

At this point I have no idea how much the sensor will cost, but for now, it looks well made and although I was initially bemused by lack of batteries, thinking about it, the batteries rarely last as long as people claim – so maybe…

This should also act as a Zigbee router as it is powered. See further down for clarification – the Zigbee2MQTT MAP.

I put the unit away in the box without power and… hmm, NSPanel Pro still says “Person present” – possibly “Not turned on” would have been nice? In the eWeLink APP, still lit up minutes later like it’s still working.. Other powered Sonoff devices show up in grey as OFFLINE. Weird. Sonoff (Itead) are you reading this?

Is the Sonoff unit my first dip into movement sensors? Hell no – see the iHORN LH-961ZB left- very similar in looks except it is running on a CR2450 battery and I have to say that battery is down to 2.8v after only a few months… it is also one of the few iHORN sensors which run on Zigbee2MQTT. But I digress…

I also have several Aqara P1 motion sensors also running on Zigbee2MQTT (one in the living room detecting movement to turn off our Echo Show when no-one is around) – more traditional looks – their CR2450 batteries are doing just fine.

And this morning thanks to an observant subscriber who note that I had a letter incorrect in the title of this entry and suggested that Zigbee2MQTT just did another update 2 days ago, I’ve now set up the ZNZB-06P to work with my preferred Zigbee2MQTT on my RPi4 (Raspberry Pi).

Now if anyone knows what to put in that Zigbee2MQTT OCCUPANCY setting to store history I’d appreciate feedback. I noted an example “10,60” except you can’t enter 2 comma-separated figures in that field as far as I can see.

Ah, but.. that info is easily captured in the Node-Red Zigbee node as I’ve just realised. It doesn’t record any times but again they can be extracted from the MQTT reading.. Here’s my first test:

So…node-red-contrib-zigbee2mqtt – the input node… msg.payload…

Finally, the Zigbee2MQTT MAP showing the ZNZB-06P as a ROUTER.

and as you likely can’t read the text on above image.. here it is… items with blue lines are usually powered devices which then act as Zigbee routers (mesh repeaters) as against battery powered devices (green) which for obvious reasons don’t.

Early days for sure, the online manual for the ZNZB-06P is very preliminary at this point – but intriguing anyway – they state “SNZB-06P is a human-presence sensor based on 5.8G microwave technology, which realizes the human-presence sensing function by actively detecting ambient motion and human breath. It effectively avoids the embarrassing scene where the light automatically off when people are on the spot, making your home life smarter”. Now that IS interesting – detecting ambient motion and BREATH? REALLY?

For installation, the online info refers to “other” gateways than their own including their own Zigbee dongles – but neglects to mention the (to me anyway) important Zigbee2MQTT software which of course enables Zigbee devices from various manufacturers to work together. Yes, we know the Zigbee 3.0 standard is supposed to enable this but in the real world, Sonoff support software is focussed mainly on Sonoff devices, the Aqara APP does the same etc… hence my preference for using Zigbee2MQTT on a Raspberry Pi and using the Sonoff USB dongle (at a distance from the RPi) – all managed by Node-Red (not to mention a miriad of other IOT-related jobs the Pi handles with ease). Anyway, you have the online manual link above.

Time will tell if that USB lead proves to be a blessing or a curse.