Have a look at my other Apollo blog entries – this is the latest device – read what it says on their website.
Original blog entry June 2025 – see September updates at the end…
Sorry – I just had to steal that promo from their website and no they don’t pay me or even ask for good reviews – so I as you may know from the blog, I have other Apollo presence and movement sensors – and of all the sensors I’ve been sent have proven to be excellent – all the way back to the Air-1 which checks all aspects or air quality 24-7 and has for months .
The Apollo R Pro-1 is their latest offering and I suspect all their devices are all small to medium batch production as all their cases are 3D printed – so maybe not as slick-looking as some Chinese stuff – but hey – they PERFORM – that’s the important thing.
I long ago gave up on the various types of simple movement sensors… put one in front of you, sit at a desk and stay still long enough to watch a YouTube video or browse AI information, whatever – and… no movement of course so they fail to detect you. Apollo sensors have presence AND movement detection and so don’t fall into that trap.
The combination of movement and presence in their existing devices has worked 100% for months now. Thanks to their ESP-HOME code and Home Assistant integration, my office knows for sure if I’m there or not (controlling a shedload of lights, PC monitors, aircon etc).
If I leave for over 15 minutes (my choice) the lot turns off. As soon as I come anywhere near my desk, it all comes back up – not one false reading since I started. Even 3 awkward cats have failed collectively to trigger the sensors on the MSR-2 or MTR-1.
So as I write this I’ve only just opened the box so we’re on a journey together – no instructions, nothing…
I won’t go through the whole unwrapping – all their stuff always arrives well packed. As you see above left, the branding is on the outer packaging. Enough waffle – you get the sensor unit in its 3-printed housing – bench mount, ceiling mount and some assorted clips. The sensor runs on USB-C (power supply not included).
To quote Apollo – “This versatile sensor supports true PoE (802.3 compliant) and USB-C power, and includes built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, enabling flexible installation and seamless smart home integration. Its small form factor combined with PoE or USB-C power options makes the R PRO-1 ideal for quick deployments in a wall or ceiling.”
Well, that says it all. POE, or WiFi – I’ll stick with USB-C, Ethernet and the simple desk mount for now, to start the ball rolling… I could take the easy way out and ask Apollo what to do now, but let’s give it a go.
So – plugged into power and Ethernet – the Ethernet light is flashing and that’s it. No other apparent activity.. of course, for all I know there may be no firmware in there yet.
Ah, good choice – as I just realised that POE isn’t enabled by default – again to quote their site “The device proudly carries the Made for ESPHome badge, ensuring full compatibility and easy integration with the ESPHome ecosystem and Home Assistant. It will ship with a Wi-Fi firmware that can easily be changed to PoE in the device dashboard.”
Not sure what I was expecting but the device has not automagically appeared in Home Assistant yet (I’d not fully appreciated that no PoE actually meant no Ethernet). I’ll go poking with my favourite tool – Advanced IP Scanner – I dread to think how many years I’ve been using that for free.
“Error 5 – make sure the filter is dry” – oops, looks like Robbie the vacuum has run over the cat’s water bowl again. But I digress.
So there’s no Ethernet never mind PoE turned on by default. Off to get my phone – sure enough – there’s a new hotspot appearing on my phone… “Apollo R Pro 1 Hotspot”. Not unsurprisingly – as I went into that hotspot by selecting it as the WiFi source on my phone… up pops a range of access points to put the Apollo onto my network.. If you want to switch to Ethernet or back to WiFi – there’s a WIKI here…
Ok, done – the unit is now on my network.. but what now, I wonder? Will I be lucky and see a bunch of entities magically appear in Home Assistant? I’m not kidding – I’ve no idea.
Nope – not going to be that easy? In my router – WiFi clients I can see include “apollo-mtr-1-xxx” – Oh and “apollo-r-pro-1-xxx” – THERE IT IS… this thing has more entries in it’s web page than I’ve ever seen before…
Ignore the CO2 reading – that’s a plug in chip option and that was not included….
In the list above which appeared in my browser at the address my router pointed me to, near the bottom RGB light – right – let’s have a purple light..
Oh, no, I forgot – on the web interface you have white with level control and some flashing options. Other Apollo boards have lots of entries like this but I don’t think as many as this unit. For the entries that say N/A or show nothing – I’m missing some optional bits.
Well when I get this running in Home Assistant I’m sure the colour control (light) option will appear.
There I am seconds later with the sensor sitting on my desk in front of me – this is so much fun. See below… distance is not far off and we have speed, x and y, angle….
STILL TARGET COUNT is zero as I’m not sitting still. If I sit ABSOLUTELY STILL that changes to 1.
This is how I started with their earlier sensors but quickly moved into Home Assistant to actually DO something. What I’ve NOT shown you on that web page is the log on the right hand side – VERY comprehensive.
OOOH, look – it’s just been discovered by Home Assistant… right. ADD. Let me see – 1 device – 148 (yes – 148) entities. This is going to take some time to sift through.
Priorities – I’ll get that coloured light up first. In one of my many pages in Home Assistant’s UI I have a dedicated section for Apollo stuff as you’ll see below… how long do you think it will take to duplicate the light control in the apollo Air-1 for the Pro-1. You guessed it – about a minute.
90 seconds later – there it is complete with purple light… I’m absolutely loving this – and there’s so much more. I could see me putting this in the ceiling in that nice white ceiling mount. If only everything else was that simple – no MATTER, no CLOUD, no TUYA.
For tips on cones generated by sensors and more – this Wiki. Sensor definitions –this Wiki..
More info – reducing packet usage – here and here.
In case you’re wondering this stuff is designed, engineered and assembled in the USA (Lexington). For the rest of us, just hope The EU etc. aren’t as childish as Trump with tariffs so we can afford this stuff. I love it.
Finally, for now anyway, I turned off multi-target tracking and I’m sitting here moving around in my chair like a mad-man – watching the various readings – distance, speed, angle etc… this is way better than some other devices I’ve seen.
July 7, 2025 Update – It gets better – LD2412S board
So I sent off to AliExpress for the optional LD2412S sensor – I think about 5 Euros all in – and half of that was postage as I did not want to wait until August. WELL – to say this was EASY is an understatement. I bought the module – it arrived today, I clipped it onto the non-reversible connectors, applied Ethernet and USB-C power – and had a look in Home Assistant. See before and after photos.
And the difference in Home Assistant entities…
And that is just the tip of the iceberg – there are a shedload of entities disabled by default – enabled at a click. This could keep me going for weeks 🙂 I didn’t change any software – the extra sensor responses just happened when I powered up with the LD2412S board attached.
Finally, apparently sales have done well so the company are delayed on “fulfillment” until mid-August as they sold out the first batch in under a week. If their product interests you, they suggested getting pre-orders in quickly.
September 9, 2025 Update – It just keeps getting better
I spotted the PLOTLY plug-in for Home Assistant and in the Apollo docs they mention the Plotly plug-in. Check out this page for the code and here’s a screenshot from my phone of a Plotly graph showing movement in real time – brilliant.. that blue dot is me…. here’s the relevant info on the Apollo site – https://wiki.apolloautomation.com/products/rpro1/calibrating-and-updating/zones-ha/#ld2450-configuration
Also I just found out that the unit has a much louder buzzer than previous models – and there is info in their WIKI for that too – including sample tunes.. https://wiki.apolloautomation.com/products/general/piezo/
But the important thing is- does it work reliably? Better even than previous models and others I’ve come across – the R Pro-1 is reliably picking me up, still or moving and giving reasonably accurate distance readings throughout my office. I’m currently just using one zone and the device only has to distinguish one person but I’m sure everything you see in the live plot above will work – good product – good support.
So now I have the LD2450 detecting presense completely reliably – and I’ve made a quick test to light up the RGB internal light in different colours depending on distance and OFF over 3500 mm away (i.e. outside of my office).
and the HA automation thanks to my friends Jonathan and Antonio using ChatGPT (Perplexity could not do it)….
alias: rpro on various
description: TRigger RPRO RGB depending on distance
triggers:
- id: distant
entity_id: sensor.apollo_r_pro_1_w_34a770_ld2450_target_1_distance
above: 2000
below: 3500
trigger: numeric_state
- id: medium
entity_id: sensor.apollo_r_pro_1_w_34a770_ld2450_target_1_distance
above: 1000
below: 2000
trigger: numeric_state
- id: closeup
entity_id: sensor.apollo_r_pro_1_w_34a770_ld2450_target_1_distance
above: 0
below: 1000
trigger: numeric_state
conditions: []
actions:
- choose:
- conditions:
- condition: trigger
id: closeup
sequence:
- target:
entity_id: light.apollo_r_pro_1_w_34a770_rgb_light
data:
rgb_color:
- 0
- 255
- 0
transition: 1
action: light.turn_on
- conditions:
- condition: trigger
id: medium
sequence:
- target:
entity_id: light.apollo_r_pro_1_w_34a770_rgb_light
data:
rgb_color:
- 255
- 128
- 0
transition: 1
action: light.turn_on
- conditions:
- condition: trigger
id: distant
sequence:
- target:
entity_id: light.apollo_r_pro_1_w_34a770_rgb_light
data:
rgb_color:
- 255
- 0
- 0
transition: 1
action: light.turn_on
mode: single
The OFF automation is considerably simpler..
alias: rpro rgb off
description: ""
triggers:
- trigger: numeric_state
entity_id:
- sensor.apollo_r_pro_1_w_34a770_ld2450_target_1_distance
above: 3500
below: 8000
conditions: []
actions:
- action: light.turn_off
metadata: {}
data: {}
target:
entity_id: light.apollo_r_pro_1_w_34a770_rgb_light
mode: single
Think this is great but a tad expensive to put all over the house? I’ve ordered LD2450 sensors and have ESP32-C3 boards – I plan to build several small sensors for around the house – if/when it works – it’ll be in the blog.