I’ve had an Aqara FP1E movement/presense sensor for some time and for some reason, only checked movement sensing. Today I plugged the unit in and Home Assistant remembered it perfectly from my last tests back in August 2024. This time I went to my Zigbee2MQTT panel which I get to from Home Assistant, found the sensor and went to the column EXPOSES. Here it is:
All looks good – and the panel items accurately show movement when I move – as it should be. The only problem is the presence detection. I’ve set limits at around 3m as you’ll see in these images.
The device is showing Presense as TRUE – which you’d expect with me sitting in front of the sensor in my office, moving or not. So, off I went into the kitchen – at least 5m away, closing the door to my office – windows closed – no vibration outside – with no-one in – not even a cat, no insects at this time of year, nothing.
While in the kitchen I made a cup of coffee including boiling the kettle and taking a few sips. I had my phone with me so I could monitor live the EXPOSES column, which had changed (movement) back when I was in the office, depending on whether I moved or sat perfectly still – so no worries about chaching or updating. Movement was accurately showing no_movement.
But… throughout all of this, the presence reading stayed at TRUE. Not stunningly impressed. I wanted to use this device to turn off my office lights when I’m not there – I currently use a Switchbot sensor which detects movement – set to remain set for 15 minutes after I move. That works GREAT but it’s amazing how EASY it is to sit perfectly still for more than 15 minutes when engrossed in a YouTube video…
I’m open to ideas, is this scenario with Zigbee2MQTT and the FP1E common knowledge – am I missing something? Any advise welcome and anything that solves my problem will end up back in here.
For anyone new to this device – it runs from USB so not a battery issue – and though not shown, the device temperature as available in the panel is 25c. Spacial learning is turned OFF. My office is part of a cavehome and so there is no-one next door who’s presence might have an effect.
This one has me beaten, for now…. one last thing – on the menu is motion sensitivity. I’ve not touched that and options are low, medium and high – you’d think it would show one of these options as the current sensitivity state – but no.
The really strange thing is – in Home Assistant itself, the detected device page – under sensors – behaves differently. In the image on the left, almost as soon as I walked out of the room, the occupancy went to CLEAR, and on returning came back to DETECTED and stayed there as I write this – but the strangely named first sensor (top) started CLEAR and didn’t show DETECTED until I was close to the device….
And now I’ve been out talking to my wife and just come back into the office – the movement sensor is working quiet well, yet despite being less than 1 metre away from the device – occupancy is showing CLEAR. EH?? As I move around in my seat, the motion distance is changing, live… but apparently I’m not here.
I’m pinging this entry to Aqara in case anyone there has any ideas.