I found that most people who have issues with it think it’s supposed to be plug and play but it takes quite a lot of setup and testing of sensor locations. After I got them fine tuned it does exactly what it’s supposed to do. It just took a hell of a lot of trial and error. ex: I have one in the living room. The guest half bath is by the front door. I have a zone placed just inside the half bath so if someone walks in that bathroom the light turns on and when they walk out the light turns off. Another example using the same sensor: the dining room is off of the living room and when my wife works from home she works on the dining room table. I have her seating location as another zone so if she’s sitting there working around 11:30 the blinds behind her automatically shut so it doesn’t washout her computer screen. Third ex using the same sensor: I have a zone on the landing just before and on the first step to go upstairs. At 7:30pm if someone goes to go upstairs the lights automatically turn on. And after 1:00am if someone goes to use the steps it turns on low lights on the stairs.
Your bonus footage perfectly depicts my situation. I’m using occupancy not detected in automation to turn off the lights and it takes anywhere between 5-15 seconds. All I have been seeing on TH-cam is how it supposedly works flawlessly for every content creator. I appreciate that you are the only one that has given a honest look into this device. I also experience the ghost people and have to reset the occupancy multiple times a day. I feel as if this product was not ready for release. Lots of kinks to still be worked out.
Thanks for your feedback! Hoping for some enhancements in future. It’s exciting technology that just needs some refinements and I’m sure the next iteration will be even better.
Your house is haunted bruh 😂 Imagine being in bed and then the app detects something downstairs walking around your place up your stairs and just stops outside your bedroom door. 😅
Same experience. Clones and ghosts to where simple automations can’t work reliably. Also wish this can be integrated with SmartThings or Hubitat. I don’t use HomeKit and Automations via Alexa/Google Home is way too limiting.
Hi, I am wanting to buy aquara FP2 device but I am not sure if it can eliminate curtain movements or mciro movements thats being caused by my ceiling fan. Thanks.
I have two Fp2s working on two levels. One in my basement covers my office, rec room, bar, and theater pretty smoothly. My second is covering my living room and my kitchen/breakfast area. The basement sensor works like a dream, but the one in my living room had some trouble until I got it dialed in. Getting the automations right was an exercise that nearly led to a mutiny in my house!
Finally an honest review! I have the same experience with multiple FP2s in my house. Its awesome when it works but as you mentioned, 80% accuracy is probably even too high. I have to reset the presence multiple times a day to "unstuck" automations because for whatever reason it suddenly shows I have 4 people in a room, and there never was somebody. I am hopeful some SW updates will improve this.
I have used Motion sensors in combination with Homebridge dummy sensors for about a year. It works great for hallways, closets and small spaces. But as you mentioned in it is not good when the lights turn off on people in an occupied room or space. I have had the Aqara FP2 for a couple weeks and have been very pleased with it. I am it use it in a pretty straight forward application though. I have it in my home office. When I enter the room it detects occupancy and turns the lights on. When I’m not in the room, it turns the lights off. It has worked flawlessly so far. I have it mounted on top of one of my speakers on the side of my desk. I’m able to hide the cable behind the desk. I agree with you about not liking the look of a cable installed on a bare wall as that looks it looks pretty bad.
It's a fine use case but its it an expensive way to achieve this? A simple motion sensor and an automation to say "if no movement spotted for 5 mins turn lights off" would do the same for 1/4 the price
@@marky1010have you done this with HomeKit? Asking cause that’s what I would like to do. Only thing I see is to turn off lights when motion isn’t detected, but no option to set time barriers.
Agreed here with a lot of your comments, Brad. Here's a few things I found useful: 1) It's best to be broader with your zones. If you're on the edge of a zone, it might not activate. So add another box or two in the grid just to be safe. 2) Only choose zones that you need automations to occur. I had one setup for the bookshelf that the FP2 is stuck to, but one of the vertical shelves blocks part of the view. That was creating some issues in terms of being recognized in parts of the zone, and it "lost" me as I continued walking throughout the room. 3) For entrances, be more specific in terms of the start of the entrance. I have stairs leading up to my office, and I had set this so it would see me walking up the stairs. Worked great when coming in the room, but not so much leaving the room. I took away a few of the grid squares and it's been better. 4) Be wary of taller office chairs. I've got an office chair that's pretty tall, and it was having trouble seeing me after a while because the chair was basically blocking me. So I moved the FP2 over a bit so it wasn't directly behind the chair, and it's performed way better. 5) For placement, it seems to do better being put on longer walls versus shorter walls if you're in a rectangular shaped room. 6) Automatic edge detection isn't the best, and I ended up skipping this step because it simply kept failing. Instead I made my own edges manually. 7) A tip: Use HomeKit shortcuts if you want to add any delays to when lights get turned off, etc. I did this for when I exit the room, so during the day it'll just turn off after 5 seconds of leaving. But at night, it'll turn off after 5 seconds, AND turn on my downstairs lights so I can see. There were also a few instances I coupled shortcuts with scenes for this, so I could play music automatically, etc. Personally I installed mine lower than 2 meters. I wasn't going to mount it to the wall, especially on a dark wall at that. I've got it on a bookshelf, probably about 1 meter above the ground. The first few days with this were FRUSTRATING. As I tweaked settings and just used it for a few days, it seemed to get better. Maybe it adapts over time. Regardless, simple is better, like you said.
Yes things could be better but it’s a step in the right directions and hopefully firmware updates in near future. The zoning is amazing it works awesome in my dining/kitchen/hallway open concept design and amazes guests when they come in
1:50 This is one of the things I'm most interested in with presence sensors. How DO you handle a situation where you don't want a light to turn on (or off) when you sit down to watch TV and there are various rules involved in the app? I'm interested in what that workflow looks like.
Refreshing to see an accurate review of this device. I think the trap a lot of reviewers fall into is to not try things out in real world situations and over a decent amount of time. As someone who has spent their entire life in IT support I know only to well that 'cutting edge' is another way of saying bleeding edge and from the comments it is clear that many users have been bleeding with this product. I hope the bugs can be sorted out as it has great promise but I won't be rushing to install it in my house.
Great review. I actually bought a FP2 and found it to be very unreliable. It could be a faulty device - but reading online others had the same issue as me. Presence not resetting when someone leaves room, so lights would stay on indefinitely, false pickups of presence randomly (even with the interference configured) in the end I gave up and returned the item, and bought a everything presence one instead, which worked perfectly for me. No zoning on it - but didn’t need that anyway!
I had a similar experience, Brad! We have a long dining room that is next to the kitchen. That is where I wanted to place it. During setup, it kept switching where it was reading my occupancy. I wanted to setup my refrigerator, stove, cabinets, sink, water fountain, etc. but it kept showing me in a completely different area, so I switched the floor plan accordingly only for it to change it back four more times. I ended up just unplugging it and sending it back to Amazon. I’ll wait for it to get additional firmware updates or for something else to come out.
i share the same thoughts for the most of it, hopefully firmware updates will resolve them. I hope aqara is able to just make something simple to address the shortcoming of a PIR sensor, cuts away all the functionality, zigbee so that it can be battery operated and make it more affordable
SPOT ON review!! I have a simple entry / exit setup for my kitchen and random times it just DOES NOT trigger. I hope Firmware updates come along readily. A PLUGGED IN sensor should be knocking it out of the park on simple entry trigger and no detection zones. Ugggrrrhh!
At the end there, I'm guessing you set up a scene or group on those bulbs. My ceiling bulbs are all in faraday cages so they sometimes take a moment to get messages from wifi if they get them at all. I need to remove the metal cages around mine to improve against the delays. I can't speak to whether there additional is an occupancy delay but I will know soon. Just ordered.
I'd be using one out the front of my place. It would give my smart displays time to start streaming a video feed earlier to see who's there. Also, how many times have you been talking to someone at your front door and the porch lights go out.
I use IFTTT to use the fp2 with phillips hue and it takes 2 seconds to turn on the lights and instantly turns off when absence is detected, i will get a homey pro soon
I wonder if you could make at least the turn on action quicker by having motion sensors turn them on straight away, and then maintain their on state if fp2 thinks there is presence. Can't solve the speed of the leaving aspect though -- though that matter less.
You can overlook the chord for the Nanoleaf lights but can't for a presence sensor that can have multiple zones? I've had my fair share of issues with my fp2 sensor but it has worked great since working out those issues. The versatility and function of it is far superior to hexagon wall lights
As far as your thoughts VS my thoughts, I feel like we must have been sharing the same brain. I feel the same way. Biggest difference is it appears you are using an iPhone, where I'm using Android (Samsung S20 Ultra) and getting the FP2 associated with the network was absolutely exasperating. I shut down the 5GHz on my network per the install suggestion, but I couldn't get the FP2 to associate with my wifi until I put my phone in airplane mode then turned on just wifi on it. When I did that it connected instantly, so I have no clue what was going on there. I'm using Smarthings primarily, with Alexa and Google Home, and I can't see any additional zones other than the basic FP2 sensor itself, which might be all I need since the real reason I got this is for my wife when she sits down to sew and isn't moving around much, the light would go off with the PIR sensors, so I am hoping this works better and keeps the light on when she isn't moving around much. If the first one works out, I will probably replace all the PIR sensors with the FP2. While all those features are cool, I really just need one, and that is for the light to stay on so my wife doesn't murder me in my sleep. BTW your suggestion about plugging the FP2 into a smart plug was brilliant! I am going to do that. Also, much thanks for taking the time to post the video, I was having a frustrating time and your video reset my expectations to where they need to be so it doesn't drive me bonkers. I applaud Aqara for their innovation, and pushing the envelope, and while some of the fancier features might be less than optimal, using it in its simple mode works perfectly for me.
great feedback! I really want one for my office, but with the issues you pointed out, I think I should just use my current aqara motion sensor and create a multiple different automations or get a second sensor until the kinks get worked out with this one
I'm with you. I bought one as soon as I saw it, and was excited by all the (likely paid) review videos. Boy were they wrong. There's a lot of unfulfilled potential here, and I actually like the cord...I'm getting tired of battery feeding my smart home. But I've yet to find a reliable place for it. The bedroom was my first target. Yet oft times my wife and I show as one person in bed. Other times there were up to 5 people. Aqara, we don't swing that way. Sometimes you could tell it was detecting a fan or some such, others a person would "stick" somewhere, or....I have no idea, ghosts? So I moved to the living room, where I often "disappear" even though I'm sitting not totally still. (Detects breathing? Liars!). I haven't given up, but so far the hype was overblown, and I am largely disappointed. Thanks for giving an honest review.
Thanks for honestly reviewing, without all the hype, this new sensor. I think the tech is great,but it’s searching for that killer use to put it over the top. Good is not enough when your using it to trigger actions. Hopefully it will continue to get much better to justify the high price.
Thanks so much for mentioning it has to be ceiling mounted for fall detection to work, and you don't get presence detection in that case. I have balance issues so I was quite interested in the fall detection but I think I'm better off with my Aqara P2 sensors for motion detection and my Apple Watch for the fall detection! That was a very important distinction to note!
Your critique is interesting, but it only serves to highlight the limits of home automation. You will always have limits for any device. Probably won’t be a near perfect solution until there is more integration with AI, but even then with more than one person in the house there will always be conflicts with equipment. The downside of home automation is that one is left with the choice of a system that nearly works OR a life of serving the god of home automation.
Thanks for the honest review - wish I had seen this sooner. I found that this by far the most frustrating device I have used in years - a complete and utter P.O.S. I have the latest firmware and I am using it the Homekit, All I want it to do is turn on the kitchen lights when someone is in the kitchen & turn them off when no one is there... Alas it iappears to be incapable. The UI is dreadful, I cannot find a straight forward way of removing a zone (I stupidly created 2 zones and after using it feel It may work better with one) It detects multiple people, even when there are is only me there, Automations with HomeHit are hit & miss and only seem to work 30% of the time I regulary have to tell it there is no one there via the "AI learning" I regularly have to re-test the automation for it to work the next time.
Hi, I am wanting to buy aquara FP2 device but I am not sure if it can eliminate curtain movements or mciro movements that's being caused by my ceiling fan. Thanks.
this is the only review that is accurate to my experience of this device. im very tech savvy but this devices is not very reliable. You can get it to work to an acceptable level after much tinkering. Ive tinkered more with this device than any other motion sensor i have come across and this costs almost double more than a Hue sensor!!
I have several of the FP1's. They don't have all the features of these, but basically work the same. I only use them for in-room presense, and they work OK. I do think that defining zones and expecting them to identify you in each zone, is a bit more then they can reliably do. For just presense, they are better than anything else, but not perfect. I use regular motion sensors to turn on lights, and these to turn them off. I'd say they were 95% accurate for people and dogs. But occasionally they say I'm not there when I am. Its probably good enough. The location position is only fair at best. But presense or not is pretty good.
Hi, I am wanting to buy aquara FP2 device but I am not sure if it can eliminate curtain movements or mciro movements thats being caused by my ceiling fan. Thanks.
Power cords drive me a bit crazy - it's cool product (and I have to admit that I just ordered one because it seems like fun lol), but I totally appreciate you calling out the limitations that it has right now. Awesome review. Thanks for sharing.
So do you have to use Apple Home kit and have an ipad, home pod mini or other hub device from apple in order to the Aqara FP2 to work with Amazon Alexa?
I have mine monitoring my great room. Two zones, kitchen and living room. Maybe I have the ideal layout / environment but it works perfectly for these two zones.
Hello mate, can you tell me please if i can use this aqara sensor to controll my AC unit? Meaning when is left on and someone is leaving home. Cheers and great job!
I want this for bathrooms, the garage (laundry), the shed, and my office. I wouldn't use this in the media room or any duel purpose room. I have automations for those based on remote activities.
My dog walks through a zone & the FP2 thinks I left & turns off lights. I’ve added delays and double checks for presence to no avail. Great honest review. Like you, hoping it improves with updates.
Hi, I am wanting to buy aquara FP2 device but I am not sure if it can eliminate curtain movements or mciro movements thats being caused by my ceiling fan. Thanks.
Hi there great video! Can you do a video or share the script used to make the automation turn off or on? I’m trying to do an automation to auto turn on my AC via Sensibo air pro but can’t seem to get it to work. Thanks very much! Keep up the videos.
Hello, thanks for the informative video. I have a question, I got the sensor and o don’t know how to synchronize it with home kit, even though it exposes to home kit, it says not responding I am not able to do any automation. Even my other motion sensors say not responding. I don’t know what to do. Thanks in advance for any help !!
Thank you for this honest review. everyone else talking about this must be getting a huge kickback as i have had the same experience as you. Sending this garbage back and sticking with my motion sensors instead
Re: hanging on the ceiling - if you MUST hang it on the ceiling, you could opt to use a lightbulb-to-outlet adapter. They''re all over amazon and pretty affordable. they even have some you can still use the light bulb with though it will hang lower. The wall is best though
true true and true...this is why i contacted aqara and asked them if they can recommend any wifi/bluetooth enabled device that can pass over data packets to the router or hub/socket. Sadly nothing on the market 'at the moment' exists that has infinite power with no cables. Sure, solar panels, rechargeable batteries and other common energy source is available but its not constant or infinite. Sure you could use magnets or those cool wind turbines that produce eco infinite energy but having a massive turbine stuck outside your home thread through your wall and into the small aqara would be pointless. And we cant live on dreams such as 'laputa, castle in the sky' crystal energy...unless someone has found this out already and is under surveillance by the powers that be And trunking is so darn ugly...big no no... And you've clearly demonstrated time delays and some lights not turning on...awesome.... But thanx for your honest review, most youtubers lie for a living...
Brad, thank you for doing this. After a few weeks of "Game Changer" and "It's so awesome"" reviews it's nice to have someone actually talk about the shortcomings. The setup is pretty bad compared with most things. I 've tried multiple locations and ended up just try to settle for one simple, but reliable automation and that is to simply tell me if my special needs daughter is in her bed in the middle of the night. 99% of the time she never gets up and when she does, it's a problem. The FP2 hasn't been 100% reliable even with this simple task. The graphical display shows short periods of no-precense which simply isn't the case. Yeah I know there are other ways to do this, but I wanted the FP2 to handle it. As a light sensor it's great, but the Eve motion sensor also has a light sensor exposed to Homekit. I, too, love Aqara stuff and have probably 25 of their devices (mostly buttons) throughout the house. I'm glad the FP2 went out of stock before I raced to buy a second one. For now it's just an interesting device that needs work. I certainly wouldn't recommend it to any of my friends who are just starting out or don't mind it when things don't work exactly the way you wanted them, too. Thanks again. You're ahead of the pack on this one.
Honestly I'm a bit disappointed with it. I bought it for 2 main reasons. Turn on my wall mounted Ipad when someone approaches and arm the alarm when I've left the house and no presence is detected in any zone. The former works okay, i agree with your 80% of the time. The latter just never works. There is always some ghost in the house. I have it in my living room which is a large open floor area in view of kitchen and dining room. I'm guessing the area is just too big since aqara advertise 400 sq ft. ? But the device is able to see me from across the room. Me and a few ghosts so idk. This is one of those products that everyone raves about then it turns out to just be meh. Thanks for the honest review! Subbed!
I have a small place with a combined kitchen/living room …. rectangular room, no fans for interference, two zones and still I have had to reset absence status multiple times a day due to it reading multiple ghosts and that's only with one person
Amazon got me with a steal of a deal on the FP2 (currently $68 on Amazon after $15 coupon) so I'll be getting the FP2 along with a POE/Ethernet to USB C splitter tomorrow to see if it can be powered by a POE switch/adapter (which will take care of that exposed wire)... only useful if you have a POE switch/injector and the ability to run your own network cable... I'll post back tomorrow with my findings.
LOL 😂 I love the bonus! But now just waiting 3-4 days to get mine in feeling a little disappointed not just because I was wondering about the wiring thing… how am I going to wire it and no getting an horrible spider mesh in the living room LOL the point is will it work well if I walk or sit down and not to get a haunted house effect LOL maybe for Halloween :) Really cool video thanx!!!
I ordered some of Sonoff's new stupider presence sensors instead. They just show presence or not (and light level) which is enough for me and they're just 15 bucks. Same issues with wires and such, sure.
My experience is great, with a lot of patience... The bad new is that with 1.2.5 update (which allows corner installation) sensor area drops to 7 meters; before was 11 meters :-(
Brad, this was such an enlightening review. Indeed, the Home community has been very much agog about the FP2. The concept and potential are amazing. I am not overly worried about wires as I have an electrician/contractor who I regularly use to just run wires inside of walls or add new outlets. That said, the other problems you noted are substantial. I would never have the time or patience to create 30 zones let alone 6-7. That said, when they are created, I want this thing to be snappy and reliable. It certainly sounds like this could be a crapshoot.
I'm an above-average home-automation guy, using both Homekit and Home Assistant and I'm not loving the FP2. Honestly, I struggled to come up with practical uses for it in my automations. When I'm sitting at my desk working for the day, I usually turn my lights on with a smart button and leave them on until I'm done, when I use the same button to turn them off. When I sit down to watch TV in the evening, I have Siri turn on my "TV Time" automation with a voice command or a smart button on the underside of my coffee table. Also, the configuration in the Aqara app isn't terribly intuitive (and I'm not new and this). Right now, for me and my home, it's just meh and I wish I'd spent the $80 on something else for my smart home.
Your unpopular opinion just earned a "subscribe". I knew that most of the early reviews I saw were more hype vs honest, objective tests. Thanks for sharing. I have two areas in my home where hyper-accurate presence detection would really fix a lot of my janky PIR-based automations, but I am going to wait to see if firmware updates do the trick. Look for to an update from you in the future if that happens.
Thank you for this. I am sure that the YT channels that have no issues whatsoever are the ones who are sponsored by Aqara. For me the only thing that makes me hesitant to purchase is the cord.
The issue I have with the p1 motion sensor is that while in my bathroom, if I continue to move after the “lockout” time has expired, the lights still go off and then pop back on. I was hoping a presence sensor would fix this issue. Unless someone knows how to fix it within the p1? 😅 Save me 80$
I wish I have watched this video before buying it. I am extremely disappointed with the Aqara FP2 Presence Sensor. It is inaccurate, no matter where I put the sensor. Signal are quite delayed. And yes, I ran into the undesirable automation triggers because of all these inaccurate sensor detections. The Aqara app is not working if I remove the device and pair again. The device idea is good but I agree this tech is not mature enough to be on the market yet.
I found that most people who have issues with it think it’s supposed to be plug and play but it takes quite a lot of setup and testing of sensor locations. After I got them fine tuned it does exactly what it’s supposed to do. It just took a hell of a lot of trial and error. ex: I have one in the living room. The guest half bath is by the front door. I have a zone placed just inside the half bath so if someone walks in that bathroom the light turns on and when they walk out the light turns off. Another example using the same sensor: the dining room is off of the living room and when my wife works from home she works on the dining room table. I have her seating location as another zone so if she’s sitting there working around 11:30 the blinds behind her automatically shut so it doesn’t washout her computer screen. Third ex using the same sensor: I have a zone on the landing just before and on the first step to go upstairs. At 7:30pm if someone goes to go upstairs the lights automatically turn on. And after 1:00am if someone goes to use the steps it turns on low lights on the stairs.
Your bonus footage perfectly depicts my situation. I’m using occupancy not detected in automation to turn off the lights and it takes anywhere between 5-15 seconds. All I have been seeing on TH-cam is how it supposedly works flawlessly for every content creator. I appreciate that you are the only one that has given a honest look into this device. I also experience the ghost people and have to reset the occupancy multiple times a day. I feel as if this product was not ready for release. Lots of kinks to still be worked out.
Thanks for your feedback! Hoping for some enhancements in future. It’s exciting technology that just needs some refinements and I’m sure the next iteration will be even better.
Not all lights coming on ir turning off doesn’t sound like a sensor issue. Probably multiple things going on here which could mean bigger issues.
Your house is haunted bruh 😂
Imagine being in bed and then the app detects something downstairs walking around your place up your stairs and just stops outside your bedroom door. 😅
Same experience. Clones and ghosts to where simple automations can’t work reliably. Also wish this can be integrated with SmartThings or Hubitat. I don’t use HomeKit and Automations via Alexa/Google Home is way too limiting.
Hi, I am wanting to buy aquara FP2 device but I am not sure if it can eliminate curtain movements or mciro movements thats being caused by my ceiling fan. Thanks.
I have two Fp2s working on two levels. One in my basement covers my office, rec room, bar, and theater pretty smoothly. My second is covering my living room and my kitchen/breakfast area. The basement sensor works like a dream, but the one in my living room had some trouble until I got it dialed in. Getting the automations right was an exercise that nearly led to a mutiny in my house!
Heyy how did you get your fp2?
Finally an honest review! I have the same experience with multiple FP2s in my house. Its awesome when it works but as you mentioned, 80% accuracy is probably even too high. I have to reset the presence multiple times a day to "unstuck" automations because for whatever reason it suddenly shows I have 4 people in a room, and there never was somebody. I am hopeful some SW updates will improve this.
How did you get your fp2?
I only see fp1
@@oraimo3728 amazon....,
my location doesnt even show on the map
@@oraimo3728 you've got to be ready to pounce on these when they are available. I'm not impressed with the two units I have.
I have used Motion sensors in combination with Homebridge dummy sensors for about a year. It works great for hallways, closets and small spaces. But as you mentioned in it is not good when the lights turn off on people in an occupied room or space. I have had the Aqara FP2 for a couple weeks and have been very pleased with it. I am it use it in a pretty straight forward application though. I have it in my home office. When I enter the room it detects occupancy and turns the lights on. When I’m not in the room, it turns the lights off. It has worked flawlessly so far. I have it mounted on top of one of my speakers on the side of my desk. I’m able to hide the cable behind the desk. I agree with you about not liking the look of a cable installed on a bare wall as that looks it looks pretty bad.
It's a fine use case but its it an expensive way to achieve this? A simple motion sensor and an automation to say "if no movement spotted for 5 mins turn lights off" would do the same for 1/4 the price
@@marky1010have you done this with HomeKit? Asking cause that’s what I would like to do. Only thing I see is to turn off lights when motion isn’t detected, but no option to set time barriers.
@@MalachiTheAppleGuy afraid not sadly. All my automation stuff is running via Home Assistant. You might be able to do something with iOS shortcuts?
@@MalachiTheAppleGuy Convert to shortcut
Agreed here with a lot of your comments, Brad. Here's a few things I found useful:
1) It's best to be broader with your zones. If you're on the edge of a zone, it might not activate. So add another box or two in the grid just to be safe.
2) Only choose zones that you need automations to occur. I had one setup for the bookshelf that the FP2 is stuck to, but one of the vertical shelves blocks part of the view. That was creating some issues in terms of being recognized in parts of the zone, and it "lost" me as I continued walking throughout the room.
3) For entrances, be more specific in terms of the start of the entrance. I have stairs leading up to my office, and I had set this so it would see me walking up the stairs. Worked great when coming in the room, but not so much leaving the room. I took away a few of the grid squares and it's been better.
4) Be wary of taller office chairs. I've got an office chair that's pretty tall, and it was having trouble seeing me after a while because the chair was basically blocking me. So I moved the FP2 over a bit so it wasn't directly behind the chair, and it's performed way better.
5) For placement, it seems to do better being put on longer walls versus shorter walls if you're in a rectangular shaped room.
6) Automatic edge detection isn't the best, and I ended up skipping this step because it simply kept failing. Instead I made my own edges manually.
7) A tip: Use HomeKit shortcuts if you want to add any delays to when lights get turned off, etc. I did this for when I exit the room, so during the day it'll just turn off after 5 seconds of leaving. But at night, it'll turn off after 5 seconds, AND turn on my downstairs lights so I can see. There were also a few instances I coupled shortcuts with scenes for this, so I could play music automatically, etc.
Personally I installed mine lower than 2 meters. I wasn't going to mount it to the wall, especially on a dark wall at that. I've got it on a bookshelf, probably about 1 meter above the ground. The first few days with this were FRUSTRATING. As I tweaked settings and just used it for a few days, it seemed to get better. Maybe it adapts over time.
Regardless, simple is better, like you said.
Yes things could be better but it’s a step in the right directions and hopefully firmware updates in near future. The zoning is amazing it works awesome in my dining/kitchen/hallway open concept design and amazes guests when they come in
Thank you for this honest opinion, a real breath of fresh air and sadly not enough videos like this.
1:50 This is one of the things I'm most interested in with presence sensors. How DO you handle a situation where you don't want a light to turn on (or off) when you sit down to watch TV and there are various rules involved in the app? I'm interested in what that workflow looks like.
Can be used as Alarm Sensors. Much more powerful than typical alarm systems.
The other automations can be used as it makes sense or added value.
Refreshing to see an accurate review of this device. I think the trap a lot of reviewers fall into is to not try things out in real world situations and over a decent amount of time. As someone who has spent their entire life in IT support I know only to well that 'cutting edge' is another way of saying bleeding edge and from the comments it is clear that many users have been bleeding with this product. I hope the bugs can be sorted out as it has great promise but I won't be rushing to install it in my house.
Great review. I actually bought a FP2 and found it to be very unreliable. It could be a faulty device - but reading online others had the same issue as me. Presence not resetting when someone leaves room, so lights would stay on indefinitely, false pickups of presence randomly (even with the interference configured) in the end I gave up and returned the item, and bought a everything presence one instead, which worked perfectly for me. No zoning on it - but didn’t need that anyway!
I’ve noticed the extra person in the room when it’s just me too. Great honest review of a product everyone is going nuts over.
Great review!
can you stop playing your song on repeat inside my brain?
@@sylvester4207 sorry about that.
I had a similar experience, Brad! We have a long dining room that is next to the kitchen. That is where I wanted to place it. During setup, it kept switching where it was reading my occupancy. I wanted to setup my refrigerator, stove, cabinets, sink, water fountain, etc. but it kept showing me in a completely different area, so I switched the floor plan accordingly only for it to change it back four more times. I ended up just unplugging it and sending it back to Amazon. I’ll wait for it to get additional firmware updates or for something else to come out.
i share the same thoughts for the most of it, hopefully firmware updates will resolve them. I hope aqara is able to just make something simple to address the shortcoming of a PIR sensor, cuts away all the functionality, zigbee so that it can be battery operated and make it more affordable
SPOT ON review!! I have a simple entry / exit setup for my kitchen and random times it just DOES NOT trigger. I hope Firmware updates come along readily. A PLUGGED IN sensor should be knocking it out of the park on simple entry trigger and no detection zones. Ugggrrrhh!
Wish i saw this before purchasing
Great review. Love the idea of a kill switch and I'll be doing that for sure with my two.
At the end there, I'm guessing you set up a scene or group on those bulbs. My ceiling bulbs are all in faraday cages so they sometimes take a moment to get messages from wifi if they get them at all. I need to remove the metal cages around mine to improve against the delays. I can't speak to whether there additional is an occupancy delay but I will know soon. Just ordered.
I'd be using one out the front of my place.
It would give my smart displays time to start streaming a video feed earlier to see who's there.
Also, how many times have you been talking to someone at your front door and the porch lights go out.
I use IFTTT to use the fp2 with phillips hue and it takes 2 seconds to turn on the lights and instantly turns off when absence is detected, i will get a homey pro soon
I wonder if you could make at least the turn on action quicker by having motion sensors turn them on straight away, and then maintain their on state if fp2 thinks there is presence. Can't solve the speed of the leaving aspect though -- though that matter less.
hi .. you have given a honest review ..thanks
Most honest review of this device yet!
You can overlook the chord for the Nanoleaf lights but can't for a presence sensor that can have multiple zones? I've had my fair share of issues with my fp2 sensor but it has worked great since working out those issues. The versatility and function of it is far superior to hexagon wall lights
4:31 You don’t lose presence detection when ceiling mounted.
Good video. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Wish some company will make similar one! I have Aqara for most of my smarthome setup
5:17 - mount some small wire conduit for at least cleaning up the wire runs.
As far as your thoughts VS my thoughts, I feel like we must have been sharing the same brain. I feel the same way. Biggest difference is it appears you are using an iPhone, where I'm using Android (Samsung S20 Ultra) and getting the FP2 associated with the network was absolutely exasperating. I shut down the 5GHz on my network per the install suggestion, but I couldn't get the FP2 to associate with my wifi until I put my phone in airplane mode then turned on just wifi on it. When I did that it connected instantly, so I have no clue what was going on there. I'm using Smarthings primarily, with Alexa and Google Home, and I can't see any additional zones other than the basic FP2 sensor itself, which might be all I need since the real reason I got this is for my wife when she sits down to sew and isn't moving around much, the light would go off with the PIR sensors, so I am hoping this works better and keeps the light on when she isn't moving around much. If the first one works out, I will probably replace all the PIR sensors with the FP2. While all those features are cool, I really just need one, and that is for the light to stay on so my wife doesn't murder me in my sleep. BTW your suggestion about plugging the FP2 into a smart plug was brilliant! I am going to do that. Also, much thanks for taking the time to post the video, I was having a frustrating time and your video reset my expectations to where they need to be so it doesn't drive me bonkers. I applaud Aqara for their innovation, and pushing the envelope, and while some of the fancier features might be less than optimal, using it in its simple mode works perfectly for me.
great feedback! I really want one for my office, but with the issues you pointed out, I think I should just use my current aqara motion sensor and create a multiple different automations or get a second sensor until the kinks get worked out with this one
I used dummy switch too. It's almost mandatory for my use on my room. My lights was suddenly turning on even when I was sleeping
I'm with you. I bought one as soon as I saw it, and was excited by all the (likely paid) review videos. Boy were they wrong. There's a lot of unfulfilled potential here, and I actually like the cord...I'm getting tired of battery feeding my smart home. But I've yet to find a reliable place for it. The bedroom was my first target. Yet oft times my wife and I show as one person in bed. Other times there were up to 5 people. Aqara, we don't swing that way. Sometimes you could tell it was detecting a fan or some such, others a person would "stick" somewhere, or....I have no idea, ghosts? So I moved to the living room, where I often "disappear" even though I'm sitting not totally still. (Detects breathing? Liars!). I haven't given up, but so far the hype was overblown, and I am largely disappointed. Thanks for giving an honest review.
Same issues I have encountered. Hopefully, I would be addressed in the future updates.
Thanks for honestly reviewing, without all the hype, this new sensor. I think the tech is great,but it’s searching for that killer use to put it over the top. Good is not enough when your using it to trigger actions. Hopefully it will continue to get much better to justify the high price.
You are absolutely right. I have exactly the same issues you have described. I use mine with Alexa.
Great tip about the killswitch
Thanks so much for mentioning it has to be ceiling mounted for fall detection to work, and you don't get presence detection in that case. I have balance issues so I was quite interested in the fall detection but I think I'm better off with my Aqara P2 sensors for motion detection and my Apple Watch for the fall detection! That was a very important distinction to note!
Your critique is interesting, but it only serves to highlight the limits of home automation. You will always have limits for any device. Probably won’t be a near perfect solution until there is more integration with AI, but even then with more than one person in the house there will always be conflicts with equipment. The downside of home automation is that one is left with the choice of a system that nearly works OR a life of serving the god of home automation.
Thanks for the honest review - wish I had seen this sooner. I found that this by far the most frustrating device I have used in years - a complete and utter P.O.S.
I have the latest firmware and I am using it the Homekit, All I want it to do is turn on the kitchen lights when someone is in the kitchen & turn them off when no one is there... Alas it iappears to be incapable.
The UI is dreadful, I cannot find a straight forward way of removing a zone (I stupidly created 2 zones and after using it feel It may work better with one)
It detects multiple people, even when there are is only me there,
Automations with HomeHit are hit & miss and only seem to work 30% of the time
I regulary have to tell it there is no one there via the "AI learning"
I regularly have to re-test the automation for it to work the next time.
Hi, I am wanting to buy aquara FP2 device but I am not sure if it can eliminate curtain movements or mciro movements that's being caused by my ceiling fan. Thanks.
this is the only review that is accurate to my experience of this device. im very tech savvy but this devices is not very reliable.
You can get it to work to an acceptable level after much tinkering.
Ive tinkered more with this device than any other motion sensor i have come across and this costs almost double more than a Hue sensor!!
Friend, can you tell me please if fp2 works great with fans ? May tuya sensor has many false detections with fans😢
I have several of the FP1's. They don't have all the features of these, but basically work the same. I only use them for in-room presense, and they work OK. I do think that defining zones and expecting them to identify you in each zone, is a bit more then they can reliably do. For just presense, they are better than anything else, but not perfect. I use regular motion sensors to turn on lights, and these to turn them off. I'd say they were 95% accurate for people and dogs. But occasionally they say I'm not there when I am. Its probably good enough. The location position is only fair at best. But presense or not is pretty good.
Hi, I am wanting to buy aquara FP2 device but I am not sure if it can eliminate curtain movements or mciro movements thats being caused by my ceiling fan. Thanks.
Power cords drive me a bit crazy - it's cool product (and I have to admit that I just ordered one because it seems like fun lol), but I totally appreciate you calling out the limitations that it has right now. Awesome review. Thanks for sharing.
So do you have to use Apple Home kit and have an ipad, home pod mini or other hub device from apple in order to the Aqara FP2 to work with Amazon Alexa?
I have mine monitoring my great room. Two zones, kitchen and living room. Maybe I have the ideal layout / environment but it works perfectly for these two zones.
Hello mate, can you tell me please if i can use this aqara sensor to controll my AC unit? Meaning when is left on and someone is leaving home. Cheers and great job!
I want this for bathrooms, the garage (laundry), the shed, and my office. I wouldn't use this in the media room or any duel purpose room. I have automations for those based on remote activities.
My dog walks through a zone & the FP2 thinks I left & turns off lights. I’ve added delays and double checks for presence to no avail. Great honest review. Like you, hoping it improves with updates.
Hi, I am wanting to buy aquara FP2 device but I am not sure if it can eliminate curtain movements or mciro movements thats being caused by my ceiling fan. Thanks.
Hi there great video! Can you do a video or share the script used to make the automation turn off or on? I’m trying to do an automation to auto turn on my AC via Sensibo air pro but can’t seem to get it to work. Thanks very much! Keep up the videos.
Hello, thanks for the informative video.
I have a question, I got the sensor and o don’t know how to synchronize it with home kit, even though it exposes to home kit, it says not responding
I am not able to do any automation. Even my other motion sensors say not responding. I don’t know what to do.
Thanks in advance for any help !!
Thank you for this honest review. everyone else talking about this must be getting a huge kickback as i have had the same experience as you. Sending this garbage back and sticking with my motion sensors instead
Perhaps you can try the fp1, it’s much more reliable by removing the zone detection feature.
Re: hanging on the ceiling - if you MUST hang it on the ceiling, you could opt to use a lightbulb-to-outlet adapter. They''re all over amazon and pretty affordable. they even have some you can still use the light bulb with though it will hang lower.
The wall is best though
Anybody knows how to connect to home assistant without an apple device?
It's a wifi device, do I still need an aqara hub?
Have one and I agree with all of what you said
true true and true...this is why i contacted aqara and asked them if they can recommend any wifi/bluetooth enabled device that can pass over data packets to the router or hub/socket. Sadly nothing on the market 'at the moment' exists that has infinite power with no cables. Sure, solar panels, rechargeable batteries and other common energy source is available but its not constant or infinite. Sure you could use magnets or those cool wind turbines that produce eco infinite energy but having a massive turbine stuck outside your home thread through your wall and into the small aqara would be pointless. And we cant live on dreams such as 'laputa, castle in the sky' crystal energy...unless someone has found this out already and is under surveillance by the powers that be
And trunking is so darn ugly...big no no...
And you've clearly demonstrated time delays and some lights not turning on...awesome....
But thanx for your honest review, most youtubers lie for a living...
Great video! Do you use a security system in your home? If so do you use a professionally monitored one? Thanks!
5:17 The radar chip consumes significantly more power than the WiFi does (80mA vs 1200mA). That’s why it can’t run on batteries
Brad, thank you for doing this. After a few weeks of "Game Changer" and "It's so awesome"" reviews it's nice to have someone actually talk about the shortcomings. The setup is pretty bad compared with most things. I 've tried multiple locations and ended up just try to settle for one simple, but reliable automation and that is to simply tell me if my special needs daughter is in her bed in the middle of the night. 99% of the time she never gets up and when she does, it's a problem. The FP2 hasn't been 100% reliable even with this simple task. The graphical display shows short periods of no-precense which simply isn't the case. Yeah I know there are other ways to do this, but I wanted the FP2 to handle it. As a light sensor it's great, but the Eve motion sensor also has a light sensor exposed to Homekit. I, too, love Aqara stuff and have probably 25 of their devices (mostly buttons) throughout the house. I'm glad the FP2 went out of stock before I raced to buy a second one. For now it's just an interesting device that needs work. I certainly wouldn't recommend it to any of my friends who are just starting out or don't mind it when things don't work exactly the way you wanted them, too. Thanks again. You're ahead of the pack on this one.
Honestly I'm a bit disappointed with it. I bought it for 2 main reasons. Turn on my wall mounted Ipad when someone approaches and arm the alarm when I've left the house and no presence is detected in any zone. The former works okay, i agree with your 80% of the time. The latter just never works. There is always some ghost in the house. I have it in my living room which is a large open floor area in view of kitchen and dining room. I'm guessing the area is just too big since aqara advertise 400 sq ft. ? But the device is able to see me from across the room. Me and a few ghosts so idk.
This is one of those products that everyone raves about then it turns out to just be meh. Thanks for the honest review! Subbed!
I have a small place with a combined kitchen/living room …. rectangular room, no fans for interference, two zones and still I have had to reset absence status multiple times a day due to it reading multiple ghosts and that's only with one person
Can it count entry and exits to a zone?
Amazon got me with a steal of a deal on the FP2 (currently $68 on Amazon after $15 coupon) so I'll be getting the FP2 along with a POE/Ethernet to USB C splitter tomorrow to see if it can be powered by a POE switch/adapter (which will take care of that exposed wire)... only useful if you have a POE switch/injector and the ability to run your own network cable... I'll post back tomorrow with my findings.
LOL 😂 I love the bonus! But now just waiting 3-4 days to get mine in feeling a little disappointed not just because I was wondering about the wiring thing… how am I going to wire it and no getting an horrible spider mesh in the living room LOL the point is will it work well if I walk or sit down and not to get a haunted house effect LOL maybe for Halloween :) Really cool video thanx!!!
Does anyone know how to get the fp2 to turn on Phillips hue lights? Im using Google home, alexa and smartthings.
I have 2 dogs and 2 cats. They are constantly on the sofa, for exemple. This might confuse the sensor?
Yep. As of now it will
I would love one those but it’s too darn expensive 😢
I only use devices that work with amazon alexa echo dots. If I don't use apple home kit and a home kit hub will I be able to use the FP2?
Hi Scott, it works with Alexa as well. I only use HomeKit so that is what I focused on in the video.
@@TheBradLloyd thank you for your reply, keep up the good work.
I ordered some of Sonoff's new stupider presence sensors instead. They just show presence or not (and light level) which is enough for me and they're just 15 bucks. Same issues with wires and such, sure.
No need for a second smart plug as home assistant can do binary switches based on button presses and so on.
You can probably hide it behind some thin plastic opaque sheet though.
Anyone know why the Aqara motion sensor doesn't expose the light sensor to Apple Home?
I have looked everywhere. Is it purchasable anywhere rn? If not, does anyone know when?
Um? Amazon? But this thing hotcake! Sold out in minute
Ali Express
My experience is great, with a lot of patience... The bad new is that with 1.2.5 update (which allows corner installation) sensor area drops to 7 meters; before was 11 meters :-(
Really good to hear the other side of this product. Thanks heaps for all the great advice.
Brad, this was such an enlightening review. Indeed, the Home community has been very much agog about the FP2. The concept and potential are amazing. I am not overly worried about wires as I have an electrician/contractor who I regularly use to just run wires inside of walls or add new outlets.
That said, the other problems you noted are substantial. I would never have the time or patience to create 30 zones let alone 6-7. That said, when they are created, I want this thing to be snappy and reliable. It certainly sounds like this could be a crapshoot.
I'm an above-average home-automation guy, using both Homekit and Home Assistant and I'm not loving the FP2. Honestly, I struggled to come up with practical uses for it in my automations. When I'm sitting at my desk working for the day, I usually turn my lights on with a smart button and leave them on until I'm done, when I use the same button to turn them off. When I sit down to watch TV in the evening, I have Siri turn on my "TV Time" automation with a voice command or a smart button on the underside of my coffee table. Also, the configuration in the Aqara app isn't terribly intuitive (and I'm not new and this). Right now, for me and my home, it's just meh and I wish I'd spent the $80 on something else for my smart home.
I'm a frequent post 12am home traverser. The FP2 is a god send.
Your unpopular opinion just earned a "subscribe". I knew that most of the early reviews I saw were more hype vs honest, objective tests. Thanks for sharing. I have two areas in my home where hyper-accurate presence detection would really fix a lot of my janky PIR-based automations, but I am going to wait to see if firmware updates do the trick. Look for to an update from you in the future if that happens.
Make it two subscribes. 👍
Did the sticker call the toilet a "stinkpot"? 😂 I'm calling it that from now on
a suggestion to solve the long cord issue, just use a portable battery bank and have another on standby 😉
Yes, that could work, depending on where it's going. A good suggestion!
Thank you for this. I am sure that the YT channels that have no issues whatsoever are the ones who are sponsored by Aqara. For me the only thing that makes me hesitant to purchase is the cord.
Sent mine back after four days.
Not surprised, it’s a little disappointing.
It replaced like 5 sensors for me. $$$$$ saved. 🤣
The issue I have with the p1 motion sensor is that while in my bathroom, if I continue to move after the “lockout” time has expired, the lights still go off and then pop back on. I was hoping a presence sensor would fix this issue. Unless someone knows how to fix it within the p1? 😅 Save me 80$
Totally agree: mine detects presence and stays hours mentionning "presence" while nobody is in the room: don't buy !
Nice review, everyone else is like yeah buy it. 😂
The price it's selling for is shocking.😮
you just need to know how things work, the make an opinion on it !
Well, shit. Just ordered 3 of these off Amazon as they just got back in stock. Will see how it goes …
Let me know. Im about to order.
If you do not like it, you can send it to me... Thank you
Шнуры ему не нравятся.. Спрячь в кабель-канал или проштроби стену наконец. в чем проблема?
OMG my eyes! Use a zip tie and close the cord behind a plastic cover.
Goddamn. Seems like this wont get the wife approval. Thanks for the video though! Really appreciate your honesty.
I wish I have watched this video before buying it. I am extremely disappointed with the Aqara FP2 Presence Sensor. It is inaccurate, no matter where I put the sensor. Signal are quite delayed. And yes, I ran into the undesirable automation triggers because of all these inaccurate sensor detections. The Aqara app is not working if I remove the device and pair again. The device idea is good but I agree this tech is not mature enough to be on the market yet.
😮 Good night who can you trust .
frustrating with FP2 "ghosts", it always like "I see dead people"
Yeah it’s a little weird for sure.
If your using home assistant, don't watch this review.. you will have much better functionality than those not using home assistant.
Doesn't even work with Google home, to simply turn on lights.
Pretty useless for most right now.
My only problem is that it's wired.