Today, Wyze Sense starter kit officially launches.<\/p>\n
We were able to get our hands on a unit a little early. Watch how well it worked for us in our Wyze Sense review below, then keep reading for ideas on how to use the kit in your own home.<\/p>\n
Table of Contents<\/p> Affiliate Disclosure<\/a>: This page contains affiliate links, which earn us commission at no cost to you.\u00a0The writers of this blog received a Wyze Sense for giveaway, but purchased their own to review. They were not compensated in any other way. The opinions are 100% their own and not influenced.<\/em><\/p>\n Setting up the Wyze Sense is easy. When I first received the box, I was shocked how small it was. Opening it up, all of the sensors inside are very small as well, measuring it at just a little larger than a standard U.S. quarter.<\/p>\n Your Wyze Sense starter kit includes:<\/p>\n Yes, all this for $20.<\/p>\n Also included is an installation pin<\/strong> and a few animal stickers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n I’m not totally sure what the stickers are for. It appears that they might stick onto your sensors and give them a fun, childish look. We wanted our sensors to stay white and blended in, so we didn’t use these, though they are kind of cute.<\/p>\n Once you buy the starter kit and already have a hub, you have the option of purchasing individual motion sensors for $5.99 each, or a contact sensor kit<\/a>, which has 4 contact sensors for $19.99.<\/p>\n Since the hub plugs into the back of a Wyze Cam, you will need a Wyze Cam<\/a> or Wyze Cam Pan to get Wyze Sense working.<\/p>\n Once it’s all set up, the sensors communicate with the hub rather than your WiFi, improving their battery life. They don’t use Z-Wave or Zigbee, but rather their own proprietary communication protocol. This was a cost-saving measure so that Wyze could sell them\u00a0at a low price.<\/p>\n They each communicate directly with the hub, so it’s not a mesh network.\u00a0You can have up to 100 sensors per bridge<\/a>, and the range is strong enough that most homes should only need one bridge. In the settings for each sensor under Device Info<\/strong>, you can easily check the signal strength as well.<\/p>\n The battery life on the sensors is estimated at 1 year. Once you’re ready to replace them, the motion sensor takes a\u00a0CR2450 battery, while the contact sensors will need\u00a0CR1632.<\/p>\n You can monitor the battery life within app, under the settings of each sensor.<\/p>\n To set up a Wyze Sense starter kit<\/a>, follow these steps:<\/p>\n After the sensor has paired with your Wyze hub, you can install it to start using it right away. Use a little rubbing alcohol to clean the surface (don’t skip this step unless you want your sensors to fall off!) Then peel the strips on the back of the sensors and stick their adhesive on directly to the surface.<\/p>\n It’s obvious that the sensors are an amazing value. Now that I’ve walked you setting them up and using them in your home, I want to tell you about my experiences using them hands-0n.<\/p>\n During testing for my Wyze Sense review, these sensors worked well. They weren’t too sensitive or missing opening\/closing triggers. As long as you install these correctly, you shouldn’t have issues.<\/p>\n Just make sure you don’t install the two pieces of the contact sensor too far apart, or you won’t be able to tell when they are open or closed. In our testing, when they are separated by about 1 inch, you’ll receive a notification.\u00a0Don’t install them further apart than that or the sensors will never show that they are closed.<\/p>\n I was shocked how far away this motion sensor worked.<\/p>\n From about 30 feet away, it spotted me walking and sent a push notification to my phone. This accuracy is important since the sensors work more accurately as they trigger your cameras or other devices.<\/p>\n Since motion sensors can work\u00a0too\u00a0<\/strong>well if they pick up excess motion, I wanted to test this as well. I waved my arm from the same distance and the motion sensor was not triggered. This shows me that they do not send excessive notifications for unimportant motion.<\/p>\n Unfortunately you cannot adjust the motion sensitivity of these sensors (though you can adjust this for the cameras). This might be added later on as a software update.<\/p>\n Accessing the sensors within the app is simple.<\/p>\n After you’ve added them to your devices, you can see them in the same list as\u00a0your Wyze Cams, making it easy to access all of your home security devices in one place.<\/p>\n If you have lots of sensors and cameras, you may want to create shortcuts for quick automations and routines, such as home, away, wake up, go to bed. This can quickly arm your cameras and turn on notifications when you turn on the shortcuts.<\/p>\n The notifications come turned on by default, so you’ll be notified every time the sensors are triggered.<\/p>\n If this is too frequent, you can always change the contact sensors to only notify you if something is left open for a certain amount of time.\u00a0You can also specify the motion sensors to notify you if there is motion, if it’s clear, or both.<\/p>\n While reviewing the Wyze Sense, the notifications came in quickly and there was no long delay for us. Right now, you can’t schedule Wyze to only notify you at certain times with these sensors.<\/p>\n Although there is a workaround using IFTTT.<\/p>\n By setting up IFTTT an applet that only runs at certain times, you won’t be notified outside of the window you specify. We wrote specific instructions on this in another article linked here<\/a>.<\/p>\n One of the best ways to use these sensors is to have them trigger your Wyze Cam. So if there is motion by your front door or your back door is opened, you can trigger your cameras to record.<\/p>\n You can easily turn this on within the Wyze app, under settings if you click on\u00a0Sensor Videos<\/strong>. Simply select the camera(s) you want to record when the sensor is triggered.<\/p>\n We set this up on my back door to be notified if it’s opened. This makes to easy to view clips from every time the back door is opened in my events timeline.<\/p>\n My Wyze Cam is recording continuously to an SD card. Even though there is a 1-2 second delay for the access sensor to trigger a recording, we can always go back and view the full recorded history if necessary.<\/p>\n One of the great home automation uses for these sensors is you can integrate them with IFTTT (If This, Then That). This means you can have them trigger any device that’s IFTTT compatible.<\/p>\n So if your contact sensors are opened, you can have the lights turn on.<\/p>\n Again, if you want these automations to only work at certain times, then you will need to read our article about how to set that up<\/a> in IFTTT.<\/p>\n There are so many creative ideas for using Wyze Sense. Many of these were shared in the comments section of our video<\/a>\u00a0or in other places around the internet.<\/p>\n BOND fan controller<\/p><\/div>\n Basically you can use these anywhere.<\/p>\n Just note that they aren’t waterproof for outdoor use (of course, neither is the Wyze Cam and that didn’t stop us<\/a>). Some people might try using them outside anyways by installing them where they won’t get wet, or spraying them with Flex Seal to keep them dry. If you are able to make it work outside, that opens up even more options for monitoring pool gates, mailboxes, and more.<\/p>\n If you have your own creative ideas, share them in the comments below! Also, keep an eye on the Wyze Cam subreddit<\/a> for additional new ideas.<\/p>\n At this time, Wyze Sense only works with IFTTT. It would be great if they could integrate Wyze Sense and SmartThings hub<\/a>. Then\u00a0you could automate them within that ecosystem, but for now it’s not possible. Since they don’t have Z-Wave and Zigbee, I don’t see this coming in the near future.<\/p>\n There is a SmartThings workaround. If you use a virtual switch with IFTTT then that could get it working with SmartThings. For more details, check out this video<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"wyze](\"https:\/\/smarthomesolver.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Wyze-Sense-embed-min.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWyze Sense Review & Ideas<\/span><\/h1>\n
Set Up<\/span><\/h2>\n
What’s included<\/span><\/h3>\n
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![\"wyze](\"https:\/\/smarthomesolver.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/wyze_sense_kit-compressor.png\")
<\/p>\nHow it works<\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"wyze](\"https:\/\/smarthomesolver.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/wyze_cam_pan_hub-compressor-1.png\")
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<\/a><\/p>\nInstallation<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Testing Sensors<\/span><\/h2>\n
Contact sensor<\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"wyze](\"https:\/\/smarthomesolver.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/wyze_sense_contact-compressor.png\")
<\/p>\nMotion sensor<\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"wyze](\"https:\/\/smarthomesolver.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/wyze_sense_motion-compressor.png\")
<\/p>\nApp<\/span><\/h2>\n
![\"wyze](\"https:\/\/smarthomesolver.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/wyze_sense_app-compressor-1.png\")
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<\/div>\nNotifications<\/span><\/h3>\n
Integrating with Wyze Cam<\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"wyze](\"https:\/\/smarthomesolver.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/wyze_cam-compressor.jpg\")
<\/h3>\n<\/a><\/p>\nUsing IFTTT<\/span><\/h2>\n
![\"wyze](\"https:\/\/smarthomesolver.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/wyze_sense_ifttt-compressor.png\")
<\/p>\n10 Wyze Sense Ideas<\/span><\/h3>\n
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![\"BOND](\"https:\/\/smarthomesolver.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/BOND_single-compressor.jpg\")
<\/a><\/li>\n![\"wyze](\"https:\/\/smarthomesolver.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/wyze_sense_fridge-compressor.png\")
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Wyze Sense with SmartThings & others<\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"amazon](\"https:\/\/smarthomesolver.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/amazon_echo_dot_heather_gray-compressor.jpg\")
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