I just received my Climate sensors and thought I’d share my honest thoughts/review on these with the community (these are my own personal opinions as a regular community member and do not represent Wyze in any way).
THINGS I WISH WERE DIFFERENT:
They use a CR2032 battery. I prefer rechargeable battery options (such as AAA), but I acknowledge that would make them larger and a more awkward size, and the CR battery does appear to last a long time according to the specs: 18 months of battery life, so I guess that makes up for it.
They do not show up as devices in Alexa or Google (I like being able to assign a temp sensor to a certain room in those platforms and then ask Google/Alexa what the temperature is in a certain room…I used to do this with my previous Ecobee sensors)
I would like to be able to pick which sensors are used or not used for the HMS “Environment” stats. I’ll talk about this more later, but basically, I purposely put one of the Climate Sensors outside, and since all sensors are automatically included in this section, it gets thrown off a little when it is including that one in there. And since I put them by my stoves and fireplaces, those might throw it off too. I would like to be able to pick which sensors are used or not used for the HMS Environment stats:
No Device Group for the climate sensors. I feel a Device Group for these would be very beneficial so they will take up less space on the home tab and be more organized and it will make it so it’s still easy for me to continue to see all my climate sensors at the same time and all the differences they’re all showing (for now, if you have the HMS subscription you can go to the Monitoring tab and click on Environment and see a cool lineup with all the sensors status at once, see screenshots farther down). For anyone else who would like to see a Device Group for these sensors added into the app (like how we can group other similar devices together in device groups), I recommend voting for it in the wishlist (Note that a wishlist item doesn’t mean Wyze has made any promises that they will do what we’re requesting, but it is helpful for Wyze to see that there is interest in the thing being voted on):
THINGS I REALLY LIKE ABOUT THESE SENSORS:
Very affordable and easy to get a lot of them (others I’ve used in the past charged as much as $40 each for similar functionality, though with a quick search you can find some for similar prices, I like the look of these better than most others and like that these integrate with the Wyze ecosystem and HMS hardware in particular), and I am thus not too concerned with taking creative risks with possibly ruining and having to replace them (see my “OTHER USES AND IDEAS” section for examples of what I mean)
The sensors are small and look good. I don’t feel like I have to try to hide them in discrete locations like I have done with other companies’ sensors I’ve had.
HOPES FOR THE FUTURE:
I hope that some day in the future Wyze will allow an option we can enable for the Thermostat to be able take the readings from these into account when averaging the household temperature or other things (some people might have a humidifier connected to their HVAC system for example). I know the thermostat page says that at some point in the future the Thermostat would get it’s own cool sensors too, but it would be cool if we could opt-in to allow some of these Climate sensors to be used by the thermostat as well through the cloud or the Wyze Ecosystem.
Rules to allow us to trigger an action other than notifications if temperature or humidity goes above or below a set threshold. Maybe just for fun I want to have my color bulbs change to a different color if the temperature gets too hot (red) or too cold (blue), or I can trigger a Wyze Plug to turn on and have a fan blow or a window air-conditioner or small space heater or a humidifier or de-humidifier depending on the person and location, etc. There are a lot of possibilities if rule triggers are allowed with this beyond simple notifications.
While I don’t use IFTTT since their change, I know this is something a lot of people would like. Since it is related to rules, I thought I’d at least mention that this is something a lot of people would like access to. Also, please allow Alexa to use routines for more rules.
Allow Google and Alexa to connect to them and tell us the temp or humidity readings of these sensors like I used to be able to do with my previous ecobee system (before I switched to a Wyze Thermostat).
OTHER USES AND IDEAS:
(These are my personal decision, not recommendations by Wyze)
I did purposely put some of these near my fireplaces, and above my stoves/ovens so that it would alert me or remind me when these areas get hot. High temperatures here might not always mean “fire” but at least it will be a good reminder for me to check the cameras or the stove/oven/fireplace and help remind me of some of these risky or “ongoing attention warranted” situations. Wyze has not recommended them for use in these ways, this is all me just trying it out on my own accord. For all I know, it may be that using them in this way could damage them if they are repeatedly subjected to temperatures outside the recommended zones, so I am not suggesting others do this, simply saying I want to try it this way and I am willing to risk having to buy new sensors for the potential peace of mind here. So I just set to have notifications when it gets hot near these areas just to help put it on my attention radar, even if there isn’t any smoke or anything [yet] setting off a smoke alarm.
I also decided to put 2 sensors near each other, but on opposite sides of an outside wall. One inside my bedroom and the other on the other side of the wall at the back of my house (under an awning and protected from rain, snow, etc). Again, Wyze says these are not for outdoor use, so I fully accept the risk that I may just have to buy a replacement (thank goodness they are so affordable). But I love seeing the difference in temperature and humidity on those 2 sensors throughout the day (as well as all the others)!
Overall, I like these. They are smaller than I expected and the design is such that I feel good about posting them anywhere without feeling the need to hide them discretely. I hope some of the things I mentioned above are added to these by Wyze to make them even better. But even if they remain just as they are now, I will be keeping and using them, and I may buy a few more.
Do you have any creative ideas for how to use these, or insights related to them?
If you have them, how do they compare to temp or humidity sensors you’ve had before?
I don’t think the data is exportable currently. That would be cool. I’m a data guy. I export my scale data regularly. It can be interesting to find different patterns and correlations in the data. I think these sensors only store the last 7 days of measurements though. So while I’m under no pressure to export the scale data quickly, you’d really have to remember to do it for these fairly regularly.
Just Setup and installed the Climate Sensors. They seem to be working well.
This may void warranties, but I was ok with that
One of my sensors could not get past the “Ready to Connect” from the Hub. Me being me, I decided to take it apart. I took it apart to the circuit board and figured out it was the negative connector. When I Pushed the button it forced the connection but when I let go it disconnected. So I had to bend the battery holding pin (which is also the negative connector) down so the battery fit snug. It paired after that.
Thanks for sharing that. That will come in handy if someone else reports having a similar issue. Though like you said, it’s probably best that most people call support, some of us tinkerers will love having this information that it might be a fairly easy DIY fix if we’re willing to accept that we’d probably be discarding the warranty. I’m sure if this wiring glitch happened to you it might happen to others too.
To clarify, you can’t even ask “Alexa, what is the temperature?” If so, that definitely makes these a no-go for me. My Switchbot sensors don’t show up as triggers for routines , but at least I can query them via Alexa for the temperature (and via Google Assistant for both temp and humidity).
I should be getting my sensors today and seeing that these do not connect to Alexa is disappointing… But since I am one of those users that has wise running through home assistant through an unofficial workaround, I’ll be curious to see if the developer includes these. I know they’ve had to limit some of the devices within that home assistant since the API has too many calls and that whole mess… Even if the sensors could be pulled every 5 minutes that wouldn’t overload the system.
Would be super nice if Wyze could figure out a way to enable push for home assistant… I know it’s been asked countless times. Still for the price these are a good buy but if I can’t integrate home automation into it it’s kind of pointless. I’m sure Wyze will figure something out with the developer, maybe even throw him on their team.
@LonnieM I was not able to ask Alexa or Google to check the temperature of these yet. In the past I have known Wyze to add Alexa or Google support to devices sometime after launch, so I am hopeful they may consider doing that for these too, but they have not publicly committed to do so, so we have no way of knowing if this will happen. It would probably be good for someone to create a wishlist item for this capability so that Wyze can see how much interest there would be in adding this feature. I would vote for it.
@CTU.CNY Yeah, I have the Home Assistant Wyze API as well. I have temporarily suspended using it until they and Wyze can figure out how to move forward, but I really love that integration too. I too hope they can work out a push method. I really love having more options and customizable control.
I’ve been pleasantly happy with these sensors and their warnings. It accurately warned me yesterday when the upstairs stove was used. Check out this graph showing how my climate was throughout the day and you can obviously see where the stove was used and when it sent me the notification about it:
I am not getting notified when temp or humidity settings should trigger an alert. Also, don’t see sensors in the list of Notification/Push Notifications in the Account section. What am I missing? Thx
Thanks for the help! Pic 1 is the Notification setting in sensor. Pic 2 is current sensor reading. Pic 3 is the Accounts/Notification page which doesn’t list the sensor. Still not receiving notification of temp falling below. Thx!
Has the temp been below 65° yet so that it can go above the 65 set alert point? I think if you’ve had it set at 65 and it’s been above 65 the whole time I’m not sure that you will get a new alert each time the temperature changes above 65, only if it dips below then back over.
Fair point. It has not dipped below, to then go above. Was just testing that at any point it is true it would alert, but I’ll work on temp movement. I have one outside so wil test threshold on that one. And then no, scroll down on account notification list, I don’t see it.
So I am noticing that the temperature on the home screen is 1 degree different from when you click on the actual climate sensor. Not sure why that is, but wanted it noted in case it is a bug.
Using Android 11 Pixel 5.
Also notice the graph below the temperature is very different than what is seen on an iOS device. I posted info below:
I noticed this as well. I assumed one updated the status less frequently than the other for some reason, but you’d think they’d both have the same information from the same base dataset in the cloud, so I am not sure why there is a discrepancy.
I do see that it put a freeze icon on the graph, indicating that it hit the notification level. I am not sure why you didn’t see the notification as it indicates it sent one.
Click on the stats icon (all the bars on the top right) and it should show you under events at the bottom when it sent the notification.
I wonder if the notifications need to be updated in your OS settings for your phone for the Wyze app. Are you using iOS or Android?
Also check the Wyze app and make sure your push notifications aren’t muted:
, but at least I can query them via Alexa for the temperature (and via Google Assistant for both temp and humidity).
