Several weeks back, I installed an open/close sensor on my mailbox. The sensor was installed under the mailbox and it was working great. But it wasn’t waterproof. I decided to do this another way.
I ordered an enclosure that comes with a gasket and bolted it to the side of the mailbox. I ordered a magnet reed switch assembly and installed that where the old sensor was. I used an Ecolink 2.5 sensor for a couple reasons.
It’s Z-Wave Plus, which has better battery life and greater range.
It has dry contact connections to use with a magnetic switch.
I wired the magnet to “COM”, and “NO”. When the door opens, the notifier flag arm goes up, opening the magnetic switch.
I did it like this, so there would be no interference with packages being placed in the mailbox. I think it turned out nice and it looks professional.
I did this a couple weeks ago, and it’s worked every time.
Alexa and text message: “You’ve got mail…!”
This is great if the mailbox is close to your network. My issue is that our community USPS mailbox is about 400’ away from my house. That’s a real bummer when you walk all the way to the mailbox and back again only to find out the mail carrier hasn’t delivered the daily mail yet. I need some technology that can send notifications that far away.
Yes, USPS Informed Delivery is awesome. It’s just frustrating when you see your mail/packages that are coming to your mailbox today, but then you don’t know “exactly” when your mail is delivered. Sometimes we get our mail delivered by 09:00. Today, I checked twice because I was expecting some exciting packages, but the mail didn’t get delivered until 18:30. That’s a “frustrating” window. Guess I should have bought a house closer to the mailboxes (LOL).
