Some time ago I reviewed the Aqara FP2 Presense Sensor.I like it but it keeps seeing 2 people in my office when there is only me – even with the latest updates.So, I thought I’d better try the later FP1E.
Here it is straight out of the box.The FP1E is Zigbee and Aqara sent me their HUB3 but I already have their Camera Hub G3 (always handy for checking on the cats) so for now I’ll run the FP1E with the latter.After opening the box and plugging the mmWave radar FP1E sensor into USB (long lead attached but they don’t include a power supply) I made sure my camera hub was turned on and went into the Aqara APP and added the FP1E device by holding in the underside button for 5 seconds.
I then figured I’d go in at the deep end and immediately go for the FP1E firmware upgrade in the APP.“Update is successful – current firmware 0.0.0_0028 – so early days then….To be safe I then reset the FP1E which took a few seconds.
And now I had this screen on the APP (see right – simply showing a good signal).Then I backed off to the APP home page to see a new icon appeare for the FP1E – with the word “presence” appearing.No-where near as exciting as the FP2 – but does it work? A LOT less dramatic than the FP2, the screen simply shows “absence” or “presense” and by default, staying completely still for a minute would change the text back to “absent”.
The LOG shows a simple list of these “absense” and “presence” events with exact times….and “detection range” can easily be set.There is an “AI Spacial learning” feature but they suggest not using that until the FP1E is in it’s final location..
Tell me if I’m wrong but that seems to be IT.Not cheap at just under £50 in the UK… I do like the base – the unit base is magnetic and comes complete with a separate magnetic plate which has adhesive on one side for wall mounting.There are also screw holes in the plate.
Note, the point of this device is to detect both presense and movement – handy for me as I’m sick of simple sensors turning my office lights off when I’m deeply into watching Youtube tutorials – or perhaps dozing off.I took a quick look in Home Assistant, not sure what I was expecting to find – but nothing new appeared there…
I’ve been looking around the web – others are waiting for Zigbee2MQTT support which I’m sure will come soon so maybe for now, I’ll put this one to one side.