Ecolink Z-Wave Plus Door Window Contact Sensor (DWZWAVE2.5-ECO)

I purchased one of these to test after a good experience with Ecolink's garage tilt sensors (B00HGVJRX2), and after successful testing have two more coming for use with monitoring outdoor entry gates using Home Assistant. At first this connected easily to the nearest Z-Wave node but when I moved it to another location it had trouble remapping the path using the nearby node and had connectivity problems. There's no factory reset button for these - but I was able to find the reset procedure:1. Set your Z-wave adapter to Exclusion Mode. In HA you choose the Z-Wave Adapter and choose "Remove Device."2. Remove the battery for at least 5 seconds, and when you put it back in look for a blinking light.3. Make sure you are in the physical install location before you try to add it back in so it chooses the right node.They only "wake up" to report a status change, so they don't use much power, but this means it's not "awake" when you run network healing to optimize routes. You get more than just open/close; it also reports battery percentage, and cover status. Pro tip - make a note of the battery type (CR123A) and set an automation up to notify you of the battery type when it gets to low battery state. That way two or three years from now when it finally gets a low battery you'll get an useful reminder.If your gap is very large it won't work reliably. This won't be an issue for indoor applications, but big metal gates with wide gaps (like mine) might require either a bracket or a larger magnet, both easily added. Or you could use the supplied terminals to connect a whisker switch or some other mechanical limit switch to close the circuit. I was a little nervous using this outdoors as the top of it has a release to open it up, so I wrapped the outside with tape to protect it from the rain. We'll see how well that works and if it's a catastrophe I'll update here. These are cheap enough that it's worth a try, and so far it's doing a great job warning me if a gate was left open so I don't release the hounds.

Works great. Easily connected to my Smartthings Hub. Had little trouble setting up the routine from Alexa.Had to remove and add few times to get it working. Probably thats a problem in smartthings app. When I first looked at it in Smartthings, in the smartApps list for the device Alexa was not showing. Later I changed the Alexa Smart app in Smartthings App to add the sensor and then it notified Alexa instantly.I also like the fact that it has screw mounts for a more secure mount. My Samsung door sensors keep falling now and then.It has an extra casing for different color, but I dont care much about it.Con is that its little big. Ensure that they do not block any movement while opening and closing.

Using this to add automation to an Escape Room. The sensor will read no matter what side you apply the two pieces, side by side like pictured or front/back, back/back, etc... Package comes with a brown cover as option, easy to switch the white cover that it comes with standard, with the brown one included as extra. Includes screws and a nice easy bracket or double sided foam tape pieces. We really liked the brackets because they could be mounted separately, and the sensor then clips right into it. The sensors have a good distance between them when we tested them, more than advertised, which is a plus for our intended purposes (about 1/4 inch). The sensor does work through thinner materiel such as plywood, but does not transmit through metals, no matter how thin they are. In fact, metal too close to the senor, seems to disrupt it's signal.When it came to pairing it with our Z-Stick, it went fairly smoothly. The only awkward part, is that the sensor goes into pairing mode as soon as you pull the tab in the back. If you pull that too soon, to put it into pairing mode again, you have to open it up and remove the battery for several seconds, which is a bit of a pain.

I have a Homeassistant system on RPi with a ZWave dongle. I dont write reviews immediately, especially electronic items. I let it run for few months. This, I bought in July.I bought this to see if I can scale the HA setup across the house. So here are my experiences.What works?Pairing is very straightforward. No pain, no fuss.HA detected the sensor on the first hit. I didnt have to do extra workSignal is immediate! I have this on my front door and it goes on each time, without fail. In the last 4 months ZERO misses.It also reports Battery Level to HA and all the way to my Homekit. Till now it says 100%, havent seen it drop even 1%. So Im not sure if its reporting it right (so a good thing) or its gonna go from 100 - 0 without notice (which will be a bad thing)What doesnt work?There is only one issue I have with this sensor: It reports as "Occupancy Sensor" to the ZWave Hub. It should be reporting as Door Sensor!! Because of this Homekit also reports "Occupancy Detected".I have tried to change it on HA but to no avail. Even HA Community couldnt get me an answer, so we've learned to live with it. For that I took off 1 star.Keep It or Return It? : Emphatic Keep it.