Motion Sensors and Home Security Gadgets Without Cameras

7/21/2026 at 1:49:58 PM

Looks like blogspam, outbound links to each product include an affiliate ID commission link. I would recommend investigating zwave800 based combination human presence sensors (motion sensors) which also include temperature, humidity, light detection.

https://www.thesmartesthouse.com/collections/best-z-wave-sen...

Or just more basic human presence sensors

https://sonoff.tech/products/sonoff-zigbee-human-presence-se...

by walrus01

7/21/2026 at 2:32:45 PM

I agree that Z-Wave products are top tier. As well as SONOFF, but the particular model you linked has decidedly been one of the worst mmWave sensors in the general options available by any manufacturer. No idea why, but they never report presence or lux properly.

If one doesn't want to invest in Z-Wave I'd say grab some of the Aqara FP1/FP2 sensors. The FP2 gives you full room zone presence detection, so you can put it in your kitchen/dining room and set up predefined areas and it'll expose those as their own presence zones.

If you don't need that level of granularity, the generic Tuya mmWave sensors on Amazon, or elsewhere, are a solid option. Super discrete, plenty of tuning parameters, and good smart home platform integration. I prefer the ZigBee ones because the WiFi ones can be a little noisy on your LAN (traffic not interference).

by taylor-tg

7/21/2026 at 3:50:47 PM

They missed that IKEA has just released a new smart home suite including a motion/light sensor for $9.99 [1]. Full thread/matter support and some also have zigbee to maintain backwards compatibility to legacy IKEA stuff.

I’m migrating from my zigbee stuff bridged through home assistant to HomeKit. Now I have thread to HomeKit directly

[1] https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/myggspray-wireless-motion-senso...

by dadadad100

7/21/2026 at 5:03:58 PM

Aliexpress also sells bunch of no-name Zigbee motion sensors, proximity sensors to detect if door/window or whatever is open, which work with Home Assistant through Zigbee2Mqtt. I tried some with good reviews and found them to work allright.

by sdsdssweew213

7/21/2026 at 4:05:05 PM

I get that it is a cheaper solution, but how pleased are you with responsiveness and reliability of the IKEA stuff?

by tonoto

7/21/2026 at 9:31:24 PM

I recently tested all the IKEA matter devices, and running the latest firmware I find that the latency on the motion sensor is quite high and the detection range significantly changes based on the orientation of the sensor which is unusual. Overall the devices are good value, but I'd avoid the motion sensor at the moment.

by pickdan

7/21/2026 at 4:13:41 PM

Their auto blinds were awful. Original warranty was 10 years, they were so unreliable they shortened the warranty and after replacing 2 of my blind told me this is it. So when my blind goes bad again I'm going to have to fight with the manager.

by avgDev

7/21/2026 at 4:15:16 PM

Based on two days with the motion sensor the responsiveness feels very good. The reduction in hops may be the key there. It’s too early to tell about the connection reliability but I’ve been using IKEA zigbee stuff for years with no issues. The build quality of the sensor and their new switches is very high.

by dadadad100

7/21/2026 at 4:46:24 PM

Keep in mind that often motion sensing isn't what someone wants... great for hallways, doorways, and transitional space where someone is expected to be moving, but not great if you're going to be sitting for a bit. Presence sensing is a little more expensive but has gotten a lot better (millimeter wave stuff), great for something like a bathroom or kitchen where you might be sitting for a while but still want the lights on.

by micromacrofoot

7/21/2026 at 6:25:10 PM

MmWave is getting cheaper but it can still be cheaper to use a regular motion sensor combined with a door sensor. This won't work for the living room, but I've found the bee in box setup to work perfectly for the bathroom. You trigger lights on when you enter and lights off when you re open the door instead of waiting for the motion sensor cool down.

by Larrikin

7/21/2026 at 2:47:43 PM

Post kinda accidentally gives away why most/many people long for cameras - price. Pretty much every single amazon link is more expensive than plug’n’play Tapo camera and for many the security/privacy question remains secondary

by boguscoder

7/21/2026 at 5:13:08 PM

>This radar system is ideal for protecting larger properties, with its range of up to half a mile and adjustable detection zone. It’s old school: With no Wi-Fi or app needed, you simply turn on the receiver and pair the detector. It then sounds an alarm whenever a person or animal moves into the area

This doesn't sound that useful without a camera unless you're using it in an indoor space where you know animals aren't going to trip it. Otherwise, what do you do when you get an alert at 3am and you don't know if it's a racoon or a burglar?

by Johnny555

7/21/2026 at 2:11:11 PM

Alternatively, if someone wants cameras (say, for monitoring of a property) but without a subscription or privacy concerns, does anyone have a recommendation?

by mft_

7/21/2026 at 2:28:03 PM

Reolink cameras, but don't give them access to the internet, you can run a local ntp server for time sync

Frigate for video recording, even if you use none of the GPU based object detection features it does a fine job of recording and live view from a browser.

The machine running frigate may need to be some kind of private VPN client for remote access depending on how your ISP is setup.

Frigate will really work with a huge selection of random h264 rtsp stream cameras. You can use a mix of high end high quality expensive cameras and cheap ones to monitor less important spots.

Reolink doorbell camera will work natively in frigate with bidirectional audio via html5/webrtc in a browser to listen and talk to people.

by walrus01

7/21/2026 at 2:37:40 PM

I'll second the endorsement for the Reolink doorbells. Great quality and build.

I've never been able to get their general security cameras to work reliably. Between poor uptime, frequent need for power cycling, and inconsistent stream quality, I'd choose something else unless you already own them or their particular form factors suit your needs.

by taylor-tg

7/21/2026 at 3:17:24 PM

Reolink POE cameras and POE doorbells paired to the Reolink NVR are high quality and super reliable. Price wise it is a long break even if the goal is to just save money with no subscription, but you get a much more professional setup. NVR with basic camera bundle will be $450-$800, then another $200 or so for doorbells or some larger cameras with lights. Professional install is around $120 a camera.

If anyone goes this route save yourself a ton of trouble and ignore 95% of the articles and forum posts telling you to use Scrypted and HomeBridge. It is trash and won’t work well.

The best way to link the NVR to the Internet and other smart devices is with HomeAssistant. Everything else is trash.

It actually works, and HomeAssistant exposed motion detection alerts as their own sensors. The vehicle alerts, people alerts, animal alerts, and more generic motion alerts all pipe in as if they are their own device. You can easily combine this with some super cheap smart light switches and a speaker or two to make your own alarm system. The NVR has EXCELLENT person, animal, and vehicle detection and differentiation. Very few false positives, and I have never seen them miss something even under the worst conditions. We had a thunderstorm last night and they picked up vehicles on the road through heavy rain and flashes of lightning.

Do not bother connecting the Reolink mobile app to the the Internet. It is perfectly serviceable for when you are on the same network, it’s just anywhere else. Just pipe video out with HomeAssistant.

by swhite237

7/21/2026 at 2:23:31 PM

I've had really great success with the TP-Link Tapo cameras. I have a number of their models, and they're all rock solid. Both in build, and image quality.

What drew me to them is that they have RTSP (and ONVIF for their PTZ models) built in, so you're not beholden to their app. I use them paired with Frigate, but they also all include an SD card slot for local recording.

They have on-camera detection for people, pets, cars, etc. No obligation to use their cloud services (I have them on an IoT VLAN with internet access disabled, and have never had an issue). If you're not using your own NVR then you'll probably have to keep them internet accessible for remote viewing.

Cameras have been in the Texas elements for a few years now and the streams look like they did brand new. I'd say my only complaint about them is that the mounts are oddly designed, but perfectly usable as is. 3D printing largely makes that a non-issue, though.

by taylor-tg

7/21/2026 at 2:13:18 PM

I've been looking into UniFi (Ubiquiti) and it seems like a decent option.

by dopamean

7/21/2026 at 4:28:55 PM

- get a cheapo chinese camera supported by thingino firmware

- install FW.

- extra: install open source NVR like frigade and connect these cameras, preferably over ethernet not wifi.

- extra extra: have a separate VLAN for these cameras.

Now you have a secure isolated system. If you want a remote viewer, you can have a vpn tunnel to your nvr to access it from anywhere in the world.

It’s not a perfect system but way more secure than anything consumer out there

by tamimio

7/21/2026 at 5:49:30 PM

Great Project! I just wish, their HDB would enable filtering on which cameras have Ethernet, and/or the data-lines connected on the USB-Power-Plug, so that I could equip them with USB NIC (for the ones that don't have ethernet), and then run them with a POE-Splitter.

Having the data pins connected would also enable lots of other nifty use-cases.

Also, have they managed to forward port the drivers to a recent mainline kernel in the meantime, or are they still on ancient vendor SDK kernel versions?

by stragies

7/21/2026 at 5:26:34 PM

Hi. We make the Kini referenced in that Wired article. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them.

by mzincali

7/21/2026 at 2:58:35 PM

Another option, which is ESP32-based: https://github.com/francescopace/espectre

by bobchadwick

7/21/2026 at 6:49:43 PM

So, I had a chat with my landlady about this. I rent an apartment that can't be substantially modified, and we really can't put anything outside that is noticeable.

Something that has driven me rather crazy is that I cannot see my doorstep. I cannot really see it from the front window; I definitely can't see it from the peephole in the front door; I definitely can't see it if I'm not home. The only way to see if an object is sitting at my door, is if I go and open the door.

So that set up a quandary for me, as receiving package deliveries, or groceries or whatever, can be troublesome, because those delivery services just aren't into notifying someone that delivery is complete (the further away they are, the noisier the notifications!)

It would've been great to monitor my doorstep remotely, and know if someone put something there. So I looked into Ring and into Nest/Google Home. They literally have nothing except the cameras. A compatible, under-mat sensor is simply not a thing for consumers (was discontinued at best.) For some reason, we consumers are not allowed to have a weight-sensing mat for outdoor use.

Since I live in high-density housing, a motion-sensing camera would be stupid. It'd be triggering dozens of time every day. Also looking directly into the pool area, and I'm not excited to "surveil" my neighbors: I just wanna know about deliveries!

I think the best I can do is some sort of "corner mirror" mounted near my front window. That won't permit remote monitoring, though.

by ButlerianJihad