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Sensative Door sensor
Sentative
Strips by Sensative is an ultra-thin magnetic sensor designed to monitor and protect the status of windows or doors and reports the data to the smart home controller. To do this the sensor can be mounted almost invisibly on frames of doors or windows. Strips by Sensative consists of two components: The thin narrow strip is mounted on the window or door frame and the small square magnet is mounted on the movable part of the window or door. Strips is 19,5cm long and only 3mm thin, is Z-Wave Plus certified and can also be used outdoors. Its built-in battery has a life time of up to 10 years.

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    The Strips!

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    The Sensative Strips is just shy of 3mm tall and this sensor should on most doors and windows be able to be mounted on the door or window blade itself, leaving it invisible to the normal view of the door. The Strips has a Z-Wave Plus radio and brags about 10 year battery life. I will have to report back with a verification about this in about 10 years time.

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    Some of the images in this post has been obtained from the Sensative website

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    The Strips has had to sacrifice some components to be able to make it so thin. There is no connector on the unit to give the battery a charge. There are however conact points on the PCB, but you will have to call your friend with the soldering iron to give the battery a charge. With the proclaimed 10 year lifetime though for most people that is not a problem. To be honest on most z-wave door sensors you will maybe spend just as much money for batteries in the same time as the value for a brand new Sensative Door sensor, should they still be valid in 10 years time.

    Update: It does not seem to be a rechargeable  battery. Most likely you will have to change tha battery should it become depleted. In the following link Sensative will be posting tips and tricks for prolonging the battery. A 24 hour wake-up time is what they recommend. 

    The sensative Strips is delivered in "auto-add" mode.  but this is activated when the magnets are removed. I removed the magnets before including it to the controller so i had to add the strips in manual mode afterwords. Follow the process below to add Strips properly in a Z-Wave network:

    1. Start the inclusion mode on your Z-Wave gateway. 
    2. Remove both magnets from Strips. Strips blinks twice to confirm the command and successful addition. 
    3. A long LED blink indicates that the add process was successful
    4. Move the squared magnet as shown in the picture . Check that the Z-Wave system indicates the status correctly

    If you were just as stupid as me you have to manually add the strips:

    1. Set the controller to add mode  (See your controller’s manual).  
    2. Place the round magnet at the rounded edge of Strips. 
    3. When the LED blinks, move the magnet away. Repeat 3 times in total within 10 seconds. 
    4. A long LED blink indicates that the add process was successful.

    With the latest software upgrades of the Vera gateway's i have decided to brush some dust of my Vera Lite and check up on the news in the Vera camp. I therefore tested one of the sensatives on Vera Lite and the other on Fibaro HC2. The sensors included properly on both and status was also reporting correctly.

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    The Sensative Door sensor in open position

    Installation

    The Sensative boosts of being so thin iw will be possible to mount it directly on the door or window blade. In my case however the sensor with the magnet in place was just bigger than what there was room for.

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    I had to get the chisel out and modify the top of the doorblade ever so slightly. It does not look pretty, and by time i will paint it. From the normal view of the door though neither the sensor or the my fine woodworking is visible :)

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    The sensative is not so sensitive...

    Now that the sensor was positioned if found out that the magnet portion was slightly out of position with the new sensor placement.  I tried relocating the magnet, when i say i tried i actually ended up breaking it in three. I used a stanley knife blade to ease it off but it was still to thin and the glue too strong and me too impatiant.

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    After getting it off and in to the new "optimal" placement i found the sensor to report open/close everytime there was some wind outside. Turns out that the sensor is very picky on the magnet placement. The magnet has to be dead on top of the red box indicated in the picture below.

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    One might say that the reduction in sensativity is because i have broken the magnet in three and that the magnet field is drasticly redused. The measurments and findings above though is done with the door open with a complete magnet from the other door sensor. The strip is in my mind not sensistive enough. Every door has some play in the gasket around it and in my case the gasket "play" was enough to mis align the sensor and magnet. I tried multiple magnet placements without any luck. Strange thing yhough is thet the sensor is very sensitive for the magnet in height as long as the magnet is straight above. 2-3 cm above the Strip the sensor would trip but on the same plane as the sensor the magnet had to be straigt on the box illustrated above.

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    My solution to the problem was to actually use both magnets i had. I have ordered some new flat magnets from ebay to replace both i currently have. In my mind the Sensative magnets should have been a bit larger to allow some more slack in installation. The sensitivity on the Strip was identical on both Strips.

    Summary

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    The sensative Strip has been in place for about three weeks now and it has worked well. The reporting compared to the Fibaro Door sensor is identical and has never failed. It works well and has it's place in the market as it is completely invisible on the door itself. Set aside with the fact that i had to mofify the door a bit and that the sensor could be a bit more sensitive or be supplied with a larger magnet i am happy with the device. I have just recently mounted the other sensor on a window and the installation was easier on the window than on my door. Take your time in the installation and measure where you place the magnet properly before placing it. Using a temporary fastening of the magnet to get optimal placement may be a good idea to ensure that it is installed properly. The only thing it is missing would be a temperature sensor. I have a temperature sensor in all my Fibaro Door/Window sensors and they are nice tho have to be able to log thermal bridges or change in temperature when the door/window is open.

     

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Model: Sentative