Philips HueDusk-to-Dawn Outdoor Motion Sensor, Wireless and Easy to Install, Works with Philips Hue Lights, Hue Bridge Required

I was looking for a good quality outdoor motion sensor but did not want another hub. I was very pleased to find out that this quality sensor was totally compatible with the Hubitat smart home hub that I already use for my home automations.Pairing to Hubitat was simple and immediate. Quickly added rules for turning on various outdoor lights when motion occurred based on this devices luminescence setting i.e. only at night - not based on time, but on how dark it is.It's great that it also has a temperature sensor, which I'm sure I will also include in more automations soon.I will update this review if problems arise, but so far I love this sensor. Quality build.

I received the Hue Outdoor motion sensor and spent the day trying to make it work with little succeess. Connecting the outdoor sensor to the Hue app is easy and painless, but that's where the ease of use ends. First, I noticed the light sensor is stuck at 1 lux no matter what light enviroment it's in. Searching online, this appears to be a known issue and one solution was to remove it from the Hue app, reset it, and add it back to the Hue app. This method didn't work for me. There is a software update coming out that is suppose to fix it, so I will wait and see if it really fixes this problem.The sensitivity option is also problematic. The Hue indoor motion sensor has a High, Medium, and Low setting for the sensitivity. The Hue outdoor motion sensor has a slider instead, which gives you finer control over the sensitivity option. The issue is, no matter how low you set this option, the sensor appears to be still too sensitive. Everytime a car drives past my house, the sensor goes off. Again, even if the sensitivty option is at the lowest setting, it still triggers. The sensitivity option is the only option available to the user to reduce unwanted notifications. But it doesn't work. So, depending on far the sidewalk is outside your house, this device is going to notify you of people walking by, as well as cars driving by.Update 03-14-19The firmware update fixed the light sensitivity issue. So, now the light sensor reports the right values. However, the sensitivity problem remains in that it picks up people walking on the sidewalk and cars moving on the street at the lowest setting. But on the whole, the product works much better with the firmware update now.Update 3-19-2019During the day, I get a lot of false possitives from the motion sensor when it's sunny outside. The sensor detects shadows, caused by th sun moving across it's view, and thinks it's human movement. Thereby tiggering the motion sensor. Again, the sensitivity setting isn't very useful here as well. Lowering the sensitivy doesn't help. You will just have to play with different placement to minimize these false positives. However, the temperature sensor seems accurate though.

I bought this in conjunction with several Hue outdoor lights (Two Callas and three Lilies). As with the indoor sensor, placement is everything, and there is no easy way to mount this temporarily - I used Gorilla tape to hold it in place while I tested locations. The mounting kit is interesting, and can be used in corners (inward or outward) but a flush mount is impossible and it's not adjustable. I do wish Philips had thought to include an adjustable visor for the sensor, because the sensitivity setting in the app is only so good. I wanted to capture movement to the end of my property but not on the road in front of the house. I ended up using a piece of black electrician's tape to cover about 1/4" of the sensor to prevent passing cars from setting it off. So - aside from the mounting and sensitivity options, it's a great little addition, and well worth the investment.

I have been using these sensors for about a year. I have them mounted outside on fence posts and trees. The are connected to my Homeseer home automation system through a Hubitat home automation. The motion sensors are Zigbee and pair easily to the Hubitat Hub.My wife has a kings ransoms worth of plants in the yard, and we use the motion sensors to detect the deer coming into the yard at night to eat her plants. The Homeseer sends out a verbal announcement over the Google Home on which sensor is detected. (The dog is quite keen to hear the announcement and pops up ready to chase).The sensors work very well on sensing the deer, only issue would be when a car passes by as others have mentioned, or when its too windy. We had the ability to turn the sensors away from the road to resolve the car light issue, but when it is too windy and the branch and trees are swaying, we have to disable the automation. Direct sunlight also gives false triggers, but we don't use the motion sensors during the day. The sensors work well of course on detecting of there things people, dogs, and other varmints.The sensor also offers temperature and Lux readings. The temperature seems mostly accurate to a couple of degrees. I don't use the lux measurement and have turned down the reporting to a change of 500 lux. I have used the motion sensitivity adjustments through the Hubitat devices dashboard, and appears to make a difference.All 6 of my sensors have survived about a year with no failures yet. I think it's a good product for the outdoors if you can avoid direct sunlight and car headlights.

TL;DR - Make sure your sensor is enabled in the Hue app before you try to replace the batteries!I am very pleased with these Outdoor Sensors. I do get false motion readings when sun is shining through trees on one of them in the mornings, but they are very reliable overall in controlling Hue indoor and outdoor lights. I especially love that I can use motion from these sensors to trigger HomeKit automation.I just spent an hour trying to figure out how to open the Hue Outdoor Motion Sensor to replace the batteries. The Apple Home app was reporting "No Response" for the Outdoor Motion Sensor, which is typical when a device is powered off or battery is dead. I assumed the batteries were due for replacement.My Hue system is connected to HomeKit, so I rarely open the Hue app. I noticed the sensor was still glowing red when I was handling it, so I thought I'd open the Hue app and try to confirm the battery level. In the process, I realized that I had disabled the sensor in Hue app.MY SOLUTION - I enabled the sensor in Hue app and the sensor is working correctly again and showing status in Apple Home app again. Ugh! I wish Home app showed "Disabled" instead of the "No Response" message typical of powered off or dead devices. I hope checking whether or not your Hue motion sensor is enabled in Hue app saves you some hassle.Battery FYI - Hue app does not show battery level for any of my Outdoor Sensors. The sensor has 4 small phillips batteries in the back. After removing these screws, the back cover seemed glued/sealed shut. I referred to the original instructions and they have very vague battery warnings saying the battery should not be recharged and the sensor should only be opened to replace the batteries BUT the original instructions do not have any info about replacing the batteries.I suspect the batteries are not meant to be replaced. I may update my review with more details and a teardown if/when a sensor does die.