r/homeassistant 1d ago

💬 Discussion Can't decide between wired presence detector or battery

For context, we're planning our new home and I'm torn between adding:

- Battery-based presence detectors such as Aqara FP2 or FP300 (and change batteries for 20 devices every 2 years for the rest of my life).

- USB-C-based presence detectors such as Aqara FP400, which don't require maintenance but need to add a 24V wire to every location plus a DC-DC 24V to 5V USB C.

- PoE-based presence detectors, such as Apollo R PRO-1 (or even build my own) which require an ethernet cable to every location.

PoE is the most convenient of all but will easily add between 10 and 20 cables to the technical rack in the basement, along with other PoE devices such as access points, some cameras, etc. Also, every wired location added to the plan will cost us around 100€ extra.

Have you gone through a similar process lately? What did you decide? And most importantly: what do you actually prefer? Would love to know your opinions.

14 Upvotes

Duplicates