EcolinkZ-wave Plus Gold Plated Reliability Garage Door Tilt Sensor, White (TILT-ZWAVE2.5-ECO)

I installed this in early April 2019 with the original ball switch intact. Several reviews talked about the switch failing after a short period of time, so I wanted to see how long it would last. This sensor replaced a SmartThings multi-purpose sensor adapted to a garage door application as they claim is possible. The ST sensor never reliably stayed connected, and reconnecting was always trial and error, guessing whether it would connect or not even when meticulously following the instructions. Then, it was a miracle if it stayed connected more than a few days or couple of weeks. Very frustrating! On the other hand, this Z-Wave Plus sensor connected easily the first time and has remained connected for 5 months! The ball switch worked reliably until a couple of weeks ago then started falsely indicating "Open" after the garage door was closed. I had purchased mercury filled switches when I bought the sensor, so the ball switch was changed out in favor of the mercury switch. The picture showing the mercury switch has it about 30 degrees up from the small circuit board, but 45 degrees or more will help it indicate “Open” earlier in the door cycle. You may need to angle the whole sensor as explained by another reviewer.Also, after 5 months, battery life is still indicating 100%. I'm not sure that's accurate, but as I said, the sensor has remained connected the entire time and reconnected automatically after repositioning it following the switch change out. The ST sensor would kill a battery after only a few weeks of operation - and poor operation at that!The ST sensor does have a temperature indication, which is nice, but it was rarely available due to connectivity issues. And, temperature is readily available through other means these days.Bottom line is that this sensor is outstanding. It earns 4 stars rather than 5 because of the unreliable ball switch. If you need a simple, affordable, reliable garage door open/close sensor, this is the one to get.

It seems like a neat device but it won’t pair to my Abode hub. The hub sees it but endlessly spins on configuring z-wave device. Bummer, I would have liked to use this tilt sensor.

In the product description and the primary reason that I bought it said that it could be connected to an external trigger. This is simply not true. While the sensor does have a pair of connection blocks inside of it, they are not functional. I am not sure if they are there because that board is used in more than one device or if they are part of a future upgrade to the device but at the time of this review, they serve no purpose. If you look at the product manual (available on-line) will will see no mention of them and if you look at the case, there is no place for the wires to exit the case once connected so as of this time, they serve no purpose. If the use of these connections are what you are looking for, don't waste your time or money on this one at this time. The board also has a space for a magnetic reed switch that is not currently installed which leads me to believe that this board is or will be used for another product in the future that allows for a choice of multiple trigger methods that can be set. I can't blame Amazon for getting the description wrong because it says the same thing on other sites that sell this device but nowhere does it say how to use them. Since the device is not all that expensive, I have no issue modifying it and will simply attach a pair of wires to the leads of it's roll switch and drill a small hole in the case for the wires to exit. Then I will just mount the unit upside down which will put the roll switch into its open position and use the wires as the control.In my situation, I have two doors into the garage and need to make sure both of them are closed in the evening. Since I really don't care which one or if both are actually open, there is no added value in putting a separate sensor on each door . It is easier to just put a magnetic switch on each door and then connect the two switches in series to the input of the sensor which would send a signal if either one or both are open. My modification to the sensor should accomplish the desired result but it would have been much easier if the supplied connection blocks actually worked and if there was a path for the wires to leave the case. In that case, I would have given it at least 4 stars. The sensor does respond quickly when triggered which is a good thing and mounting it seems easy with the supplied hardware. The only other issue that I see so far is that once the open case trigger is tripped, there is no way to reset it other than excluding the device from the network and re-including it. Once the modifications are completed and the sensor is connected to the doors, then I will update the review with its functionality.Looking further into the device, the connections for the missing reed switch are in parallel with the connections for the tilt switch so I soldered a pair of wires to them and put a connector on them for connecting this device to my external wiring harness connecting the two doors magnetic reed switches. I put a notch in the side of the case for my wires to exit and made it a bit undersized so the case would pinch and grip the wires exiting the case to prevent anything snagging the wire from tearing them from the board. I then mounted the sensor upside down to keep the tilt switch in the open position, effectively removing it from the circuit and having the sensor depend on my external connection and it works exactly as I needed it to, Now if either or both doors are open, it lets me know that I have an open door which is exactly what I needed and it responds quickly and if either door is opened more than an inch off of the ground. I will keep the review at two stars for now because the internal screw terminals don't work and not everyone can properly perform the modifications I had to make. Hopefully they will either fix the issue or alter the description so as not to mislead people and it would be a 4 star device in my opinion.

This unit installs easily, though I made a modification; see below. The device is easy to set up with SmartThings, and has worked reliably for the past couple of weeks with no issues. I can't comment on the battery life yet, since I just installed it. I'm using it with SmartThings, but wish it also worked with Alexa.I used the Smart Home Monitor feature of the SmartThings app to create a Custom Monitoring Rule so SmartThings will send a notification SMS text message to my mobile phone every 30 minutes if the door is left open for 15 minutes. Works great!I wish I could ask my Alexa/Echo for the status of the garage door, but it seems like Alexa does not support this device yet.My Installation Hack: I have a typical multi-panel garage door, and initially I installed this sensor as directed in the instructions (flat against the door, on the top door panel). But I found that the door needed to be opened 2 to 3 feet before the sensor would indicate "OPEN". This was unacceptable to me, since I wanted the "OPEN" condition to trigger when it's open a mere 6 inches. This lets me open the door a little to ventilate the garage without the door being seen as "OPEN", but warns me if it's open enough that my nosy Beagle could squeeze under there and go on an unauthorized sniffing adventure. ;-) To address this, I mounted the sensor at almost a 45-degree angle (tilted downward, away from the door at the top) by using a small sheet metal nailing plate that I had lying around in my workshop (you can get one for a few cents at your local hardware store). See the attached photos. Using a vice, I carefully bent the nailing plate in two places to achieve the desired mounting angle. Then I drilled small holes in the plate to accept the sheet metal screws included with the sensor and two additional sheet metal screws (supplied by me) to mount the nailing plate against the door and the rail that runs along the top of the door. Now the sensor trips when the door is opened about 6 inches, woo hoo! :-)

Rewrite #2: Now down to four stars. The switch was still intermittent on occasion after the actions in rewrite #1. So, I followed other user's examples and found an old electronics store that still had the old real mercury switches for a dollar and I mounted one in my mail box sensor and one on the garage door sensor. Now, no false triggers. To be fair to the manufacturer these mercury switches are no longer procurable.Rewrite #1: Five Stars. When putting in the battery be sure NOT to straighten out the little tilt switch inside because you think it's not straight up and down. If anything, you need to bend it to 45 degrees if you are mounting it to something that opens and closes at exactly 90 degrees. The little ball has to be free to move to one end or the other of the tube and won't do that if the tube is vertical with the mounting. I should be ashamed because I'm a Master degreed electrical engineer and have used three of these switches now. The reviewing folks saying you need a pure mercury switch need to rethink this.MY OLD POSTING:This is my second one. Five stars for the one on my garage door, but four stars for the one on my mail box door. My mail box one needs to be mounted upside down because of the way the door opens which reverses the alert to my phone. It tells me it's open when it's closed. I wish the device had a reversing switch for use on items other than garage doors.