YoLinkLoRa Smart Outdoor Contact Sensor, Gate & Shed Door Sensor, Universal Contact-Closure Sensor, Email/SMS/Push Alerts, 1/4 Mile Range, Alexa, IFTTT, Home Assistant (Hub Required)

Yo-link - Features, Range, Extender, LimitationsPROFeaturesDiversity of product lineIntegration capabilities as a smart home deviceLow costBattery LifeCON1/4 Mile range advertised likely clear line of siteIn wooded area reliable range was more like 300 feetAntennas, range extenders not availableUnsupported range extender works but limits featuresSome limitationsFor house monitoring of crawl space temp/humidity, water leak detection, motion in attic etc., the product line works extremely well and has excellent smart home integration.The goal was to simplify install, minimize/eliminate wiring for sensors, and to gain smart device capabilities. When working for external device monitoring such as driveway gates, package delivery box notification at a range of 450 feet through wooded areas challenges were uncovered. For the package delivery box, the original concept was to mount a garage door sensor flush (horizontal) on the bottom of the lid that would toggle when the lid was opened. From what I could glean the device is designed to be installed on the inside of a garage door (vertical) with door closed. There was not a software option on this sensor to alert on normally open vs normally closed. Therefore a bracket needed to be assembled to mount the sensor in a vertical position for the device to operate. Would be nice if the device offered this option. During the process the range was learned to be a challenge. Moved hub outside, tried different orientations to try to optimize internal antenna (vertical / horizontal) different sides facing device and was not able to mitigate signal limitation. Yo-link does not offer an antenna, and/or range extender. Found a helpful "non-supported" solution to create a signal relay solution. This uses a yo-link Security Siren & Alarm controller and yo-link Outdoor contact sensor. Between these two devices a relay is required. I found and electronic relay with NO normally open and NC normally closed output contacts; "OONO DPST 1NO 1NC 8Amp Power Relay Module, AC/DC 12V Control Voltage" which worked perfectly. Configure the remote device to trigger the Alarm controller. Replace with siren with the input to the relay module. Attach the contact sensor to either the NO/NC contacts as appropriate for your project. This solved the range issue in this case. However, the ability to monitor if the device remains open and is not closed is lost. A goal was to add this solution to the driveway gate and obtain a notification if the gate was not closed. At this time I do not know a solution to the range challenge combined with some of the additional features yo-link offers.I am using these devices outside of their intended design, so I will still rate them highly. However, it would be nice for yo-link to have an extended range solution that supports all of the device capability as well as a tilt sensor (garage door sensor), that allowed the NO/NC configuration to be modified.Overall I have been impressed.

These are great for using as a mailbox sensor. I also have one on our package box on our porch and on our back gate. They’ll occasionally go offline, so they may not be the best for mission critical applications, but they work well to have a general awareness.

I’ve tried a number of different hubs and smart home devices and Yolink wins hands down.With over 72 Yolink devices ranging from switches to hubs to fobs to smart plugs and more. Many of which have been in service for 2+ years. Yolink devices are extremely easy to deploy and easily integrate into Google home and Home Assistant – but I use the Yolink app 95% of the time. Battery life is unbelievable – changed my first battery yesterday. Most of the devices are still showing 50%. Even more impressive is the range – even with the device inside a metal postal box and hundreds of feet from the house. Also like the fact you can add fault tolerance by adding a second hub by simply scanning in the barcode on the device. Customer tech support is also top notch.

I’m totally blind! Let’s start out with saying the wire magnetic switched is about 1 foot or so long. The magnet and switch both have screw holes for mounting. The package comes with screws and double sided tape. There is no screw holes in the box and electronics. So you would need to use some other way to attach the box. Really double sided tape for something that could be outside in the weather and maybe on wood? I don’t think so. But anyway. What I like! The batteries are very easy to get to and the sensor doesn’t come with them already in it. You have 2 lock down clasp to undo and then you lift up the top. On the bottom of the top is the QR code label that you need to scan to bring the sensor online to YoLink. The sensor takes 2 AA batteries. To bad other outside sensors that YoLink doesn’t have easy to replace batteries like this one. I don’t like the fact the box doesn’t have a screw mount.Now I wanted a way to have my old Magnetic driveway transmitter and receiver setup works with the Alexa service. Thought about it a lot and kicked around some ideas of how to do it. My STI-V34100/STI-V34150 system has a 12V output when it triggers. So knowing that needed a way to trigger some other device. Thought about using a electric magnet. But that pulls to much power. So thought about using the YoLink outdoor sensor being it has a wired connection for the magnetic switch for Open/Close status. Figured that would work. Needed a way to be able to tie that into the driveway receiver. So pick up a 12V relay that doesn’t require much power to be able to change the connection. So pick up the YoLink Outdoor sensor and the relay. Then I sat down and using my light detector and talking multi meter along with my talking cell phone was able to determine what wires whir what for the relay and guessing what was hot for it. Then wired up the power first to the relay to ensure it worked with the driveway receiver. Herd a click when the receiver was turned on. So that was good.Cut the magnet off the YoLink door sensor and touched the wires together to ensure the sensor said it was closed. Yep that worked. Then unplugged the relay and attached the YoLink wires to the Open side of the relay. Plugged the relay back into the receiver and triggered it! The YoLink sensor went from Open to closed as I wanted.Yea! That worked. Now created the routine for Alexa to say when the Outdoor sensor names (Driveway Monitor sensor) is closed! Then announce through all Echo’s in the house that there is a vehicle in the driveway! Tested again by triggering the transmitter and the Echo announced what I wanted.So with my own thoughts and ability to figure out things! I was able to make this work. This is in some way much better then the YoLink outdoor motion detector. Why! Is because this will not trigger off of people, pets or things like that. It will only work on vehicles. It works off of magnetics and detects the iron in the vehicle. Yes every now and then; You’ll will get a faulse reading! But not near as many as a motion sensor and also sun light doesn’t impact how it works at detecting vehicles.P.s. You could also use the YoLink water sensor 2 or 3 to do the same thing in place of the outdoor contact sensor. I used the contact sensor being I could feel the 2 wires side by side and on teh water leak sensor! It was a round wire and would be harder for me to strip the wires. I didn't have an 3.5MM male Mono jack with wires on the other end. If I had, I probably would have used the water leak sensor instead. Just some other options for people who may want to do something like I did above. After all, not like I can see someone in my driveway!

I used this on my mailbox door, which is almost 700 feet from the house. It works great.I originally just installed it inside the mailbox and drilled small hole to run the antenna wire out. This worked but whenever the postal person delivered the mail they would sometimes shove in the bigger boxes which would rip the unit from the mounting tape.The wire between the main unit and the magnetic switch is about 6-8" too short to allow the unit to be mounted on the back wall of the mailbox, so I had to modify it by adding some extra wire to lengthen it so it could reach the entire length of the mailbox.It's been fine ever since.Still gets 5 stars, I just wish the wire length was longer.