YoLink LoRa Smart Outdoor Contact Sensor & SpeakerHub Starter Kit: SpeakerHub Audio hub, (2) Gate & Shed Door Sensors, Email/SMS/Push Alerts, 1/4 Mile Open Air Range, Alexa, IFTTT, Home Assistant

I purchased this equipment to replace a mailbox sensor from another vendor which didn't work reliably over a distance of approximately 100 feet. The only obstruction was one pane of glass. The YoLink sensor and hub mounted in the same locations work flawlessly and during testing connected over significantly longer distances, even with the hub located inside an interior equipment closet with no line of sight to the sensor.Setup was straight-forward using the YoLink app on my Android phone. The app provides local alerts through the speaker on the Hub. The app also includes links to "Third-Party Services" including Alexa, Google Assistant and IFTTT. I used the Alexa integration to configure my system so that when the mailbox is opened Alexa announces that "Mail has arrived". The Alexa integration also communicates with a TP-Link smart bulb in my kitchen which turns on to provide a visual indication when the mailbox has been opened. After I retrieve the mail, I can say "Alexa turn mailbox light off" and the alert light turns off.While I was setting up the system I posted a question on YoSmart's support web site about integrating the "Open Reminder" feature of the sensor with Alexa. I received a detailed response from Eric at YoSmart within less than a day. He suggested a solution that I had not considered which addressed my need. I had additional follow-up questions which he responded to within hours. Truly exceptional support!Based on my initial experience with the YoLink contact switches and SpeakerHub I plan to purchase additional YoLink devices to extend my home automation.

This works great on our electric gate to our property. The gate is 900 ft from the house where the hub is. It’s so nice to know when someone is coming through the gate even when I’m expecting them. I had a few technical issues which customer service walked me through how to resolve.

Added o e to the mailbox and one to my shed door. Setup routines through Alexa. I get notified whenever they are opened.

Long distance and obstructions do not hurt the signal. I'm a ways from my mailbox and the mailbox is brick construction. It's small enough to tuck out of the way and barely noticeable. Works excellent. The app allows you to use custom voice alerts or sounds you load. Highly versatile. I also placed one on my side gate to the house. Waterproof unit gives you peace of mind. I would highly recommend adding this to any home automation.

First time buyer an user. Impressed with distance and response with contact sensor. New speaker hub doesn't have ethernet capability, only wifi. The hub is approximately 3 feet from my router and it consistently dropped connection the first week i had it. No other wifi devices were effected. I reached out to support with little resolution. I guess because its a new unit, it has some bugs. It has gotten better and ive noticed it drops a few times a week now. Other than that, it works well with Alexa to trigger my smart/motion lights in my rear yard.

This set perfectly solved two main problems for me: (1) The electric meter reader sometimes does not fully close the side gate and it will later swing wide open by the wind creating a security issue. (2) The motorized driveway gate uses the myQ app and there is no way to trigger a reminder it it has been left open for an certain amount of time (yes, I asked them!). It has happened that it opens by itself or that we forget to close it after some work in the front yard.Both gates are steel so it is important to add spacers to the magnets as instructed in the manual.Both sensors are now configured to output a message from the speaker hub every 10 minutes if the gate is still open, which is perfect!!! The app is very functional and has numerous options for any scenarios.Yes, there are similar units that don't require a hub, but the advantages of Yolink (requiring a cheap hub) are numerous. First of all, communication between devices and the hub uses the relatively new LoRa technology covering much longer distances and using significantly less power than WIFI. This means cheap AA batteries in the sensor last for many years. no need for more expensive Lithium or frequent changes.Even the speaker-hub only uses about 0.6W of grid power, basically nothing!Due to limitations of Google home, integration of these sensors is (currently) only partial. While we can check google home to see if the gates are open or closed, we cannot configure them as "trigger actions" for automation due to limitations of the Google implementations. Hopefully that will be eventually solved, the ball is in Google's court! In the meantime, we could theoretically use the Yolink speaker-hub to work around that, for example by having it say "OK google, turn on the porch light" or whatever and the nearby google hub would react to it.