We may earn a commission from links on this page.
One of the most common first sensors people buy for their home is a motion sensor. But in almost all cases, you want a presence sensor instead. The one I'd want is the FP300, which Aqara released today at CES 2025.
Motion sensors are triggered by light changes. As people cross a room, the light shifts, and a motion sensor is triggered; as long as people are moving enough, a motion sensor works fine. But anyone left working in an office or library late at night knows that if you’re not moving enough, the motion sensors can’t perceive you in the room, and if the lighting relies on being triggered by motion, you’ll end up sitting in the dark.
A presence sensor uses wave radar technology to sweep a room, looking for the slightest movement, not the broad gestures that would be caught by a motion sensor. If you're breathing, the presence sensor will catch that. It can even detect if someone has fallen to the floor. They’re great at discerning the difference between pets and people, too. Any sort of automation that relies on sensing whether there are people in the room would likely be better served by a presence sensor than a motion sensor. From a user perspective, they work the same way: You mount the sensor high up on a wall or on the ceiling and ask it for automation to use motion as a trigger. This sensor will work with Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home, Home Assistant, Homey, and SmartThings.
Aqara invented the presence sensor, the FP1, back in 2021. They released the FP2 in 2023. Each time, Aqara has won awards from major bodies, including IFA and CES. Both previous presence sensors work so well, that the news they would release a new sensor caught me by surprise. What could they add to the functionality?
Well, the FP3 relies on battery, and while that may sound small, it’s not. Most sensors still use continuous power, which means a plug; I’ve never seen motion or presence sensors that were cordless. For the amount of action they see, they’ve generally needed the constant influx of electricity, but having a cord is inconvenient for mounting a sensor where it needs to be.
It’s why these sensors don’t get used as often as they could be: Cords are a pain. So a cordless sensor is a big deal, if it works well. You don't want to have to recharge it every month or take it down and change batteries. Aqara says the battery will last two years.
There are other improvements besides the battery. The FP300 is Matter-enabled, and supports Threads and Zigbee as well; with that kind of cross platform support, it should be usable into the next few years. Aqara has thrown a lot of sensory technology at this piece of tech to sense what is going on within 20 feet of the sensor: mmWave (a series of radio waves), passive infrared, light, temperature, and humidity sensors.
Aqara is, in my opinion, the best company for sensors, with the widest library of sensors for smart homes. They’re also the most reliable sensors that I’ve tested; the app is well-designed and the sensors are easy to pair and immediately start using. I’m excited to test this particular sensor, but I don’t have a release date or price yet.
