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.

I got this system to replace my old sensors for my driveway and sidewalk. They worked so well, I got sensors for the 2 fence gates, the shed and 3 water sensors, all connected to a single app where I can quickly check status and get notified immediately when an alarm gets set off. Many are hundreds of feet from the base and work perfectly. I will mention that the app can be tricky to manipulate but I called support and got a real person that was great help getting me started. I’m very impressed and highly recommend this system.

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.

I installed the hub and Contact Sensor. Both installed easily the first attempt. The minus one star came about for two reasons. It wasn't quite clear how to setup notifications for SMS (texts) and, if you want a text sent to you, like I needed for my mailbox alarm, you need to PAY if you want to receive more than 15 text alert each month. My mail box will be accessed twice each day except for Sundays. That 32 texts for the mailbox alone. I was planning on monitoring two gates also. That would be another twenty or so SMS's per month. Email messages are limited also, but allow 250/mo free. I believe the subscription plans start some where around two dollars a month for 200 SMS's and 5000 emails. This information is difficult to find, by the way. My Smartthings hub SMS's are free, just saying. I can afford $2.00 per month, but I just wasn't expecting this bump in the road.The signal range is amazing, as others have stated, My mailbox to hub distance is about 200 yards, my Contact Sensor is mounted inside of my metal mailbox, I drilled a tiny hole in the side of it to externalize the antenna. It worked beautifully instantly. It is 110F here in the summer, let's see if this device can take it. Both my wive and I need to receive these notifications, the app allows you to share an account. It had me send her a link, with turned out to be a QR code. Now it was quit awkward for her to receieve this code which she was to scan, also on her phone , with the Yolink app...how is she supposed to do that? So I took a photo of it on my phone and she scanned it in on her Yoling phone app and it set up almost everything for her. If she wants to receive SMS, she had to find where in the app to enter her phone number, it wasn't obvious, I don't know why the app didn't just ask her for it when she indicated she wanted SMS notifications. So functionality is great, the app is pretty good, but not always intuitive. Everything was received today and installed today. We'll see how it works over the next few months.