Sensative STRIPS Door and Window Sensor

19.5 cm long and 3 mm thick. Sensative Strips is a door and window sensor you fit into the rebate of the frame, where the door closes over it, so once the door is shut there is nothing to see at all.

• Why Sensative Strips disappears completely
• The battery is sealed in, for ten years
• It is certified for outdoor use
• One job, done properly
• What it needs

It comes in two parts: the thin strip goes on the frame and a small square magnet goes on the moving leaf. Separate them and the hub is told the door or window has opened. That is the whole job, done invisibly.

Z-Wave Plus. A Z-Wave hub is required.

Why Sensative Strips disappears completely

Three millimetres thick and 19.5 cm long, so it lies in the rebate of the frame with the door closing over it. Once the door is shut there is nothing on the frame, nothing on the leaf that catches the eye, and nothing for a visitor to notice or a decorator to work around. On a front door in a nicely finished house, or on any door where a white plastic box on the architrave would look wrong, that is the entire argument.

The battery is sealed in, for ten years

There is no cover, no compartment and nothing to replace. Sensative rate the cell at at least ten years and build the case shut around it. That is the right decision for a sensor you are about to hide inside a door frame, because a hidden sensor with a replaceable battery is a job you have to remember and then do badly. In ten years you take it off and fit a new one.

It is certified for outdoor use

Indoor and outdoor both, which is unusual at this size and opens up the places that actually need watching: a gate, a store room, an outbuilding, a garage side door. Most slim door sensors are indoor only and fail quietly in the first heavy rain.

One job, done properly

It reports open and closed by separation from the magnet, and that is all it reports. No temperature, no tilt, no light level. If you want those readings the Fibaro and Aeotec contacts carry them, at the cost of being visible boxes on the frame. Choose by whether the sensor has to hide.

What it needs

A Z-Wave hub, since this reports to a controller rather than to a phone. We sell three that run it: the Fibaro Home Center Lite, the Fibaro Home Center 2 and the Homey Pro.

If a visible sensor is acceptable and you want extra readings from it, compare the Fibaro door sensor and the Aeotec door sensor. Sensative own site is sensative.com.