The end of "Domotizing your mailbox" 1.0

Like some of you, I had a domotised mailbox that dates back a few years. I had been using the excellent DS12A that had been running at 433Mhz, reliably for years, powered by two easy-to-find AAA batteries. This device allowed, in addition to a magnet (contact), also to recover a dry contact from the opening of the letter slot.

This device is now disassembled. To meet a small nostalgic need of more than 8 years of good and loyal services, here are in tribute, the photos of the disassembly. I delete the tutorial from version 1.0 of my blog.

Principle of 2.0

Finally, the detection of the opening of the slot is proving increasingly unnecessary, with the factor using in 90% cases at home the opening of the door. There are fewer and fewer letters, sometimes small parcels, often Chinese 😉

So I decided to only detect the front door (factor side) and the back door (house side).

Materials

I used what works best at home, two Xiaomi door/window opening detectors.

Configuring Sensors in the Xiaomi Plugin

Nothing is simpler, we add the two sensors in the Xiaomi plugin.

I only use the ‘open’ info command. When ‘Open’ is 0, the mailbox is closed, when it is 1, the door is opened.

Use of a Mail Widget

I created a small homemade Widget v4. Note that I use a little trick to put my images to myself and not the ones provided by default.

Here are the two images used:

Use of a Virtual Mail

In the Virtual plugin, I added a simple virtual one with a mail info command corresponding to:

• 0 = No mail
• 1 = Mail

Use of scenarios

We can do everything in the same scenario, but to simplify, I make one per sensor:

Triggering scenarios

They are triggered when a door is opened.

Scenario actions

When the postman opens the door on his side, it sends a message to all Alexa devices and switches the Virtual "Mail" to 1.

Then, when you open the door on the house side to pick up the mail, it returns the virtual "the Courier" to 0.

Design info display in the kitchen

To this end, the "Mail" command is added to the Design.