Ever leave home only to get that uneasy feeling 20 minutes later unsure whether or not you closed the bedroom window?  Have a dark basement with a pull-chain light that you can never find all the while fearing that you might go tumbling down the stairs?  Trying to cut down on wasting electricity by reducing the number of times you open the refrigerator door?  HomeKit paired with a contact sensor can help you with all of these situations and much more.  There are a few different contact sensor offerings in the HomeKit world and this go ‘round we’ll be looking at the Koogeek DW1 Door & Window 

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Features

• Notifications on doors, windows, and any other things that have an open or closed state
• Status updates of open and closed states 
• Remote Access and Automations via the Koogeek Home or Apple Home apps (Home hub required for use with automations or remote access for Apple’s Home app)

Need to Knows

• Bluetooth 5.0
• 1 x CR2450 battery last approximately 1 year
• Green LED indicates open/close state
• 0 – 60 degrees Celsius (32 – 140 degrees Fahrenheit) operating temperature
• Installs using double-sided tape

Pros

Though I’m not the biggest fan of the branding choice on the device itself, I do like the size and  inconspicuous nature of the DW1.  It’s definitely on the smaller side when compared to other HomeKit contact sensors and this is a good thing as you don’t really want these types of devices to stand out.

I do appreciate the choice in the CR2450 battery form factor.  At least two of the other HomeKit contact sensors that we’ve tested use a 1/2 AA battery and this is, in our experience, much more difficult to track down and more expensive to replace.

Installation is a breeze for this door and window sensor.  Koogeek even includes an extra set of double-sided tape which is cut to fit the magnet and the sensor exactly just in case you want to move the sensor later on.  This is a nice touch.  A word to the wise though, you’ll want to dry fit the two parts of the sensor before pulling off the tape to make sure that they are close enough together to trigger as closed, but there does seem to be quite a bit of leeway in this regard.

Cons

This is less of an issue with this device itself and more of an issue of how HomeKit manages sensors in general, but I am not a proponent of Bluetooth for HomeKit sensors.  As we rely on sensors for automations and notifications, it’s essential that there is a clear signal for the device to communicate to a Home hub so that things function properly.  If your sensor is in close proximity to a Home hub then there isn’t really a problem, but if you have a larger home or depending on the building material used for your home, you could run into issues.

Above I mentioned that I like the size of this Door and Window sensor, and I really do, but I’m wondering if it wouldn’t have been better to have the main part of the sensor be more elongated rather than wide.  This would potentially provide a sleeker aesthetic and better fit in with door and window frames.

Thankfully we shouldn’t have to do this very often, but accessing the battery compartment in order to change the CR2450 lithium battery is a nuisance.  I needed to employ a couple of different screwdrivers and other tools and, this is likely due to my own frustration and lack of patience, but I ended up slightly damaging the housing of the sensor which didn’t affect its functionality, but still this is something to throw out there.

The App

In order to use the Koogeek Home app, Koogeek has others by the way so make sure you download the right one, you must sign up with an email address.  While this isn’t the worst thing in the world, it’s an extra step that other manufacturers’ apps don’t require.  

The app is fairly intuitive and looks pretty good to boot.  On the landing screen, “Accessories”, Koogeek adds a nice touch by pulling some weather information off the web and displays it alongside your home accessories that it aggregates from HomeKit.  It seems like it may have been a better idea to try to integrate any temperature and humidity readings from sensors you have in your home, but I commend the effort

Adding a device is very straight-forward and is done from the “Accessories” tab.  The “Smart” tab is where you can add automations and scenes and is quite nice using an IFTTT style interface for creating automations which is very user-friendly, but somewhat limiting.  Upon setting up the device, I was a tad disappointed to see that there were no firmware updates to greet me.

By far my biggest annoyance with this app and this is not something I had seen before in a HomeKit app, is the addition of a “Store” tab prominently flanked by the “Accessories” and “Smart” tabs.  I get that Koogeek’s goal is to sell products, but this blatant bid for my money’s attention is a turn-off.

Final Thoughts

The Koogeek DW1 Door and Window sensor is not exactly an exciting product, but I would argue that it doesn’t need to be.  Contact sensors are meant to be innocuous, waiting in the wings for their time to shine.  They add that touch of mystery and wonder that makes a home “smart”.  I would argue that Koogeek’s offering is as solid as they come.  Similar sensors by other manufacturers may have additional sensors or enhanced apps, but I personally do not need a contact sensor to also have a temperature or tamper sensor and I also don’t want to pay for them.  Overall, as I continue to build out my HomeKit home, I will likely grab a few more of these sensors to do my bidding.

Which contact sensors have you played with?  Have you found any creative ways to use them?    Share your thoughts in the comments and you can always find more HomeKit goodness on our various social media @myhomekithome.

Links & Resources

Koogeek DW1 on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2YwdYNS

Learn more aobut Koogeek’s entire line of HomeKit accessories at https://www.koogeek.com