Aqara Presence Sensor Comparison: FP1E vs FP2 vs FP300

All three use 60 GHz millimetre-wave (mmWave) radar, which picks up the small movements a normal passive-infrared (PIR) motion sensor can miss. The FP300 adds PIR for a fast first response and to save battery. The FP1E and FP2 are always plugged in, so their radar can run all the time with no battery trade-off.

The biggest difference is mapping. The FP2 can split a room into named zones and tell you which one is occupied. The FP1E and FP300 only tell you whether someone is in the area they cover, not where they are in the room.

The FP1E covers an area up to about 6 m away, with a field of roughly 120 degrees at distance. It reports whether someone is moving, still or gone, and Aqara's spatial algorithm learns to ignore common sources of interference. You can adjust the detection range and interference areas in Aqara Home, but it still gives you one area, not a map of the room.

It needs 5 V power and a compatible Aqara Zigbee 3.0 hub, so it suits homes that already use Aqara Zigbee and rooms where you can get USB power to the sensor. A supported hub can pass its occupancy reading on to Matter platforms, while the setup and the moving-versus-still detail stay in Aqara Home.

For a bedroom, study or TV area where the automation only needs to know whether someone's still there, this is the one to get. There's no map to draw, as there is with the FP2, and no batteries to look after, as with the FP300.

The FP2 is the mapping model. Mounted on a wall, it can cover a room of up to about 40 square metres, split it into as many as 30 zones and track up to five people, though Aqara says it works best with no more than three. Each zone you set up behaves like its own occupancy sensor.

That's most useful in an open living and dining area. Someone on the sofa, at the dining table or at a study desk can each bring on different lights, without a separate sensor for every spot. The map has to match the real room, so you'll mark the walls, doorways, edges and interference areas, then test them.

The FP2 connects straight to 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi and needs USB-C power all the time. It doesn't need an Aqara hub for basic use. It can share its zones with supported household platforms as separate sensors, but you'll still draw the map and do the detailed setup in Aqara Home.

The FP300 pairs PIR with 60 GHz mmWave radar. The PIR reacts quickly when someone walks in, and the radar keeps the room marked as occupied while they sit still. It also measures light level, temperature and humidity, so one sensor can report both occupancy and basic room conditions.

It runs on two replaceable CR2450 batteries, so you don't need a socket nearby or a hidden low-voltage cable. Aqara rates the batteries at up to three years in Zigbee mode and two years in Thread mode under its test conditions. How often it reports, which mode you use, how busy the room is and which sensors you've switched on will all change that in practice.

In Zigbee mode, a compatible Aqara hub and Aqara Home give you Aqara's full settings, and the hub can bridge it to Matter. In Thread mode, you add it through a compatible Matter controller and Thread border router. Decide which mode you want before you set it up, because switching later can mean resetting it and adding it again.

mmWave radar can pick up movement through some light materials, and fans, moving curtains, shiny surfaces and activity in the next room can all affect it. Point the sensor at the part of the room people actually use, and not through a doorway or thin partition unless you want that area covered too.

The FP1E and FP300 cover an area in one direction and usually go in a corner, on a wall or on the ceiling. For zones, the FP2 normally goes on a wall. Its separate fall-detection mode needs it on the ceiling and switches off most of the zone and presence-mapping features, so one FP2 can't do full zone tracking and fall detection at the same time.

Often, power settles it. If you can put a USB point high on the wall, the FP1E or FP2 will work there. In a finished room with no power nearby, the FP300 may be the better choice even though a plugged-in sensor would otherwise be preferable.

With presence sensors, how long you wait before treating a room as empty matters more than how fast someone is detected. A bathroom light can go off soon after the room is confirmed empty. In a study or bedroom, small movements and brief signal changes shouldn't switch the lights off on someone who's still there.

Start with a longer delay and shorten it once you've seen how the room is used; every room ends up different. Also decide what should happen if the sensor goes offline. The wall switch should keep working, and a sensor fault shouldn't leave a light or air-conditioner stuck in an unsafe state.

Light-level readings only help if the sensor sees the light that matters. One facing a window, or the lamp it controls, can read something quite different from your desk. Check the threshold at a few times of day before you make it a hard condition.

If the automation only needs ‘someone's in the room’ or ‘the room is empty’, the FP1E or FP300 will do it. The FP1E is better where there's power and you already use Aqara Zigbee. The FP300 is better where batteries or the extra readings are worth more to you.

For lights that follow you between the desk and the sofa, or an open room with several people in it, the FP2 gives you information the other two can't. It also takes more setting up and testing. Name each zone for what happens there, such as ‘desk’ or ‘sofa’, rather than where it sits on the map, and keep a note of which automation uses each one.

A presence sensor should mean you reach for the switch less often, not never. Keep a wall switch, scene button or the app handy for guests and the odd exception.