FP2 Presence Sensor: 5 Setup Steps That Make It Rock Solid (Beginner Tip)

Automation Inspirations
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My beginner tip: with mmWave presence sensors like the Aqara FP2, the 15 minutes you invest in setup decide whether it works flawlessly or drives you crazy with ghost detections. Mine has been rock solid in the living room — here is exactly what I did:

1. Mount it high and in a corner. Mine sits at about 2 meters in the corner of the room. From there it overlooks the whole area at a good angle instead of staring straight at obstacles.

2. Actually do the walk-through calibration. The Aqara app has a guided setup where you walk through the room. Don’t skip it and don’t just wave from the couch — I walked into every corner a person can physically reach, so the app learned the real usable area.

3. Mark your entrances. I entered both doorways into the app. This is how the sensor understands people entering and leaving instead of appearing and disappearing — a big factor for reliable “room empty” detection.

4. Draw in the big furniture. I added the 85" TV and the sofa (which sits almost directly under the sensor). TVs especially can confuse mmWave sensors; marking them told the FP2 what to expect there.

5. Don’t over-engineer zones. Controversial maybe, but: I run just ONE zone for the whole living room, and it’s completely reliable. Start simple. Add zones later only if an automation actually needs them — every zone you don’t have is a zone that can’t misfire.

Result: presence-based lighting and climate automations via Home Assistant that just work, every day.

What does your presence sensor setup look like — one zone or many? StarterTips

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Since a few people always ask for the actual automation — here is the YAML I use in Home Assistant. Two details worth pointing out for beginners:

  • The FP2 exposes multiple presence entities in HA. I trigger on both and only turn the light off when both have been clear for 5 minutes — this completely eliminated premature turn-offs.
  • The light turns on without touching color or brightness, so whatever scene you had stays intact.
alias: Presence light living room
description: >
  Turns on the sofa light when presence is detected and it is dark.
  Uses both presence sensors provided by the FP2. Only turns off
  after BOTH sensors have been clear for 5 minutes. Color and
  brightness of the lamp remain untouched.
triggers:
  - entity_id:
      - binary_sensor.living_room_fp2_presence_sensor_1
      - binary_sensor.living_room_fp2_presence_sensor_2
    to: "on"
    id: presence_on
    trigger: state
  - entity_id: sensor.living_room_fp2_light_sensor_light_level
    below: 60
    id: dark_enough
    trigger: numeric_state
conditions:
  - condition: numeric_state
    entity_id: sensor.living_room_fp2_light_sensor_light_level
    below: 60
  - condition: or
    conditions:
      - condition: state
        entity_id: binary_sensor.living_room_fp2_presence_sensor_1
        state: "on"
      - condition: state
        entity_id: binary_sensor.living_room_fp2_presence_sensor_2
        state: "on"
actions:
  - action: light.turn_on
    target:
      entity_id: light.living_room_sofa_light
  - wait_for_trigger:
      - trigger: template
        value_template: >
          {{ is_state('binary_sensor.living_room_fp2_presence_sensor_1', 'off')
             and is_state('binary_sensor.living_room_fp2_presence_sensor_2', 'off') }}
        for: "00:05:00"
  - choose:
      - conditions:
          - condition: state
            entity_id: binary_sensor.living_room_fp2_presence_sensor_1
            state: "off"
          - condition: state
            entity_id: binary_sensor.living_room_fp2_presence_sensor_2
            state: "off"
        sequence:
          - action: light.turn_off
            target:
              entity_id: light.living_room_sofa_light
mode: single
max_exceeded: silent

Bonus tip: the FP2 also has a built-in light sensor — that’s what the below: 60 lux check uses, so you don’t need a separate device for “only when dark”.

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Cool. Yeah, I did something very similar! I just added a few extra things:

  • A sensor helper that triggers if any light sensor labeled “illuminance_sensors” hits the threshold in the kitchen and the hallway to the kitchen (< 15 lux in the morning, < 25 lux from noon).
  • Alarm system integration (the lights won’t turn on automatically if the night alarm is armed).
  • A fixed timeframe when the lights should never turn on.
  • A manual override so the lights stop switching automatically if the physical wall switch was used.
  • I also set the mode to restart. Since we use a delay before turning the lights off, this makes sure the countdown just resets if the sensor triggers again.
Screenshot from Home Assistant

image
image699×1115 105 KB

YAML for Home Assistant

Template binary sensor

{% set threshold = 15 if now().hour < 12 else 25 %}
{% set target_rooms = area_entities('kitchen') + area_entities('kitchen_hallway') %}

{% set is_dark = expand(label_entities('illuminance_sensors'))
  | selectattr('entity_id', 'in', target_rooms)
  | map(attribute='state') | map('float', 1000)
  | select('lt', threshold)
  | list | count > 0 %}

{{ is_dark }}

Automation

alias: Turn the kitchen light on/off automatically
description: ''
triggers:
  - trigger: state
    entity_id:
      - binary_sensor.presence_sensor_fp2_ae68_presence_sensor_2
    to:
      - 'on'
  - trigger: state
    entity_id:
      - binary_sensor.lux_threshold_met
    to:
      - 'on'
    from:
      - 'off'
conditions:
  - condition: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.presence_sensor_fp2_ae68_presence_sensor_2
    state:
      - 'on'
  - condition: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.lux_threshold_met
    state:
      - 'on'
  - condition: state
    entity_id: alarm_control_panel.camera_hub_g3_1765_security_system
    state:
      - disarmed
      - unavailable
      - unknown
    enabled: true
  - condition: time
    after: '05:45:00'
    before: '03:30:00'
  - alias: Light switch not operated for 15 minutes
    condition: template
    value_template: >-
      {{ ( as_timestamp(now()) -
      as_timestamp(state_attr("automation.light_switch_on_off","last_triggered"))
      |int(0) ) > 900 }}
actions:
  - action: light.turn_on
    metadata: {}
    target:
      area_id: kitchen
    data: {}
  - wait_for_trigger:
      - trigger: state
        entity_id:
          - binary_sensor.presence_sensor_fp2_ae68_presence_sensor_2
        to:
          - 'off'
        for:
          hours: 0
          minutes: 0
          seconds: 20
  - action: light.turn_off
    metadata: {}
    target:
      area_id: kitchen
    data: {}
mode: restart
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Isn’t 2 meters too high? I thought Aqara recommended around a meter and half

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No, 2 meters are absolut great in my opinion. It works fine.

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Heads-up for everyone using the two-sensor YAML I posted above: the FP2 only exposes two presence entities when paired via Matter. If your FP2 is (or ends up) paired through Apple Home / HomeKit instead, you get one presence sensor — and automations referencing the second one break silently. That exact thing happened to me after a re-pairing; full story, diagnosis and the fixed single-sensor version here: Why My FP2 Automation Silently Died: The Matter vs. HomeKit Pairing Trap

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