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How to tune mmWave using Home Assistant

Prefer a guided dashboard?

The Apollo mmWave integration gives your Apollo MSR-1 a tuning dashboard with a Gate Energy chart and a Calibrate with empty room button that sets the gate thresholds for you. The Apollo mmWave dashboard guide walks you through it as a guided alternative to the manual steps below.

If you're experiencing false triggers, use Radar Engineering Mode (REM) to track them down. REM shows the move and still energy the radar picks up in each gate, so you can see which gates cause the false triggers and adjust their thresholds to eliminate them.

Watch the videos

These two videos cover the basics before you start tuning.

A quick introduction to the LD2410B gates and zones:

How to tune the mmWave sensor using Radar Engineering Mode:

Turn on Radar Engineering Mode

Turn on REM from your MSR-1's device page in Home Assistant to see the energy readings for every gate.

  1. Open Home Assistant.

  2. Go to Settings → Devices & services → ESPHome and select your MSR-1.

    Open your Home Assistant instance and show an integration.

  3. Scroll down to the Configuration section.

  4. Turn on Radar Engineering Mode.

    MSR-1 Configuration card in Home Assistant with the Radar Engineering Mode toggle turned on and highlighted

  5. Scroll down to the Diagnostic section. With REM on, it shows the move and still energy for gates 0 to 8.

    MSR-1 Diagnostic card showing move and still energy percentages for gates g0 through g8

REM is now on, so you can monitor the energy in each gate while you adjust its thresholds.

How the gates work

Each gate covers a different distance from the sensor. Use this table to match a gate to a spot in your room.

Gate Distance Default move threshold Default still threshold
0 0 m / 0 ft 50 0
1 0-0.75 m / 0-2.46 ft 50 0
2 0.75-1.5 m / 2.46-4.92 ft 40 40
3 1.5-2.25 m / 4.92-7.38 ft 40 40
4 2.25-3 m / 7.38-9.84 ft 40 40
5 3-3.75 m / 9.84-12.30 ft 40 40
6 3.75-4.5 m / 12.30-14.76 ft 30 15
7 4.5-5.25 m / 14.76-17.22 ft 30 15
8 5.25-6 m / 17.22-19.69 ft 30 15

Fan diagram of LD2410 gates G1 to G8, each 0.75 m deep, reaching 6 m (19.69 ft) from the sensor

Adjust a gate's sensitivity

Each gate has a move threshold slider and a still threshold slider. The sliders set how much energy it takes for that gate to trigger the sensor, so to stop false triggers, make the gates that cause them less sensitive.

  • To make a gate less sensitive, move its still and move threshold sliders to the right. This increases the amount of energy needed to trigger the sensor.

    g0 move and still threshold sliders moved all the way to the right

  • To make a gate more sensitive, move its still and move threshold sliders to the left. This decreases the amount of energy needed to trigger the sensor.

    g0 move and still threshold sliders moved all the way to the left

Alternate method: start with every slider at maximum

Another way to tune is to start with every gate at its least sensitive and work down from there. Thanks to MakeItWorkTech for this method!

MakeItWorkTech

I ended up maxing out the sliders on all gates and then bringing them down just enough to pick up human presence. Definitely easier than using the LD2410B app.

Example: kitchen lights in an open-concept room

Say you have an open-concept kitchen and living room, and you want the MSR-1 to activate your under-cabinet lights only when you're in the kitchen. Here's how to tune the gates for that:

  1. Stand in the spots where you want the lights to trigger.
  2. Observe the gate energy to see which gates pick you up.
  3. Move the threshold sliders to the right on the gates that cover the living room. This increases the energy required to trigger the mmWave sensor, so your kitchen lights only come on when you're actually in the kitchen, not when you're walking by in the living room.
  4. Optionally, move the threshold sliders to the left on the gates that cover the kitchen. This lowers the gate threshold and makes the mmWave sensor more sensitive, even when you're standing still, so the lights don't go off while you're reading a recipe or doing the dishes.

Your MSR-1 now detects you in the kitchen, but not when you walk by in the living room.

clarinetJWD

Engineering mode is what I was missing at first. I did exactly that, and now detection is basically perfect! My under cabinet lights now come on to max brightness whenever someone is in the kitchen, and return to their previous value when they leave. Next up is replacing the really flaky motion switch in my garage so it stops shutting off when I'm doing a project at the workbench! Thanks, these are really good.

References

For more background on tuning the radar, see: