You've Got Mail

I decided I wanted add a sensor to know when my mail has arrived. Searching online showed that this wasn't an original idea. Most people run into trouble having a sensor for this due signal loss to either all metal mail boxes or distance. Before I bought a new sensor I chose to test these limitation by temporarily relocating a motion sensor to the back of my mailbox.  Luckily I didn't run into either of those issues since I already had Zigbee bulbs for some exterior lighting with a relatively short drive way and a plastic mailbox. 

I ordered an new THIRDREALITY Motion Sensor  since that exact sensor was used to test this concept.  To make the sensor less noticeable I removed the electronics and gave it a quick coat of spray paint to make it blend in with the back of the mailbox. 

To ensure I only receive a single notification I have the automation disable itself as its last action. 

 Separately I have an automation set to also trigger off of movement in the mailbox but only run it's actions if the "Motion Mailbox Mail Arrived" automation is disabled. All this automation does is re-enable the "Motion Mailbox Mail Arrived" automation.

Additionally  I have added re-enabling the "Motion Mailbox Mail Arrived" automation. This is due to the fact that I don't always care to retrieve my mail since I normally know what is being delivered. Informed delivery sends me an email each morning with a scan of my mail. https://informeddelivery.usps.com/ is worth checking out if you haven't heard of it before. 

The only thing left to do is monitor how well the sensor actually works now that it has been deployed.