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Connect Shelly Presence Gen4 to 5 V USB-C power, place it with a clear view, tune its mounting and detection limits in the local interface, then add it under Settings > Devices & services in Home Assistant. After discovery (or a manual hostname/IP setup), create Shelly detection zones and build automations from the occupancy entities. The sensor reports presence, tracked people and zones; it does not identify occupants by name unless you combine it with a separate Home Assistant device-tracker signal.
What Shelly Presence Gen4 does
Shelly Presence Gen4 is a continuously powered mmWave radar sensor designed to detect people who remain still as well as those who move. Shelly’s 2026 product documentation describes simultaneous tracking of up to six separate people, up to ten customized detection zones and coverage of up to 42 m². It operates from a 5 V USB-C supply.
The useful output is occupancy information: whether a space is occupied, how many targets are being tracked, and which configured area contains activity. That makes the device suitable for lights, climate control, dashboards and room-level security logic. A radar detection is not the same as an identity credential, however. The device cannot, by itself, tell Home Assistant that a detected person is Alice, Bob or another named Person.
| Capability | Documented figure or behavior | What it means in Home Assistant |
|---|---|---|
| Simultaneous people | Up to 6 separate people | Useful for multi-occupant room automations; it is not named-person recognition. |
| Detection zones | Up to 10 customized zones | Divide a room into areas such as desk, sofa or doorway and use the resulting occupancy signals. |
| Coverage | Up to 42 m² | Maximum published area; actual results depend on placement and calibration. |
| Power | 5 V over USB-C | Use a continuously powered USB-C supply rather than relying on a battery. |
| API tracking setting | num_tracks range 1–10 |
A configuration range, not a promise that ten people or six identities will be recognized reliably. |
Shelly’s product wording is that the sensor “identifies up to 6 separate people simultaneously for realistic multi-occupant automations.” In practical terms, read “identifies” as maintaining separate radar tracks. It does not create six Home Assistant Person records.
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What you need before starting
- A Shelly Presence Gen4 sensor and a reliable 5 V USB-C power source and cable.
- A Home Assistant installation on the same reachable network as the sensor. Ethernet, Wi-Fi or a routed network can work as long as Home Assistant can reach the device address.
- A proposed mounting position with the radar’s view of the room unobstructed. Decide which physical areas deserve separate zones before you draw them in the interface.
- Access to the sensor’s local Wi-Fi access point for first-time configuration or recovery.
Keep the sensor powered while you configure and test it. The published product description treats Presence Gen4 as a continuously powered USB-C device, not a portable battery sensor.
Power and position the sensor
1. Connect 5 V USB-C power
Plug the USB-C cable into the Presence Gen4 and a 5 V supply. Wait for the device to start its network interface before attempting discovery. Because presence detection is continuous, plan the cable route and outlet as a permanent installation rather than a temporary test lead.
2. Choose a radar-friendly view
Place the unit where its radar has a clear view of the room. Aim it at the area you want to automate, not at a wall or an occluded corner. If the sensor is mounted upside down or rotated 180 degrees, plan to set the corresponding flipped-mounting option in the configuration before calibrating.
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Measure or estimate the sensor’s height above the floor and the height range in which people should count as present. You will enter those values during tuning. Shelly documents a mounting-height range of 0–5 m, a minimum detection-height range of 0–2.9 m and a maximum detection-height range of 0.1–5 m. These are configuration bounds, not a guarantee that every position within them will produce identical coverage.
Open Shelly’s local configuration page
Use the device access point
- On a phone or computer, join the Wi-Fi network broadcast by the Shelly device.
- Open a browser while still connected to that access-point network.
- Go to
http://192.168.33.1.
The local interface works without Shelly Cloud when the browser is on the same Wi-Fi network as the device. This is useful for initial setup, for installations where cloud access is not desired, and for recovery when the sensor has not yet joined your normal LAN.
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If the address does not load, check that the client stayed connected to the sensor’s access point instead of automatically switching back to another saved network. Also verify that the sensor is powered and that you typed the address exactly, including the four numerical sections.
Tune mounting, sensitivity and detection limits
Open the room or sensor configuration view in the local interface and set the physical parameters before creating detailed zones. Radar geometry is affected by height, tilt and orientation; a zone drawn before those values are correct may not correspond to the real room.
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Mounting height and orientation
Enter the actual mounting height within the documented 0–5 m range. Set the tilt to match the angle at which the unit faces the room. Enable the flipped-mounting setting if the sensor is installed 180 degrees from its normal orientation. An incorrect orientation can make an apparently well-drawn zone appear shifted or reversed.
Minimum and maximum detection height
Set the lower detection limit to exclude activity below the height you consider relevant, such as objects near the floor. Set the upper limit to include the standing or seated people you need to detect. The interface accepts a minimum detection height from 0 to 2.9 m and a maximum detection height from 0.1 to 5 m. Keep the limits physically plausible for the room; an unnecessarily narrow band can suppress legitimate occupants, while a broad band can admit activity you intended to ignore.
Transmission power and sensitivity
Adjust transmission power and sensitivity in small increments while watching the live result. Higher sensitivity can help with subtle movement but may also make the installation respond to activity outside the intended area. Transmission power influences usable range. There is no single setting that fits every room, so make a change, observe the sensor, and then keep or undo it based on the actual layout.
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Run tilt calibration
After the unit is firmly mounted and its orientation values are correct, use the interface’s calibration control. Recalibrate if you physically move or rotate the sensor. Calibration belongs after mounting; running it before the final position can leave the software using the wrong geometry.
Add Presence Gen4 to Home Assistant
Let Home Assistant discover it
- In Home Assistant, open Settings > Devices & services.
- Look for a discovered Shelly device in the integrations area.
- Select the discovered device and follow the on-screen setup flow.
- Open the resulting device page and inspect the entities Home Assistant created for presence, tracking or zones.
Add the Shelly integration manually
- Stay in Settings > Devices & services and choose Add Integration.
- Search for and select Shelly.
- When Home Assistant asks for the device address, enter its hostname or IP address.
- Complete the flow, then open the device entry to confirm that it is available.
Discovery and manual setup are alternative paths. If discovery does not appear, manual setup does not require you to wait for a discovery notification; it requires a hostname or IP address that Home Assistant can reach. If the device was still on its access-point network, first complete its network setup in the local interface so it has an address on the network where Home Assistant runs.
Create useful detection zones
Start with areas that change an automation
Use the Presence room-and-zones view to add areas that have a distinct purpose: a desk, a reading chair, a sofa, a bed or a doorway. Avoid drawing many tiny regions merely because the interface permits up to ten. Each zone should answer a decision such as “turn on the desk light” or “keep the heating active while someone is on the sofa.”
Draw and test a zone
- Open the room and zones configuration view for the sensor.
- Choose the control to add a zone and define its boundaries over the room layout.
- Save the zone, then move through the physical area it represents.
- Watch the corresponding occupancy or tracking entity in Home Assistant and compare the state change with your movement.
- Resize, move or delete the zone if the transition occurs too early, too late or in the wrong part of the room.
Make one meaningful change at a time. If you alter mounting geometry, sensitivity and several zone boundaries together, you will not know which change corrected or caused a result. Shelly’s interface supports adding and deleting zones, so an iterative approach is safer than trying to perfect all ten areas in one pass.
Use the API when you need programmatic control
The device exposes configuration and status methods that advanced users can call through Shelly’s API tooling. The relevant methods are:
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| Method | Purpose |
|---|---|
Presence.SetConfig |
Write tracking, geometry and sensitivity-related configuration. |
Presence.GetConfig |
Read the current configuration before changing it. |
Presence.GetStatus |
Read current presence and tracking status. |
Presence.AddZone |
Create a detection zone. |
Presence.DeleteZone |
Remove a detection zone. |
Presence.TiltCalibrate |
Run tilt calibration after the sensor is mounted. |
Presence.LiveTrack |
Access live tracking information while tuning. |
Presence.SetSensor |
Enable or disable tracking. |
The configuration includes tracked-object count (num_tracks), lower and upper detection limits, mounting height, tilt, position, transmission power and sensitivity-related settings. Although num_tracks accepts 1–10, that range is not a guarantee of ten reliable simultaneous tracks, and it does not turn tracks into named people.
Understand what “multi-person” means
Separate radar tracks are not identities
Presence Gen4 can maintain multiple targets in the same room. Home Assistant can therefore react differently when occupancy exists in a zone, when a zone clears, or when the number of tracked objects changes. The sensor is still inferring motion and presence from radar reflections. It has no documented mechanism for matching one reflection to a person record in your Home Assistant household.
How to represent named people
Home Assistant’s named-person model is based on device_tracker entities. The Home Assistant Companion app can create a device tracker after you grant location access, and that tracker can be assigned to a Person entity. If you need an automation that distinguishes household members, combine that identity signal with the radar’s room occupancy. For example, a room can remain occupied according to Presence Gen4 while a separate device tracker indicates who is likely at home. Do not treat the radar’s “person 1” or “person 2” track as a stable human identity.
Build occupancy automations in Home Assistant
Choose the right entity
Open the Shelly device page and identify the entities that represent overall presence, tracked objects and each configured zone. Give them descriptive names in Home Assistant before building automations. A name such as “office desk occupancy” is safer to select later than an automatically generated identifier whose purpose is unclear.
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- Open Settings > Automations & scenes and create a new automation.
- For the trigger, select the Shelly presence or zone entity and choose the state change that matches the action.
- Add a condition when the action must depend on time, mode or another sensor.
- Choose an action, such as switching a light, changing a climate target or sending a notification.
- Save the automation and test it by entering and leaving the physical zone.
Use Home Assistant’s zone triggers deliberately
Home Assistant’s Zone integration exposes triggers for occupancy detected, occupancy cleared, zone entered and zone left. Select the trigger that matches the event you actually need:
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- Occupancy detected: start an action when presence appears in the selected area.
- Occupancy cleared: turn something off or begin a vacancy timer after the area becomes empty.
- Zone entered: react to a transition into a specific configured area.
- Zone left: react to a transition out of that area.
Use a delay or a clearing condition for lights and climate controls that should not switch off during a brief radar gap. For a security notification, use a stricter combination of occupancy, armed mode and time rather than treating every detection as an alarm.
Examples of decisions the zones can support
- Desk lighting: trigger when desk occupancy is detected, then require the ambient-light condition you use for the room before turning on the lamp.
- Room vacancy: trigger when overall presence clears, wait for the delay you consider acceptable, and then lower the climate setpoint.
- Entry transition: use a doorway zone entering or leaving event to start a welcome or departure scene, while another condition prevents repeated runs when someone is moving around inside.
- Multi-person comfort: use the room’s tracked-object or occupancy state to keep a shared space active while any person remains, rather than switching it off when the first person leaves.
These examples describe logic, not fixed entity names. Select the entities created in your installation, because names and availability depend on the device configuration and the Home Assistant integration.
Troubleshoot common setup problems
Home Assistant does not discover the sensor
- Confirm the sensor has 5 V USB-C power and has finished starting.
- Check that it has joined the same reachable network as Home Assistant rather than remaining only on its setup access point.
- Use Add Integration > Shelly and enter the device hostname or IP address manually.
- If you do not know the address, reconnect to the device access point and open
192.168.33.1to review its network configuration.
The local page will not open
Reconnect the browser to the Shelly access-point Wi-Fi, ensure the sensor is powered, and enter 192.168.33.1 directly. A browser that silently returns to your normal Wi-Fi will not be on the network required by the local page.
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Presence is missed or appears in the wrong place
- Verify mounting height, tilt, position and flipped orientation.
- Check the minimum and maximum detection-height limits against the people you want to detect.
- Run tilt calibration after the physical installation is final.
- Review transmission power and sensitivity, changing one setting at a time.
- Test the overall room before refining individual zones.
A zone changes state at the wrong boundary
Recheck the room geometry and the sensor’s orientation first. Then resize or move the zone in the room-and-zones view and walk across its boundary repeatedly. Delete and recreate a zone if its shape no longer reflects the physical layout.
The automation turns off while someone is still present
Inspect whether you used a zone-left or occupancy-cleared trigger when the desired behavior requires any-person occupancy. Check the zone boundaries and clearing behavior, then add a deliberate delay before the off action. A delay cannot correct a badly calibrated sensor, so tune geometry before increasing timers.
You expected a person’s name
That expectation exceeds the documented output. Keep Presence Gen4 as the room-occupancy signal and add a separate Companion-app device_tracker assigned to a Home Assistant Person when named identity is required.
Validate the installation before relying on it
- Walk through the complete room and confirm overall presence appears wherever an occupant should count.
- Stand still in each important area long enough to verify that presence does not depend solely on movement.
- Test two or more people at once if multi-occupant behavior matters to your automations.
- Enter and leave every configured zone and observe the matching Home Assistant entity.
- Check that vacancy actions do not run during a short transition or radar gap.
- Confirm that a rotated installation has the flipped option enabled and has been tilt-calibrated.
- Document the final mounting height, detection limits, sensitivity and zone purpose so later changes can be diagnosed.
Once these checks pass, use the sensor as a room-level occupancy input and keep identity decisions tied to device trackers or another explicit identity source. That separation produces automations that remain understandable when several people occupy the room at the same time.
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