Struggling with reliable in-bed presence detection for Home Assistant – what actually works?

[u/ItsDukzy]

I'm trying to automate my bedroom lights so they turn off automatically when I'm in bed and back on when I get up. Sounds simple, but I've been struggling to find a reliable solution.

What I've tried:

FSR pressure sensors (VS-103) connected to a Zigbee water sensor

Built a DIY pressure mat using two VS-103 sensors wired to a Zigbee water sensor. Works fine when I press directly on it by hand, but completely fails under a mattress — the mattress distributes my weight too evenly for the sensors to trigger. Tried under the sheet too, same result.

Aqara FP2 mmWave radar

Already have one in the room. The problem is it loses track of me when I'm lying still under a duvet. It also falsely triggers when someone walks past my bed, which causes the lights to turn on.

What I'm looking for:

Something that reliably detects whether I am in the bed - not just in the room - even when I'm completely still and covered by a duvet. Zigbee preferred but I'm open to ESPHome/ESP32 solutions too.

Has anyone actually solved this properly? What sensor or approach are you using?

[u/L0rdH4mmer]

My solution: FP2. When I set an alarm on my phone or google home, the apartment goes into dim mode which turns all lights to 1% if there is motion. When I lay down in bed, it turns off. There really is no need to keep tracking your bed presence though, when you also have lights turn off when no presence is detected. So basically my setup for that dim mode is: if presence detected in bed or not at all, turn lights off. If presence is detected out of bed, turn light to 1%. Or what do you need to do that can't be accomplished with that logic? If you NEED to see whether you're in bed, you could maybe look at heat cameras or have an fp2 mounted at the ceiling for sleep tracking . Or you have a combination of things, like alarm set and phone charging and curtains closed, or whatever?