At-home privacy and safety for yourself and your family are vital, and adding devices to make you feel safer can be a smart way to ease any panic. You’re not always going to be able to be home, so you might as well protect your home while you’re not there. Whether that’s putting in outdoor cameras, door and window sensors, or an entire alarm system, there are plenty of options on the market. As someone with multiple smart home devices around my home, I also like when everything connects. I tried the Matter-enabled Meross MS600 to see if it would add to my overall feeling of safety and my home’s functionality.

Read on for how it fared.

Price, specs, and availability

This is available for pre-sale right now

The Meross MS600 retails for $36. It is available for pre-sale from Meross only and is currently discounted to $30 if you buy it early. There are four different versions of it to comply with different electrical standards. There is a US/Canada version as well as a European, UK, and Australian version.

It is only available in white and includes a 1.5m USB-C to A power cable, a power adapter, a pet-proof shield, three cable clips for cord management, double-sided tape for mounting, and a user’s manual. The MS600 measures 2.97″ x 1.37″ X 1.51″. It supports Bluetooth 4.2 or later connectivity and works only on a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network.

The detection range for the sensor to pick up a presence is around 6m while the motion detection ranges up to 12m. The light sensor ranges between 0 and 8,000 lux. The base can swivel 180° and rotate 360°, which provides stationing flexibility.

What I like about the Meross MS600 Smart Sensor

As a Matter of fact, the connectivity is great

Taking the MS600 out of the box, you see just how small and unassuming the sensor is. This isn’t a door or window sensor that is miniscule and will mount onto the side of a frame. This can be mounted or set up on its built-in base and is meant to cast a wide angle to view the room. It’s meant to be used in multiple ways, which sets it apart from other indoor or outdoor sensors. It is there to pick up the presence of a human being and also tell you if something is moving in the area that it is looking at. It can even pick up someone standing in front of it and breathing, which counts as small movements in the app.

Setting up the Meross MS600 was simple. I had to download the Meross app, which I didn’t have previously. The setup process was easy, especially because I already have an Amazon smart home setup with a Matter-capable device with my Echo Show 8. You’re able to use Once I connected it to my Amazon Alexa app, I had to go back into the Meross app and set up the Space Learning procedure. This took a little bit of time to get right, as I had to figure out the angle because it asks for you to shoot it at the general angle that a person’s chest would be in the room.

I loved right away that if you walk in front of the sensor, the app not only tells you that it sees motion, but how far away the motion is from it. You’re able to know if someone is directly in front of it or farther back in a room or space. Once I had it set up, it was time to set up some home automations. The first one I did was simple and in the Meross app. I had it send me notifications any time there was a presence detected. The second automation was similar, but I set it up through the Alexa app. This automation ran an “If/Then” analysis, in which I enabled my Alexa app to send me a notification if the Meross did in fact detect any motion.

Any time there was motion, both the Meross and Amazon Alexa apps chimed in simultaneously, and the reassurance was a plus. I also enabled an automation to make an anncounement via my Amazon Echo Show 8 telling me where exactly someone was in my home. For example, it announced that “someone was in the living room.”

Finally, I set up an automation with a Matter-compatible device like my Amazon Smart Plug. As a result, I could turn on a lamp via motion detection movement, which felt like the ultimate security and smart home hack.

No matter what home automations I was asking of the Meross MS600 to help me with, it pulled through well.

What I didn’t like about the Meross MS600 Smart Sensor

The setup has to be precise

When you do set it up, the Meross MS600 does take some time to get the angle and room view right. Unlike a camera, where you can check to see the exact angle through a feed, you kind of have to test this by walking in front of it to make sure it’s picking you up. It also has to be plugged into an outlet, which may limit where you can mount it because the cord is 1.5 meters, which is decently long but may not be long enough for where you want to place it.

Should you buy the Meross MS600 Smart Sensor?

If you have a Matter-enabled hub, it’s a no-brainer

I was very impressed with the Meross MS600 Smart Sensor. Not only will it not punish your wallet, but it offers flexibility into different types of smart homes. The Meross app is easy to use and while the angle may take some perfecting, when it is set up, it works very well. It is also simple to use for home automations and connect it to other devices. It’s a great sensor for privacy and security and one I’m looking forward to continue using.