Battery tracking fallback in Webcore

#1

Problem: I have, in the past two weeks found that two of my motion sensors reporting 78% battery were in fact dead. I had no other way to know this because they arent tied to any automations other than Smartthings security setup.

Solution: Both of these motion sensors due to locations ARE active multiple times a day. They also report temperature as well. Im wondering if it would be possible to tap that information not just for motion sensors, but for any sensor.

i.e.

If the motion hasnt been active in X days, pop an alert to check battery. OR, if motion sensor hasnt reported temp in X days, same action. Same could really go for any of the other window/door sensors that also report things like temperature to Smartthings.

Thoughts?

#2

What I do is,
A piston checks all of the devices once a week and reports IF any sensor battery level is below 40.

If your device keeps reporting - lets say - 78% it could be a malfunction and/or St hub connection problem

#3

I have that already.

The Iris branded motion sensors are notorious for reporting battery percentage as fine, and then suddenly going dead. Hence why Im exploring other options.

#4

I have this problem with the samsung sensors. They do specify only certain brands of battery should be used, and I find they seem better with those. Some don’t even work.

A simple solution could be to just store the variable $now into a global variable @sensor1LastMotion every time the sensor is activated. Do this for each sensor, then have a new piston that runs every day and check the time for each sensor is within the last day. Any times older than 24 hours could indicate a problem.

Depending on how you’ve coded and the no of pistons you may have quite a few places to put the global variable time store commands.

An alternative, which might be what ike2018 was suggesting is a weekly check of battery levels which compares the current level with the level stored the week before. This would be less work to code, but could take longer to report a failed sensor.

#5

I think that is probably the approach I will take. Paired with an ActionTiles panel it would make for an easy way to keep track. Will report back.

#6

This is normal with my SmartThings motion sensors when I use cheap knockoff batteries.

#7

It’s funny you say that. These are Energizer lithiums. I’ve read that too which is why I specifically bought these.

#8

I get my cheap batteries for about 22 cents, so I deal with changing them a bit more frequently than if I used a name brand at 20 times that price.

Nowadays, I try to find devices that use AA or AAA batteries, since they have much more juice.
(although the size of the device may be a bit larger)