Hi - I’m a relative Z-wave noob and I’m looking for help with adjusting the Aeotec door/window 7 sensor to use the dry contacts, not the magnet sensor. I am in the US, using a SmartThings Gen3. The Aeotec 7 connects to the Gen3 hub and operates well using the magnetic sensor, so I believe the device is working fine.
Aeotec has this information on their website: https://aeotec.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/6000226217-aeotec-door-window-sensor-7-with-smartthings-hub . Unfortunately, when I follow their directions, I still can’t get the sensor to trigger on the dry contact connection. I’ve tried deleting and re-attaching the sensor, re-loading the custom device handlers… nothing works.
Does anyone have any info on this? Thanks for any help you can provide.
If you followed the directions exactly great! However, I think that may be the problem. Not stated in the instructions you posted is that the custom device handler will give you control of parameter 1 in the device so you can configure it to use the external contacts.
Open the classic ST app and find the device. Go to the settings page for the device (gear icon). I’m guessing Eric has a setting you can turn on there to activate the external contacts.
Hi – thank you for the reply. Unfortunately, I had enabled the dry contacts using the SmartThings classic app. I also changed the settings in the modified device handler and re-synched the sensor. All to naught. The device would not respond to the contacts, it would still only respond to the magnet.
I did find a “tweaker” device handler that allowed me to scan the parameter settings. The download indicated that Parameter 1 was still set to 0… the magnet. I could use the Tweaker to force the sensor to use the dry contacts.
The DH from Aeotech does not seem to work well.
I got the sensor to work for about a day, then the battery died. This is the second battery it went through in 3 days. Not sure why it is eating batteries, but the sensor could be bad.
I have exactly the same problem in that the sensor is eating batteries when i use the dry contact input. Shame as it works well. Not sure if this is a design fault - it must be constantly trying to communicate with the hub. No idea how to sort it out - does anyone have it working with dry contact input? Although an external power supply could be a solution I’m not sure it really solves the problem as presumably it will be constantly drawing power? Anyone have any ideas - I’m tearing my hair out looking for a solution!
Thanks
I am having the exact same problem getting the window 7 sensor to use the dry contact input. I can’t seem to find a way to change parameter 1 from 0 to 1. My smartthings hub is about 2 years and may not be fully functional with the sensor. The controller version I have is 1.7.39-24. Is that my problem or am I missing something?
I contacted Aeotec support to try to get the dry contact sensors working. The part that wasn’t clear from the freshdesk link above is that the cover has to be off to accept setting the parameter to 1. Before I saved the setting with the cover was off, the api would say that the value was 1, but the dry contact sensor didn’t work.
However, after finally getting it to work, the battery died after 12 hours. For some reason, switching to dry contact mode just kills the battery.
I gave up after that and returned it.
Hi Franco,
Can you tell me how you make that hapen? how were ou able to switch the sensor to working with the magnet to the dry contact? In Smarthing I cannot see any options allowing me to do so. I added the sensor as a Door/window sensor 7 but it doesn’t give access to the parameter in order to get the dry contact information.
Your help would be appreciated.
Does anyone know if this works with the Gen 7 Door / Window Sensor 7 Pro? When I add it, it comes up in the app as Aeotec Open/Closed Sensor but doesn’t give access to the parameter settings to use the dry contact switch. Looking at the custom device handler that was posted above, it doesn’t look like it would recognize the new device since the model number code it’s looking for is different. Should I just use the Tweaker for this?
Answering my own question, I went and used the Z-Wave Tweaker to get it set parameter #1 to dry contact mode and it worked fine. One caveat for anyone trying this, the device doesn’t seem to like to take commands while the cover is off. I kept seeing error messages in Live Logging until I put the cover back on.
@edanuff Attempting same thing… trying to get Aeotec Door senor Gen 7 to enter “dry contact” mode. I e-mailed aeotec support and he answered I could quick press the toggle in the sensor 5 times to switch between magnet and dry contact mode. Unfortunately, this has not worked for me.
The ZWave Tweaker you mention… I installed it via the SmartThings IDE, but don’t know how to access it in the SmartThings app. Does it require the old classic app??
There is a version which works with the current version of the smartthings app as of this writing, but it’s important to understand what the Tweaker is.
It is a DTH that you will temporarily assign to a device (so make sure you write down first what the original DTH is, because you are going to go back to that later).
Then while it is assigned to the DTH you will be able to use it in the smartthings app when you open the details for the device that you assigned to it and you will be able to change parameters of the device to reconfigure it. Basically the tweaker will ask the device what parameters can be changed and then display a field for each of those. You will have to know what values to put into those fields, which may be listed in the user manual for the device or you may have to contact the manufacturer.
Once you have set those values the way you want, they are stored in the device itself.
Then you use the IDE to change the DTH for the device back to the original device.
The Tweaker is only useful for changing parameters, while it is assigned to the device none of your routines will work for that device. It’s just an administrative tool.
You can find the new version and ask additional questions in the author thread:
Note that a device has to be awake in order to accept the configuration changes, and this can be a little tricky with a battery powered device. There may be a button that you press on the device to wake it up, or for some devices you can only change the parameters while you are joining the device to the network. so again you will need to check the user manual or maybe even contact the manufacturer.