Aeon Labs Gen 5 Key Fob - Acting as One Button instead of 4

[djmichaelbasic]

Hi there. This is my first post here, but I searched before posting and didn’t find anyone else having the same issue or any other posts about it…

I’m new to smartthings. After plenty of bad experience with Digital Life, I finally decided to dump it and do my own home automation. I’ve mostly had an easy time getting everything up and running…I was even able to get most of my Digital Life devices onto my smart things network.

The thing that’s currently giving me trouble is this Aeon Labs 4 button Key Fob. I followed the directions and was able to get the device paired to my smartthings system, and then from setup mode to use mode, however, the problem I’m having is, its not recognizing the individual button presses. When I press any of the 4 buttons, if I go into Key Fob in my Things menu and look at Recently, each button press is listed as Button is Pushed. The problem with this is, its not differentiating button 1, 2, 3 or 4. If I go into the specific buttons, recently doesn’t list any button presses there.

Its as if the Key Fob is the parent device, and the buttons 1, 2, 3 and 4 are child devices, but any button press activates the parent Key Fob, and not the child Key Fob Button 1, Key Fob Button 2, etc.

I probably did something wrong, but I’m removed and repaired the key fob from my system a few times and I can’t seem to get this figured out. Any assistance would be appreciated!

[JDRoberts]

I’m sure that’s very frustrating! This device is on the official “works with SmartThings” list and the official device type handler was changed about a month ago specifically to add the child device functionality, so I would start by getting in touch with support and letting them look at it.

https://support.smartthings.com/hc/en-us

[djmichaelbasic]

Thanks @JDRoberts I went ahead and did that. We’ll see what they say. Perhaps the recent handler change is the culprit and this issue will be fixed in a future update. I’m still waiting on half my devices to arrive so I’m not in a huge hurry to have it working…in 2 weeks when the last of my devices is set up, if I can’t get it working by then, then I’ll be a little bit crankier about it!

[djmichaelbasic]

Got a response and got my keyfob working. For anyone else having this issue, here’s the way to get them going:

First you need to install the button controller smart app via automation -> smartapps. Its in SmartThings Recommends.

Once that’s in, the next part is somewhat counterintuitive, which is where my problems arose. I thought from there you’d go into your automation and set it to automate based on a button press, but this doesn’t work.

What you need to do is, go into your keyfob in things, then click on smartapps and click on button controller. Hit next and it’ll give you a screen to set up button 1, next again takes you to button 2 and so on.

What this means is, if you want your buttons to activate any automation, you first need to write the automation without a trigger and save it. Once its saved, you then go in and apply that automation to a button press via the above steps.

Hope this helps someone who is having the same trouble I did.