Aeon MultiSensor 6 - Reporting 0 Lux

Here’s an update. Almost 24 hours in the window now (and I’ve now got all 5 in the exact same place). Looks like they are increasing the upper limits a bit…but I’ve still got some wildly different results from 5 sensors all in the exact same spot.

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Super bright here today with no clouds and white snow on the ground causing a bunch of reflections. I’m starting to feel that placing all these sensors in the direct sunlight is having some positive effects.

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Looks like I’ve still got a couple stragglers…but the numbers are going up on #4 and #5 so that’s good. The first three are at the max now. Also…there does appear to be quite a bit of solar gain from my south facing window…maybe I need to look into z-wave blinds so I can get some free heat in the winter. :slight_smile:

@Rob_Moore; @Mike1616. I wanted my “Aeotec MultiSensor 6” lux sensor to turn on lights in our north-facing living room on dark afternoons. I first tried the sensor facing upward behind a couch in the living room, but the lux values were way too low to be of any use. I next moved the sensor to a north-facing window sill and got good results as you see below. My next trial may be facing the sky in a skylight, but that may be a too bright location.

This is at 47.8 degrees north in Idaho. These readings are also without any snow on the ground.

If you just need relative readings and not accurate absolute readings, the sensor does a fine job.

Is there a way to view the ‘current’ firmware release? How do I know what release I have now? And does the Samsung SmartThings hub handle the upgrade? If not, and if you don’t own a z-stick, how do you do it? I don’t currently use HomeSeer; do I have to get it in order to do the update? Can I get by with the Trial Version? It’s $250 or so for a license and I don’t want to have to explore that avenue at this point!

Also, I don’t understand this comment: "Latest Smartthings hub update told us that these sensors would now run support locally "

Can you tell me how you got that chart?

I downloaded the data from the SmartThings IDE and then plotted it in Excel.

The data were under MyDevices / AEOTEC Multisensor / Lux. I copied and pasted the data from the web screen to Excel. I eventually wrote an Excel macro to take the screen copied data and paste at the bottom of a table in Excel.

It was a real pain in the neck doing that, but I was curious about the light being measured, what the sensor detected, when the lights were going on, etc. By using the chart, I could find a good lux threshold setting for my rule to use that would turn the lights on early on dark afternoons.

For what it’s worth, I just deployed 4 sensors (3 new and 1 2 years old but never used till now). All 4 had really bad light readings, but … after about 2 days the light readings all seem to be somewhat reasonable now! Not sure if there’s some self-calibration going on. Also, the casual documentation I’ve seen doesn’t tell you that on battery, you only get readings every hour no matter what you set for update frequency! I read that useful bit of info here in the forums.

Answering SOME of my own questions … in the SmartThings API web interface (better name for this?) if you go to MyDevices / Aeotec MultiSensor 6 (or whatever you named it) there is a ‘raw description’ section, and in that I see:
zw:S type:2101 mfr:0086 prod:0102 model:0064 ver:1.12 zwv:4.54 (plus more …)
and for an older sensor I see:
zw:L type:2101 mfr:0086 prod:0102 model:0064 ver:1.08 zwv:4.05 (plus more …)
So it looks like I’m at v 1.12 on the new one already … ahead of the version referred to in the article.

I still need to figure out how to apply the updates. I guess I’ll have to buy a Z-stick …

I found the 1-hour interval on light readings, too. Also, I’m pretty sure a light reading won’t be transmitted if there is no change in light reading (such as at night if light is at zero lux). I’m going from memory there.

During the day, the light changes enough such that I always get hourly readings.

My readings have been reliable and consistent.

Thought I would update this thread. I bought an Aeon (Aeotec) Multisensor 6 and found it lacking in reporting LUX and UV.

Specs: zw:L type:2101 mfr:0086 prod:0102 model:0064 ver:1.14 zwv:4.54

I loaded the custom DH to get advanced features and the unit worked better; however, it still had trouble reporting low light changes. I then removed (with a razor blade) the cover around the motion dome and exposed the light sensor (small dot in the corner). Now the unit reads LUX properly and almost perfectly matches my Sensative LUX stick. Changing the custom parameters in the DH to report 1 LUX change (running on USB) enabled me to see very small changes in light.

I will put the cover back on, but drill out the hole around the LUX sensor a bit more first, since it appears that the sensor is partially covered by the…cover. My very dim room is 47 LUX, bright room is 150+ LUX (reflected light), and outdoors is in the 2000+ range for a gray sky.

The UV sensor has never worked (so far).

UPDATE: UV sensor now reporting (I guess you need sunlight. Clouds were representing 0.3 UV index, which is too low for this unit. Sunny days are reporting 3 to 6 on the UV scale.

-S1930

Hi Studio1930,

I would like to know how you managed to remove the cover from the multisensor. Did you pry it out, did you cut the plastic or did you remove it from inside (pushing it out)?

Thank you,

Heat gun and exacto knife. It was not easy. Super glue to reassemble.

Ok, thanks.