Aeon multisensor stops sending temperature readings

General Discussion
1

I have three Aeon multisensors in my system; they have been working smoothly for the past 12+ months, but in the last few days I’ve noticed that they often stop sending temperature readings for long periods of time (12-24 hours), while they keep sending battery, humidity and illuminance readings.

I’ll go through the process described here later today and see if that helps; but I was wondering if anyone has seen a similar behavior, and/or if anyone has a reasonable explanation about why this would suddenly start happening.

2

I’ve learned to not trust the battery levels as shown. Try some freshies. I’ve had sensors act strangly when getting low.

3

Odd - I just found 3 (of the 5 I own) are doing the same thing - even after replacing batteries and re-configuring.

I wonder if there’s an epidemic of device failures happening. (Note, one of the suspects, 2 of the 3 are outside, but the 3rd is in my not-as-cold cellar). The outside 2 also started reporting temps over 105F as the first symptom (again, even with fresh batteries).

I reflashed the firmware in all 3 (search the Aeotec web site), and I’m watching them now to see if the temp problems have gone away…

4

Reconfiguring hasn’t helped me. I still see the same behavior - if anything, it’s getting worse…
I’ll try replacing batteries (I’m very skeptical, as one of the sensors has fairly fresh ones); then I suppose I’ll try reflashing the firmware itself.

This sounds too odd to be a coincidence affecting a set of devices; I wonder if anything has changed in the ST hub itself which would maybe trigger a borderline bad behavior of the sensors. I’ve also submitted a ST support ticket to see if they have any hints.

5

I reported a similar issue to ST support earlier this week. They claimed it was on the device side of things, but I don’t think that it is. 3/4 of my multisensors suddenly stopped reporting all data correctly overnight. I’ll update here if I find a solution.

6

My outdoor ones have had some weird temperature readings as of late and over the last two months or so the batteries are depleted very, very quickly.

I’m thinking of just dropping them altogether unless I can get them to be more reliable and / or hardwire them to forego the batteries altogether.

7

An interesting (I believe) update.
Yesterday night I changed the multi sensor configurations to report only three values I really care (battery, temperature and humidity; it’s value 97 for parameter 101), dropping one (luminance); and after that change all sensors have been reporting temperature (along with battery and humidity) regularly every 8 minutes (even when temperature doesn’t change).
So, it would seem as if reporting all 4 values is “too much”; and I don’t know if that’s a sensor problem, or some ST hub timing issue or what else; but fact is that behavior has started suddenly last week for all sensors - which sounds suspicious…

8

Very interesting. I really do suspect this is an issue on the SmartThings side, I just haven’t had the opportunity to actually dig into debugging it.

9

How do you change the configuration? I don’t see at as an option when I try to edit the sensor under “My Devices.” Do you edit the code?

I’d be interested in trying this out as I currently do not use the luminance reporting.

10

There’s a special procedure that you have to follow, which generally includes pressing the pairing button on the sensor followed by immediately pressing the configuration button on the tile, at which point the sensor will accept specific commands to change the configuration.

Surprisingly, I don’t believe that anybody has made any sort of “configuration editor” that would let you change all available parameters, or even display what they are. I’ve seen a few tidbits in different threads such as this one, but not much.

11

The most reliable which I found for doing that was to create a custom device type based on the Aeon Multisensor device type, and to change the parse() method into this:

def parse(String description) {
    def result = []
    def cmd = zwave.parse(description, [0x31: 2, 0x30: 1, 0x84: 1])
    if (cmd) {
        if( cmd.CMD == "8407" ) {
            log.info "zwave.wakeUpV1.wakeUpNoMoreInformation"
            result << new physicalgraph.device.HubAction(zwave.configurationV1.configurationSet(parameterNumber: 5, size: 1, scaledConfigurationValue: 2).format())
            result << new physicalgraph.device.HubAction("delay 1200")
            result << new physicalgraph.device.HubAction(zwave.configurationV1.configurationSet(parameterNumber: 3, size: 2, scaledConfigurationValue: 15).format())
            result << new physicalgraph.device.HubAction("delay 1200")
            result << new physicalgraph.device.HubAction(zwave.configurationV1.configurationSet(parameterNumber: 101, size: 4, scaledConfigurationValue: 97).format())	// 225).format())
            result << new physicalgraph.device.HubAction("delay 1200")
            result << new physicalgraph.device.HubAction(zwave.configurationV1.configurationSet(parameterNumber: 111, size: 4, scaledConfigurationValue: 300).format())
            result << new physicalgraph.device.HubAction("delay 1200")
            result << new physicalgraph.device.HubAction(zwave.wakeUpV1.wakeUpNoMoreInformation().format())
        }
        result << createEvent(zwaveEvent(cmd))
    }
    log.debug "Parse returned ${result}"
    return result
}

After you associate your custom device to the Aeon multisensory for which you want to change configuration, just open the sensor and press the black button for a couple of seconds. You should see the log.info message in the live logging at that point, notifying you that the wakeup message has been handled.

2 Likes
12

Just as a datapoint, I hooked up my device again yesterday with brand new batteries and they’re now reading at 67%, so there’s definitely something amiss when it comes to power usage.

I recall when I first received this device the batteries would last at least two months, so I had no concerns about just mounting it up and leaving it alone. At this rate, this will be the second time in recent weeks that the batteries go from brand new to completely flat in a few days, so I’m definitely not too happy with whatever has changed.

I suppose I can do some wiring work to run it off AC power, but the location is inconvenient.

13

Has anyone had any luck with their Aeon Multisensor the last couple weeks after it going wonky? Mine also suddenly started giving a 100% battery reading (impossible), wildly inaccurate temperatures (reporting 90+ F even thought it was in the 40s outside), etc. I reflashed the firmware and put new batteries in. It just started reporting temperature again, reporting 86 degrees sitting here on my kitchen counter… sigh.

Since so many of us are having similar issues recently, I’m wondering if it’s something more on ST’s side than the device itself.

14

I’ve never had problems with wrong sensor values; my problem was about not receiving temperature readings - and that problem has gone away after I changed the device type to only send out three readings and dropping illuminance - which I don’t use. I still believe that behavior may be related to an issue/incompatibility introduced in the ST hub recently.

Don’t get me wrong, the Aeon sensors, in my experience, are far from being precise in any of their readings… Temperature and humidity can be easily off a few degrees/% points, battery reports are fairly unreliable; but your problem seems to be more consistent with an Aeon unit gone bad.

15

Minollo - Thank you for this…
I was not getting temp readings on a newly installed multisensor (on a ST hub I’ve only had for a couple of days), and this has fixed the issue for the last 24 hours.

After a great deal of research to understand the cryptic technical manuals, I picked a different configuration value for parameter 101 - choosing 161 (for binary 10100001) to send data for luminance, temperature and battery but not humidity.

I agree that sensor readings don’t seem to be particularly accurate, but should be good enough for me to keep track of the general room temperature.