Alert me when a sensor goes offline or stops responding?

SmartApps & Automations Automation Ideas
1

I can’t seem to find any solution in these threads on this…

I am hoping there is a way to get alerts if any of my sensors go missing or offline for any extended period of time.

For example, if i go on vacation and the battery suddenly dies on my Monoprice Motion sensor, i would really need to know that its unresponsive/offline/missing.

Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks very much!

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There isn’t anything built into the SmartThings system to do this. The main reason is probably because you can kill the battery life on battery-operated sensors if you keep asking them “are you there?” Too often.

Some people have written a “wellness check” smart app for their own use, hopefully somebody will chime in. They usually aren’t complex, they just ping the device and see if they get a response. And if not, do some kind of notification process.

I think some people have also done one that looks at activity entries in the log, which would be easier on the battery life, but somewhat more complex to write.

So I think you can set one up, particularly if you’re only going to use it occasionally like your vacation example.

Just know that if you run it all the time, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy – – you kill the device because you run down the battery by asking the device if it’s still alive. :wink:

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Thanks JD, that makes a lot of sense. It seems the best solution would be something smart enough to watch activity logs over time, and would be able to notice when something stops sending any data.

Has anyone out there done anything like this?

Thanks all…

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Check out this discussion. It may be what you’re looking for :

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Thanks @johnconstantelo! This is just what i was looking for.

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