Battery, Unavailable, and Multipurpose and Motion Sensor Issues

I’m sorry I thoroughly tried to search topics on this, but coulnd’t find anything definitive…so just curious if others have had issues, because the support techs i’ve reached out to haven’t been fully helpful:

  • Over the last few weeks I noticed several of my smartthings branded devices stopped responding. On some of them I noticed if I simply pulled the battery out, and put it back in and did a reset, they would work again. This seems weird that I would have to do this. I had to do this for a few multipurpose and motion sensors

*curiously it seemed as if all of the failures happened on devices using the 2450 batteries

*additionally the battery indications were not accurate on some, it says the battery power was high and it still failed and when I repaced battery went back up, then it would fail again a few days later

Based on the above here are my questions and issues:

*** I noticed in the last update smartthings created a device health feature. I would have had no idea bout this if i wasn’t going through. Smartthings definitely should have made this feature enabled by default

*** Even though now I’m able to see when devices are unavailable, I get no notification of this unless i’m going into the app and looking at all my ‘things’. I do get notifications however, when battery is low.

*** even when i get notificaiton when battery is low or below 1% even if I pop the battery out and put it back in devices seems to function ok

*** how does smartthings ping the devices to know if it is unavailable, from the logs it seems like when there is a temperature change on the device is when it pings…if there are no pings it is unavailable. Many of my devices are inactive or don’t get used much so I would never know if it is inactive

Does anyone know of any smartapps or anything like that to monitor my device health. I pay for monitoring and this is what i use for system security, so it is a bit unnerving to know if one of my areas is vulnerable

This might be of interest:

As far as smartapps to monitor your devices and send you notifications, there are several. I think the most popular is “simple device viewer.”

You can find these on the quick browse lists in the community – created wiki on the “wellness check” list:

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=How_to_Quick_Browse_the_Community-Created_SmartApps_Forum_Section

this is helpful JD and I’m having some of the same issues. I don’t believe device health was actually causing the issues. But curiously for me, if I just took the battery out and put back in it would reset or putting a new battery in.

I’m curious to see how some of the devices do now with the new batteries. My problem is I would just hate have thrown out good batteries and put new batteries in when the old ones work just fine. The battery replacement just seems hit or miss.

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“contact cleaner” might be worth trying . I am testing one 2nd-gen ST multipurpose sensor with contact cleaner, and I haven’t seen a battery report for months, but the device has kept reporting for the last 4-5 months.

wow nice…ill try that if i have any other battery issues, but at this point I haven’t had any reports since i’ve put new batteries in.

Search for discussions for improving your Zigbee mesh.

my testing of 2nd-gen ST multipurpose sensor reported 77%, then 88% an hour or two later. Then 2-3 days after that, it reported some incorrect contact opening and closures. I think the same day, then the usual temperature reports ceased. Gonna mark them “junk” . Contact cleaner is not the solution. This 2nd-gen sensor is inbred.

I bought the kit. Both Multipurpose sensors are "unavailable ". When I try to replace battery I see the tiny led flash but it never becomes available.

I have similar issues with both multi sensor. They’ll just go off as unavailable until I take out the battery and put it back in. Then they’ll work for a few days to weeks then stops working, and have to take out and put back in the battery again. Not reliable enough for security and disappointed. Does anyone know if it is only these Samsung sensors, if I get another brand will that be more reliable?

I have been using 2 xiaomi windows sensors for months without a single issue, I also have ST multisensor but it is quite sensitive for concrete walls