I just wanted to make the community aware that you might want to think twice if you are looking at Aeotec. I had a Aeotec Gen 5 multi sensor that went bad, it was outside the 90 say return window of the shop i got it from, plus that shop no longer sold Aeotec. I reached out to Aeotec for support and warranty info. They help with some basic stuff and concluded it had gone bad. Ok, how do I get it replaced. They told me I had to take it back to the vendor I got it from. I explained the situation with the vendor. They said they were going to look into it and get back to me. Eventually they got back to me and said I needed to work with the distributor that the vendor got it from ?!?!? yea seems odd to me. But I did what I was advised to do. The distributor told me that they would not do anything because I had not gotten it from them. I replied with a copy of the email train between me and Aeotec telling me to go to them. I CC’d Aeotec. The distributor replied again stating the vendor would need to contact them and prove they got the sensor from them or there was nothing they were willing to do. Aeotec is silent in all this now. I am not mad the sensor went bad, I get that things fail. But the customer service is practically non existent.
Can anyone recommend a multi-sensor that is rated for outdoors?
A shop that no longer sells Aeotec sounds unusual, most of the major zwave product retailers count Aeotec among their top brands. Do you mind telling us who the retailer was?
Meanwhile, here’s some information on outdoor sensors:
The local vendor was Microcenter.com. It is also where I got Smartthings. They don’t care Smartthings anymore either
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
4
I guess it wasn’t an “authorized reseller”… At least that’s the excuse many manufacturers use when avoiding dealing with a warranty issue.
I’ve experienced that many times… It’s worth escalating things with Aeotec, including on their Twitter feed.
There are some excellent manufacturers of tech. Both IBM and Western Digital and a few others have given me absolutely flawless warranty support with only the serial number of the hardware required… No need for proof of purchase or vendor information or any other runaround.
Yea I’m not in love. My multi sensor seems unacceptably off regarding temperature and humidity. My contact sensor is slow to report. Power outlet switches instantly but reports very slow. Feel like I heard it was a licensing issue which shouldn’t be my problem honestly…
My Aeotec multi-sensor went bad as well after about six months of use outdoors. The temperature reports random extreme temperatures and the motion detection is way too sensitive. The luminance sensor gets saturated on an overcast, cloudy day. This makes it useless to use to determine when to turn on lights.
In general, not impressed at all with this $50 paperweight.
Yea, that is how mine has died. I liked it when it worked. I liked the other items I have from them, but this customer service is a joke. Again they emailed me and want me to spend my time to get to Microcenter purchasing department, get them to find the invoice of when they got it and send that all over to the distributor. Microcenter is not some small time local HA shop. They have 25 locations coast to coast.
My Aeon microswitches and appliance modules (plugs) all report instantly, but it took a little doing to get them working. It sounds like you need to send a parameter change to the device to tell it to send reports faster. What’s the model number of the device you are having problems with?
The multi-sensors are a different story. I’m not impressed with the previous generation ones at all, especially when running on batteries. I’m currently testing one of their new multi sensors (indoors, however) and it has been a little bit better, generally.
I suggest if you are having problems returning a broken device, contact your credit card company. Most credit cards have some sort of electronic purchase protection.
DSC25-ZWUS is the model number, do you use a custom device type?
As far as the sensor, it does its job of helping me monitor the basement, however I don’t intend to use them in the future to control the climate in the rest of the house.
Totally agree with bad customer service from Aeon. Multiple emails for support and I got like one back saying they got my email. I have 2 first gen multi sitting around collecting dust.
wanted to provide a follow up to this. After telling them I was going to file a report to the AG in my state as well as share the story with social media, Aeotec finally decided to honor the warranty. Took them 2 days to respond to my email, but they did. It is a shame I had to go though so much for a simple warranty.
Same situation with my Gen 5 multsensor…contact the vendor for replacement. I have never had one manufacturer tell me to do that after the return window has closed and the manufacturersecond warranty is in effect.
as @tgauchat mentioned, some manufacturers try to only sell through “authorized resellers.” Consumer protection laws in most states have now made that actually illegal, but they can offer just a basic warranty for a “buy anywhere” transaction and a more extensive warranty if bought through an authorized reseller, sometimes called an “authorized extended warranty.” that’s basically the same idea when you buy a service contract, and have to go back to that particular service vendor. but the manufacturer can’t refuse to honor the basic warranty.
International manufacturers do often refer you to local vendors just because the warranty laws vary tremendously from one country to another. But again, they still have to honor a basic warranty.
In the United States, Louisiana is different than pretty much every other state, because its state law came out of French common law rather than English common law. So just wanted to mention that, if you do buy electronics from a vendor in Louisiana, the warranty process may in fact be different.
I’ve not had any issues with aeon devices. Yes, the multi’s lux range is only suitable for use indoors, and it’s calibration is marginal.
Regarding the switch and dimmer modules, I have close to 40 of these in my setup, they have been solid and reliable.
The stock ST device type for these does not advantage the instant status reporting these devices are capable of.
This is not a fault of aeon, more the ST device being used and not setting the reporting type when pairing.
I’ve written custom devices that do report correctly for both the dimmer and the switch modules.
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tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
16
