Cost effective door/window sensors (UK)

where did you get the device handler ? I must have missed a post somewhere

Nope it shouldn’t make any difference. It does it any way, I just reveal it in the event when it does to aid monitoring.

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@iamjezz the device handlers are noted above in this thread.

The contact sensor device type was created by @a4refillpad and he created a new thread for it here [RELEASE] Orvibo Contact Sensor

The Motion sensor device type was created by @Kriskit and is available above at post 104

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I’ve got one of the Sensative Door strips. It’s currently inside my utility door and acts as a trigger for my outside lights.

Works out of the box without any device handler and is slim enough to go into the door frame. Very pleased.

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Hi @ghesp.
I’m looking to get one of the sensative strips to test and see how they work/fit etc.
Did you need to load a bespoke DTH?
I know you said it worked out of the box, but I was just wondering.
Thanks.

EDIT. Oops should have read your comments more closely.
The other reason I asked is on the ukAutomation web site they say that the wake up parameter needs to be changed to work with ST.

Nope. I unboxed it, removed the magnets to activate it and then it showed up as a new thing in SmartThings.

No parameters needed to be changed, no custom dth

Excellent. Thanks for the quick reply.

It works fine with the standard device type, but their website does say that the wake up period should be adjusted with SmartThings… one assumes that with the generic handler the battery will not live as long.

I have just installed one of these myself (bought it on sale at Ā£40 which was more palatable than the normal Ā£50), works great. I am concerned given both their expense and the fact that once discharged they have to be discarded that it would definitely be a good idea to adjust the wake up parameter, but they haven’t yet added the details for smartthings on their site.

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Good to know. I’ll try and get in touch with them and find the details

I had three of the open/close sensors delivered yesterday and set the first two up without issue. The third though doesn’t seem to work. It switches on when the battery is in, I can detect it in the application but it always says open. Moving the two contacts together and apart isn’t doing anything and i’ve never seen it closed.

Anyone seen this?

Try deleting it and adding back while close to the hub.

Ive tried that. Just tested the other two sensors and one of those has stopped working too overnight. Deleted that one too and now I can’t get either of them to be picked up :frowning:

Actually, if you have a mesh (repeaters) I’d go against what Wayne has said, and try adding it where you’ll be using it, rather than close to the hub.

If you paid it with the hub, and then move it further away, it won’t use the repeaters. It will always try to talk directly to the hub.

My setup is very basic (just the starter kit) and a couple of extra presence & motion sensors. Tried adding it near and away from the hub and cant get either to show up now.
I’ve got the battery out for a bit now to see if that ā€˜resets’ anything?

Edit: OK, I managed to get the one that has never worked to be recognised after about 15mins of constantly searching for it. However, its still showing as ā€˜open’ and I can’t get it to work at all.

Edit 2: OK, got the other one paired again now but same issue as the other one. Both showing OPEN and not reacting to the other part of the contact sensor

Are you trying with the contact while close to the hub?

And when you move the magnet close to the sensor does the green ring flash?

The flash only happens if the sensor is able to successfully report the open/close event to the hub.

If I set one up near my hub I can walk away, opening/closing the contact, and at a certain distance the green ring stops flashing. As I move back towards the hub it starts again.

Ive tried it where they will be used and also in close proximity to the hub (~5ft). No lights flash on the unit at all. One was working fine last night when I set it up and the other hasn’t worked at all. Now both are seemingly inoperable.
The green light flashes when I press it so the battery is OK.

There was only one report of this prior and he was able to fix by rejoining the device. I’ve got a very large number now and the only real issue I have is battery life especially the original ones that come with the device. I’ve replaced most of mine with Panasonic ones now.

They do seem to be a bugger to get paired correctly sometimes. And if they lose communication (or are out of range) for more than about an hour they go into a strange mode where you have to unpair and re-pair them again.

I had no end of trouble until I put loads of outlets around the house to make a mesh network. Once I’d done that (and re-paired in-situ, once the mesh was working - which means waiting a while) everything was fine.

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All true. The solution is to do a ā€œnetwork healā€ and get all of your devices to update their neighbor tables with their true neighbors. :sunglasses:

Since these sensors are using zigbee, healing the network is easy. Once everything is paired, physically locate each sensor where you want it to be.

Now unplug the hub and take out its batteries. Leave all your other zigbee devices on power. Leave the hub off of power for at least 15 minutes.

Once the sensors realize their coordinator (hub) is not available, they’ll go into ā€œpanic mode.ā€

Then when the hub comes back onto power each of the individual devices will update their own individual neighbor tables.

It can take a while for this process to complete, so you may not see messaging improvements until the next day. But eventually everybody gets their tables updated, and messages pass more efficiently around the network.

So it can be done either way (pairing in place or bench pairing and then moving the device to its desired location), but if you use the bench pairing method (where the sensor is brought to the hub to pair) then you need to do the network heal step once everything is in the right place.

I don’t think we need to do this routine in the UK. The zigbee strength of hub and devies are so weak they go into panic mode of their own accord and create the mesh necessary to function.