Defective Samsung Contact Sensor?

I’m using the SmartThings contact sensor that came with the hub security package.

Trying to make heads/tails of what’s going on with the contact sensor I installed last month to automate my kitchen pantry lights. It’s currently configured so that the pantry lights will turn on/off based on contact being open/closed. It works fine actually.

The issue I have is with reporting activity and battery. A few times since I installed (been about 3 weeks), I have battery readings go all over the place. First week it reports at 77% battery, then the next day I get a notification on my phone that the battery is sitting at 11%. I check and it’s back at 77%. Today, I noticed in the activity log that it reported 66% one time and then an hour or two later, it’s back at 77%. Also got a notification once again that battery was really low (it isn’t… according to it being 77% again).

The contact sensor itself doesn’t get much activity. We maybe open/close the pantry 10-15 times max a day.

What’s interesting is that there are random times I see the sensor going active/inactive a bunch of times without any actual significant activity. I get that the device can report temperature etc. and counts as activity but the ones I’m talking about isn’t anything like that. Just today, I have about 10 activity lines within 6 minutes of time of the device just reporting active/inactive. No temperature change or open/close change during that times. It’ll happen at random times.

I do use CoRE to automate the lights with this device since ST Lighting app doesn’t have one other rule that I need. Not sure if it is CoRE related.

Is this normal or something that needs to be fixed?

I read somewhere that ST is supposed to be working on a revised devicetype/devicehandler for ST multipurpose sensor (which may also affect the similar Open/close sensor) to reduce problems with battery reporting. If you want this issue to get a vote for increased attention then file ST support request case.

Until then I use the Monoprice Zwave open/close sensor $20, and turn off zigbee sensor battery notifications, and use SimpleDeviceViewer for on-demand battery monitoring and maintenance.

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