There have been a few topics on this in the past, but I’d like to find out what everyone’s current experience is. I have 5 SmartThings Multi sensors, each on a different door in my house. I have all of them configured with the Door Knocker (or whatever it’s called) SmartApp to let me know when someone knocks on a door or tampers with it.
Lately I’ve been getting false positives. The front door was issuing 5-6 knock alerts a day. It’s a very solid wooden door, so stray vibrations don’t seem likely, and I was able to witness a few while I was right next to the door, and was able to confirm that there was no wind, thermal expansion, etc. triggering the sensor.
I notice that logs show the sensor going active and then inactive, so it seems like a sensor issue instead of a SmartApp issue.
Support had me reset the Multi sensor by pulling the battery and holding down the button while reinstalling it. That fixed the front door issue instantly and all was well for about a week. Now I’m back to more false alerts.
I don’t have your specific problem but I’ve had a myriad of problems ever since the 8/15 update. I think that update has caused more harm than good. I am constantly resetting my devices but that only seems to work from a few minutes to maybe a day or two and then problems again. I don’t think it’s just coincidence. To be fair, I do have many other devices that have been working well. I haven’t been able to find a common denominator on my problem devices yet.
Possible it’s a zigbee mesh issue. I have 4 ST multi and countless ST motion sensors and the last couple of weeks was pretty crazy. Constant battery remove/install to get them back on. Moving my hub to a new location and most problem seem to be gone for now. I don’t have this kind of problem with z-wave but zigbee is a pain.
So I reset my front door multi sensor again, and then powered the hub down for 15 mins for good measure. 30 mins after the hub came back up, another false alert. Arrrrrghhhhh…
My zigbee mesh is solid. Front door sensor is 20’ from hub with nearly 100% clear line of sight. And plenty of repeater devices around.
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
5
Sounds to me like a simple case of defective sensor hardware.
The accelerometer is a tiny miracle of a chip, but … it can fail.
Absolutely my experience with the majority of my multipurpose sensors, too. I have them mounted on very solid doors and windows (i.e. they don’t jiggle when the wind blows!), and the error rate is awful.
They do register open/closed correctly (although I did have a bad bout of accuracy issues there earlier this summer).
But most of them have never worked accurately for sensing vibrations. I had rules set up where door vibrations would turn lights on … but I’ve pulled every single rule that relied on an MP sensor detecting vibration.
You might try putting in a fresh battery. This has worked for me in the past. I have also noticed through experimentation that a car door slamming can set of the accelerator and say that the sensor is active even though the door is rock solid and I have a storm door in front of the main door.
I will second this suggestion… I have had a frustrating couple of weeks with a MP sensor sending out false knock detections. Noticed last night that it was “fixed” but when I investigated the sensor wasn’t working, despite 68% battery. After changing the battery the sensor is working as good as new.
Mine has gone completely crazy twice in the last week or two. It seems to register a knock when someone closes the door, then gets stuck in a loop and constantly reports. It doesn’t do much for me at the moment, so I think I’m just going to remove the knock notifications until I can sort this out. Super annoying though.
I replaced the battery in my most problematic sensor and reenabled the knocker app. So far so good, but I only have about 24 hours on it so far. Fingers crossed!