I couple of days ago I posted about all of the sensors in my home suddenly disconnecting. After trouble shooting and repeat testing, I have figured out exactly why.
I have 11 ST sensors, 2 ST outlets, Ecobee4, an Ecobee sensor, and 20+ Phillips Hue Lights.
Over the course of about 20 minutes, I watched all of my motion sensors go down one by one. Then over the next 5 minutes or so, all of my window and door sensors started going down (They all were verified as working UNTIL the point of showing as disconnected in both ST Classic and ST New app). After that my ST outlets disconnected.
At that point, the only things remaining as connected in the Apps were my Hue lights, and my Ecobee4 and Ecobee sensor.
I was still able to fully control the Hue lights and my Ecobee equipment.
About 20 minutes later, my Ecobee equipment all showed as disconnected.
I was very concerned and agitated. I spent well over 100 hours this past month installing and programming (still OCD programming daily) my house only to have it seem to completely fall apart and making me wonder why I put so much money and effort into this.
HERE IS WHAT HAPPENED: During the above process I was planning to take my DJI Mavic Pro drone out for the first voyage of the year the next morning, so I was cycling the battery by letting it just idle indoors for about an hour until the battery died. Once I powered it down, everything came back to life. So out of a hunch I powered it on again and sure thing everything started disconnecting one by one again.
While I am happy I figured this out, at the same time I realized how unreliable this entire system is and could be bypassed with a simple consumer item you could go down to Wal-Mart and purchase.
During all of this I was able to control my Hue lights with the ST apps. They never disconnected. However, they were not able to be triggered by any of the sensors. Maybe if my drone battery lasted longer I would then see all those go down? I am not sure. But the sensors are the heart of the system, and without those the rest of the setup is useless.