I have been getting tons of false Door and window sensor alerts since the last Hub update. Anyone else been having this issue or is this an isolated issue? This is happening throughout the house with the SmartThings Multipurpose sensors.
90% of the time this is because the battery is nearly dead, do not rely on the app to tell your correct battery level - that seems to be beyond SmartThings at the moment.
When the firmware for the hub was released, they can also push firmware onto the sensors, which drains the battery massively so it starts making false reports.
Try swapping it out and it should be ok.
Kraeg
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I’ve had the same issue since the update and have been woken up by our siren every night because of it. First it was the master bedroom window, until I changed the battery on that. Now one of the guest room windows is triggering.
2017-11-25 5:03:12.704 AM EST
3 hours ago DEVICE status closed Window - Office status is closed
2017-11-25 5:03:11.505 AM EST
3 hours ago DEVICE status open Window - Office status is open
It shows my last firmware update for these devices was 2016-12-08, so it isn’t due to new firmware.
Is there an easy way to adjust the sensitivity of these things?
Sadly not, at least not with the built in DTH.
You can however have two of the devices on the same object and only trigger if both agree on a state change.
Your window example:
Put two Open/Close Sensors on the Window.
Then you can say if A and B Sensor both say open = Window Open
If A says open and B says closed = Window closed
If A and B closed = Window closed
That way, you would have to have two defective sensor readings at the same time for it to go wrong. Obviously this doubles the cost of an install though…not ideal.
I have however done something similar with my SHM using Zone Motion Manager (Smart Zone motion detector (Zone Motion Manager) 2.1.0 release)
I put ALL my motion sensors into a single group and said don’t trigger a motion alert unless two of them display motion within 2 minutes of each other. So someone breaking in and moving around my house would trigger an alarm. But a single defective sensor reporting motion randomly won’t.
Let me know if I can explain that a bit better, but hopefully you get the idea
Kraeg
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Thanks @kraegd. How long should the battery last? I thought they were suppose to last for years and I’ve only had them installed about a year. Of course I was counting on the battery indicators to be accurate most say 99-100% battery.
Depends on the device and how busy they are. Good thread which recently opened - 18 months of SmarthThings usage from cell coin batteries view
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@kraegd thanks I suspect it’s the batteries after reading the comments in the post. I’ll swap the batteries on the ones that keep getting false alarms and go from there.
As suggested, new batteries in all my window sensors fixed the issue I had with false alarms. My initial batteries lasted about 11 months - a lot shorter than I had hoped for. Makes me look forward to the Konnected (http://konnected.io) kit delivery in January.
Sorry to resurrect an old thread but for anyone that comes acrosss this - new batteries resolved the false open alarms. Haven’t had one issue since replacing all the batteries across devices. Battery life is rather short but there is more going on with these devices than others I have used before.