Hub Firmware Release Notes - OTA - 16.9 - V2

Not for nothing, and likely already covered. Decided to go through all my zigbee sensors a few days ago, did the usual take the hub offline for 30 minutes, and I was still having a crap ton of motion trigger failures. Quite a number of devices were reporting regular battery and temp events, but no motion events. Batteries were reporting in the 30 to 60 pct range.
I went through and replaced the batteries for all the devices that weren’t reporting, so far this has fixed everything… I think the Ota puts a huge drain on the device batteries, maybe even if they aren’t being updated. In any event I turned Ota off, we’ll see how it goes, but so far things are getting back to normal for me.

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Wow, I really feel for all you having these problems. Thought I would add my post firmware release experience just to add information for those trying to figure out what’s going on.

I have 10 Zigbee devices, all Cree bulbs and all have contributed to function normally since the update. I did originally have OTA enabled even though it has nothing to do with those bulbs currently. I have disabled it now just so I don’t have to worry about what it might do.

Sure hope this all gets better for all of you soon.

Osrams sometimes has to be turned off at the light switches and back on and then function normal again. I haven’t had a radom turn on in a while.

You’re right about the update eating through batteries, last week I saw a massive drop on my Samsung Multi’s so replaced with new batteries, they dropped again to 67% after 3 days use! So Sunday I again put fresh batteries in, showed 100%, checked today and they are already down to 67%!!!


In TWO days!

Well as long as you’re interested in proving this.
Turn Ota off in the ide, then replace your doorbell battery, see if the drain goes down.
I have some at 67 and some at 100, however I turned Ota off half way through the replacement process, so I can’t be sure Ota is causing this on my end.

As soon as I read your post I turned off OTA updates, I thought, if everything has updated why do I keep needing everything to be polled if it’s just draining batteries, I’ll turn OTA updates back on when/if I hear anything from ST that’s significant.
I’m keeping my 2 day old 67% battery in for now, to test the waters, if I see the battery holding I’ll put new ones in again.

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I don’t think it’s the ota check that’s draining the batteries but much more likely the 5 minute healthcheck polling that was introduced with the last update.

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@a4refillpad
If it was a health check, wouldn’t battery drain be consistent for all users?

I do not think I am seeing any change of behavior after this latest firmware update.

My SmartThings sensors got firmware updates and I have left OTA on.

My osram garden spots are working fine.

What kind of health check did SmartThings recently add?

Agree. For whatever reason, my Zigbee sensors have updated and I’ve left the OTA updates on without difficulties. No battery issues or otherwise. Again, not sure why it seems so random.

I have 2 zwave sensors that are “stuck”, but I am assuming that this has nothing to do with SmartThings.

I have an eco tilt sensor stuck on open, and an enerwave ceiling mounted motion sensor stuck on motion.

Both of these happened on Sunday, so for 3 days,

They both got “stuck” when nothing was happening.

Meaning the tilt sensor spontaneously showed open when the garage door it is on has not opened or closed for awhile.

And the motion sensor started showing motion when nothing has been around that motion sensor.

Any chance it could be the batteries. I had 3 z-wave sensors randomly run out of batteries and show up as stuck. Mind you this was before they implemented the health check.

BTW, if anyone is having recent trouble with zwave devices, see the following thread for additional discussion:

@ZebraBlinds

Could very well be the batteries, been very busy, when I get a chance will try with new batteries and other things to troubleshoot.

Is there a description somewhere about this newly added health check?

Smartthings have added a 5 minute poll to all of their own branded sensors in the last update. You can reveal these checks if you modify the device handler to reveal it. Previously the sensors would only check back once an hour now it is every 5 minutes. My false alarms also coincide precisely on these 5 minute health-checks. I was responding to the fact that people believing the 24hourly ota check being a culprit of battery drain. I’m stating that it would be more likely the 5minute poll being a more likely candidate than that.

I have replaced all my sensors with false alarms now with new duracell cells regardless of reported battery life (some were even reporting 100% prior) and the number of false alarms have definitely reduced albeit not entirely eliminated. The fact that it’s clearly reduced the false alarms is a clear indication that you cannot trust the reported battery life even when it reports 89-100%. A lot of my batteries were getting close to a year old anyway, that with the demands of a firmware update, I think it was just a little too much for them.

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Exactly the same problem for me Alwas. I have 3 Osrams in a row, and ever since the update, at least 1 of them fails every day. Meaning I have to unscrew and screw 5 times, to reset, then rediscover. Then change the dim and white temperature. I’m sick of this honestly. Whatever has changed in this update should be reverted.

@a4refillpad

Regarding increase polling of SmartThings branded sensors from device type.

So it is in the device type code?

Is there a description of this change anywhere in release notes?

was there a forum topic on this?

I seemed to have missed this discussion.

Wanted to see more specifics of this change.

With Smartthings branded sensors my false alarms also coincide precisely on these 5 minute health-checks.
In my case only outside of the house, when i bring it back from roofed porch to house it works fine.
I think it may be related to
a) temperature
b) light intensity
c) something completely else

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I’ve noticed that temperature and light sensitivity increased with the last firmware upgrade.

It’s been debated a few times on this forum. It’s a new feature launched for newly paired devices a few months back but did not hit the majority of users until the firmware update which seemed to switch it on for all my existing devices. It is an enabler for future enhancements like the online/offline status in the IDE.

I use modified device handlers for my devices to show when the devices talk to better monitor the state of my devices. After the firmware updates I can see a big jump in frequency the device talking to the hub every five minutes.

Here’s the excerpt from the device handler, which mentions the healthcheck

def configureHealthCheck() {
// Device-Watch allows 3 check-in misses from device (plus 1 min lag time)
// enrolls with default periodic reporting until newer 5 min interval is confirmed
sendEvent(name: “checkInterval”, value: 3 * 60 * 60 + 1 * 60, displayed: false, data: [protocol: “zigbee”, hubHardwareId: device.hub.hardwareID])
}

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For some random reason when I got home last night everything was up and running correctly. Even the OSRAM light bulb that wouldn’t connect was all of a sudden reconnected and full functional. I’m still scratching my head but I will take it and hope everything works out for others.