Inflated battery percentages following 18.21 firmware update

Anyone else seeing incorrect battery percentages from their Zigbee devices ever since the 18.21 firmware update? I try to keep an eye on the battery levels of my devices, so assuming I’ve been seeing accurate battery percentages up to 18.21, the battery levels are now showing much higher for most of my devices. For instance, I’ve got a sensor that had a battery that was slowing working it’s way down to 25%. Post firmware updates, it now shows 76%. I’m seeing a similar trend for most of my 27 battery-based devices.

which devices? not sure if it was a device handler or firmware update, but some devices are supposed to be more accurate now. A lot of them used to be dead but still show 68%.

My newest ST motion sensor been jumping between 1% and 68% all week so I am assuming it’s at 67.494%. The battery was replace a month ago.

here is the explanation:

A more elementary google search suggests that when 3V batteries drop to about 2.7V, they need replacement. However after reading several sites about testing remaining charge on Lithium batteries, I’m convinced a simple voltage test isn’t adequate. To get a more accurate picture, you must test voltage with the battery loaded. Loaded voltage test will drop voltage further than open voltage tests.

There are also mentions that brand new batteries are delivered with slightly more than 3V, and by the time they drop to 3V they are useless. I suspect 2.4V is far too low.

From reading those notes on what was done with battery reporting, I’d expect to see lower reported battery levels (2.4V now being the threshold for 1% vs 2.1V); yet I too am seeing higher… all except one of my Iris motion sensors now report 100% battery life (they were reporting levels of 67% to 78% previously). Removing/replacing the same battery doesn’t change the behavior (I haven’t yet tried resetting/rejoining).

The one sensor that doesn’t show this behavior still shows the same 67% battery life it had before the hub updated. Interestingly, my Iris contact sensors continue to report the same battery levels as they did before the update.

As a note, they changed the lower and upper voltage number. The old numbers for motion sensors were 3.0 to 2.1. It is now 2.7 to 2.4. Multi-sensors changed to 2.7 to 2.1.

If your voltage for the sensor is 2.8V or 2.7V, it used to report as 78% or 67% respectively. Now it will report as 100%.

The change record is below:

Ah, I missed that. Thanks!

I have a SmartSense MultiSensor that shows 1% battery then 67% battery then 50% battery, it goes up and down like an elevator. Then at 1% it goes offline and I have to use the refresh button in the device page and it returns to online and 50% battery. Truly a Pain.

That sounds like you have a bad/old battery. Under load the voltage is likely dropping, thus giving those readings and/or dropping offline. However, it’s always possible there is something up with the sensor; seems drastic.

All of my devices have been showing the batteries at 100% for a while now. The only way to know it’s dying is when the bogus events, like the door is open when it’s not, start happening.

I’ve seen the same thing, percentages overall higher mainly in “SmartSense” sensors. In fact I just had one stop reporting at 66%. Before the update I swear it was at 25%.

Side note that may or may not be related. I had OTA firmware updates disabled and after this last hub firmware update I turned them on. So not sure if the firmware updates on the devices could have had a effect also.

I just received notification that a multisensor had not reported for 2 days. Lookig at the device recent tab and it had not registered an open/close event since 8:44pm on September 9th. The battery was reported at 100% in ST. The device has current firmware. The battery measured 2.528 volts without load. Replaced it and it came back on line. I wish we could go back to the old system. At least you knew that when you hit 70% battery it was getting time to replace them and you could set up battery notifications to monitor the battery percentage.