I have had Kwikset Locks in my house for years. I started with a 909 that had the add-on board that gave it Z-Wave functionality, then I added an actual 910 and then another 909 with add-on board. I really haven’t had any issues with them until recently.
The batteries started draining faster than normal. The front door is the one that drains the most, I’m replacing betteries every week or 2. It gets used 2 or 3 times a day, but still, the usage has not changed, but the battery life has.
I thought maybe I got a bad batch of batteries from Amazon, so I picked up some Energizer Lithium at a local store. If anything the lithium batteries are worse.
If they are ZigBee make sure your signal is strong enough. I removed a SmartThings Outlet that was in my kitchen and all the sudden the lock by my garage door started doing the same thing (Need a ZigBee Repeater - Possibly Dumb Questions). Didn’t realize it until two sets of batteries…put the outlet back in and I was fine.
Might not be your case but worth checking…maybe something got removed/added? If yours are Z-wave and you’ve added/removed things try a repair. If they are ZigBee did a repeater get removed?
I would contact support and see if they see any extra activity with the lock. Or contact Kwikset, maybe it’s a bad lock.
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RBoy
(www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)
5
Like @vseven said check your lock device activity to see what’s going on. Also if your lock is too far from the hub it may be causing other issues, it shouldn’t drain that fast still but something to see either by adding a z-wave repeater or bringing the hub closer. It is possible the “reporting” is defective. See how long it takes for the battery to go dead. You should also try to exclude and repair the device, something that helps with false battery reporting.
I’m having the same issue with my locks. I’ve got 2 that were 909’s that I added the Z-wave card to. They’ve been there a couple of years but just in the last couple of months they’ve started draining the batteries every couple of weeks. I’ve tried repairing the Z-wave network, un-pairing and re-pairing, switching outlets that could be acting as repeaters, but it seems like they keep getting drained quickly. I’d hate to have to remove them from Smartthings. That’s why I got the lock and hub for in the first place ( peace of mind after we’ve left the house. ) Anyone have suggestions for troubleshooting?
I had one of four 914 lock do this after about two years. It was a long time ago and I believe it started having other issues. Complete resets, removal and repair next to hub didn’t help. Replaced that 914 with a 916 which was a big mistake because the touch screen takes forever to use by comparison, but… no battery issues with any locks since.
Having similar issues with both of my 914 z-wave locks.
Batteries used to last about 6 months. Recently both locks drain batteries within 1-2 weeks.
Seams to be tied to the smartthings zwave activity since both locks are effected. May try to remove or disable the zwave board before replacing the locks.
You can also just pull the Z-wave or ZigBee radio out of the lock…it’s just a card that slides into a socket. You can even change out a Z-Wave one for a ZigBee one from what I’ve read.
I bought a KwikSet 909 (no radio) then bought a Z-Wave card for $45 on eBay and “turned” it into a 910.
Ah, good idea. I realized after I posted, I’ll likely just ‘disable’ the Z-WAVE radio in the hub, as it’s easier than turning it off or pulling cards.
So, Z-WAVE off, we’ll see if the locks last past a week.
I really would like to figure out how to get this fixed - we use the entry/exit code logging and remote lock/unlock a lot. I don’t want to have to go back to my old Vera
Any idea what logs I should pull to see how often it’s poling?
I do not have any device handlers - but I never have either.
Only app I’ve ever used is the “bigpunk6 : Change or Delete Door Lock Codes - Multi User”. Worked great for years with no issues…
I started having the same issues with my 910 (zwave) recently.
The only observation I can add is that I left the top half cover off to see the LED lights. I noticed that when it’s paired with the hub, button 1 stays lit 100% of the time. Locked or unlocked it doesn’t matter. Even if I take the batteries out for a few hours and put it back in, button 1 LED stays lit.
If I unpair (exclude) the 910 from SmartThings that button1 no longer stays turned on.
To me, it seems like it’s constantly trying to sync or send something since one of the latest SmartThings firmware upgrades.
Has anyone had any luck tracking this down. I’ve had my Baldwin zwave for 5 years and usually go about 4-6 months before changing batteries, but they seem to be draining in just a couple days. This started probably a couple weeks ago. I suspect something must have changed with device handlers or hub firmware that is causing the device to keep the radio going more. It’s happening on both my locks. I wonder if switching to the “universal zwave lock device handler” might help.
I beleive the Baldwin uses the same brains of the Kwikset, so this is consistent with the above findings on the kwikset locks
The kwikset connect on my front door had a quicker battery drain that correlated with it losing some of its z-wave connectivity/functionality. I don’t think it was a coincidence.
Performing a Z-Wave repair revealed some of the devices in my mesh were not behaving and I had to remove and rejoin them into the network to clear up the issue. If you’re not overly familiar with z-wave repair, I recommend performing it from the IDE and clicking the link to monitor the progress in the logging. If you see any messages about missing devices and such in the logging, you need to clear those up to get a clean repair. (I’ve had inconsistent behavior when running z-wave repair from the mobile app. I don’t think the useful error messages were being reported in the mobile app. Maybe because the repair was taking a long time.)
Do any of you by any chance started having other issues with the lock, specifically sporadically unresponsive keys on the keypad? I’ve had both unresponsive keys and poor battery life. Since mine is the version with the Z-Wave daughter board, I did try unplugging it for a few months to eliminate Z-Wave as the battery drain issue, but it made no difference. I eventually took the lock apart and noticed that the connector from the keypad to the main board had almost come out. I plugged it in firmly and the lock worked perfectly again–and the batteries now lasted me several months, even though they’re NiMH and only show as 80% when fully charged. However, the connector doesn’t plug in very firmly and keeps coming loose, and the problems return. Part of the issue is that the door does get slammed shut a fair bit. The whole connector design is pretty poor and really requires a firmer snap-in action or a connector lock. I might try hot gluing the connector to the socket, or perhaps some heat shrink tubing.
RBoy
(www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)
20
NiMH batteries have lower voltages than alkaline batteries that’s why they show a lower initial battery % and also why they will last less once the voltage drop is faster and will invoke the cut off voltage on the lock faster. See this post for details
