I have been having TONS of false motion alerts from only my ST motion sensors. It has been this way for at least a week now. I have pulled power to the hub at least once, and that hasn’t made a lasting change. It has been mostly one sensor but today another one did it as well. Sensor that is maybe 20ft from the hub. Also of note, I am on a V1 hub so no zigbee update for me… My iris sensors have continued to be rock solid and fast. But like hourly I get false alerts from this sensor. Sure could be failing sensor, but its barely a year old, and I can do stuff like trip it by opening the device view in the app. Just now, checked its battery level, once I did that boom motion alert. Ive not gone the route of putting it in a box, just to prove its false alerts…but I can tell ya its false.
So did the DTH for the ST motion sensor update within the last few weeks and it isnt playing nice? I’m so ready to just rip that sensor off the wall and chuck it. I have spare iris sensors just waiting… Then today another sensor started it… so that now is like 2/5th of my ST sensors giving false positives.
It was caused by a recent update to how SmartThings handles zigbee.
As far as what you can try on your own, the first thing is to make sure that OTA updates is disabled in the IDE for your account. Then unplug the hub, including taking out any batteries, and leave the hub off power for at least 20 minutes while leaving your other zigbee devices on power. Then put the hub back on power. This will force everything to re-sync.
This has fixed the problem for some people, but not all. So definitely do report it to support.
JD…I know you mean well. But I went back and edited my post to draw your eye to the main thing… I am on V1 hub. no OTA updates here. Thats why I’ve not posted in that thread.
Why I figure its worth asking if anyone has seen the same issue on a v1 hub. Like since I posted this question that sensor now has fired 7 times since I got home a little over 1.5 hours ago.
@KevinH have you tried taking the motion sensor and placing in a box? I had two which kept on giving false motions after being in one, so I know it was not environmental but very likely a cloud problem. Since a few days ago, the false motions suddenly stopped without any intervention on my side.
Edit: unfortunately the false alerts have all come back. Roughly one false alert every 30 minutes somewhere random in the house.
Was going to be my next test @a4refillpad but i stuck it up with vhb…so i was going to just tape a box up around it. But I may have to fall on my sword. It might be battery. I was about to reply 2 hours ago when you asked this with ‘ive not heard it go off since last night’. And indeed I havent…but its not updating at all. Battery reported last at 56%. But nothing since 9:45pm last night. No reports of temp or anything. But I also dont have any cr2450’s handy…and HD want 5 dollars for one, or amazon will get 4 here by sunday for 7.50… so Sunday I will put a new battery in it.
It is within eye line of the hub, and only the front door between it, and it has glass top half. So its not like it cant connect. Yes its outside. Been out there for a year. I guess its the time of the year, it seems my ecobee’s sensor batteries are going bad too. So may start replacing all the batteries homewide.
Will reply sunday or monday if it is me just being all huffy against ST or not…
So it appears it was the battery. 56% reported battery, yet it goes on the fritz with nearly hourly motion alerts. Then finally after a week almost of that it died. New battery installed on Sunday, its Tuesday night and its been ok since.
How hard is it to put realistic battery alerts? If 56% means dead in a few days, just set that to report as 5% or something… This is frustrating. But looking like December is becoming my ‘replace every battery in the house’ month.
Just an observation that i have reported to ST.
I have 3 ST motions sensors.
2 report 89% battery the third 100% battery.
When the system is in Away mode (armed) if i press the refresh continually on one of the motion sensor devices with 89% battery in the ST app I can trigger an alert every time.
Yet it doesn’t on the other sensor with 100% battery.
Now ST have not commented on this yet, but I noticed it after a number of false alerts from the two lower battery sensors over the period of a week.
Now I have always thought the battery condition/monitoring is very unstable on Samsung devices and I think this is part of the same issue that ST have still failed to address. I never have the same errors with non ST sensors /devices. Hopefully a few of you will read this and try it and see if you can trigger the alerts … as I am sure ST wont believe me… or come up with some fob off excuse.
