Few days back one particular store from Lowes reduced the price of Lowes Irisi Contact sensor and I was among those who jumped in buying those.
I bought a few but started using 3 right away. Integration with ST went like a breeze and they were immediately identified and they are working fine till date.
But the battery is going down like every day.
I also have other gocontrol z-wave contact sensors, I’m using them since more than 10 weeks and battery is still 100%.
But with Iris contact sensors, my battery shows 77% in all 3 in just 2 weeks.
I understand It’s zigbee device and we shouldn’t directly compare these two devices but 77% battery in just 2 weeks is insane.
Does anyone else have same issue? I am using “SmartSense Open/Closed Sensor” as device type, is there any other community driven device type which uses less battery?
I wish I could remember the thread where this was discussed, but the gist of the story is that the battery is read at discrete levels, meaning that you only get readings of 100, 77, 66, 50, and I think 30.
What I think you’ll find is that the reading may drop quickly from 100, since it seems to read an actual battery level between 99 and 77% as “77%”
Zigbee device battery levels are reported in 100 mV increments (.1 V). It doesn’t go finer (at least not using the standard clusters). So, when the usable range of the battery goes from 3.0 V to 2.1 V or so, you don’t get much granularity.
Naah, not that bad. In all Iris products, Contact sensor as well as in Motion Sensors battery dropped to 77% within a week or two and in one contact sensor it’s 66% now. But I’m still using them and battery are either 66 or 77. If you need to change it every two weeks, that’s some power hungry insane contact sensor.
I have a ton of the contacts also. 3-4 months 77% battery. To be fair looking in the IDE I don’t see any history of battery reports, but that is the same behavior I have with ST’s official sensors. Seems they go days between battery updates, and the logs only go back 7-10 days.
Its not a matter of when I change the battery, but rather how often. I would estimate the battery lasts two weeks (at most) and I am not talking about the measurements. I am saying the measurement hits 0% and the contact no longer works. But if I replace the battery with a new one (not just take out the old battery and put it back in), the contact works again.
It sounds like I have a bad contact.
PS - the light on the contact is constantly flashing a variety of colors as well.
It’s normal for Lithium batteries to have an initial voltage falloff when first used, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. I have Iris contact and motion sensors that have been used since November and they’re all reporting battery levels in the upper 60-mid 70% range. I expect these will give me at least 2-3 years of service life.
A word of warning about the Iris Smart Buttons, Keyfobs, and Pendant which al use coin cell batteries. Besides the fact that they are poorly built garbage, some, especially earlier devices seem to have issues where they eat batteries quickly. I had issues with them under Iris and also ST. I have been told by a support manager that 3-6 month battery life is “normal”. I’ve also had some die in less than month.
I bought 5 of these contact sensors from Lowe’s last week. 1 of the 5 killed the battery in about 6 days, it shows 0% and no longer updates when the door is opened or closed. I did notice twice that it was blinking multi color, and from what I read that meant it was in demo mode. I tried removing the battery and replacing while the sensor was open (read this on another forum as a way to take it out of demo mode), and while the light stopped flashing, the battery drain didn’t stop. The other 4 are all showing 88%. I emailed Iris support this morning and got the following response. Haven’t been home to try it yet but if anyone else is having trouble with these sensors eating batteries, might be worth a shot. I’ll report back once I replace the battery and reset the sensor.
Hello
Thank you for contacting Iris by Lowe’s support regarding your Contact Sensor. Please delete the contact sensor from the account (top left hand menu>devices>find your sensor>more>remove device) and follow the link below for reset instructions.
If you have any other questions please feel free to visit our support website at support.irisbylowes.com or call our customer support group at 855-469-4747. Thank you and have a wonderful rest of your day!
I haven’t had any issue with the contact sensor, but the Iris motion sensor needs changed about every week and a half, which is not sustainable.
I don’t know if it has anything to do with Zigbee and its mesh or whatever, but I did a heal repair yesterday to see if it’ll help reduce the battery drain.
My iris contact sensors and water sensor have been steady at 77% for weeks.
