Is anyone else having battery life issues with the iris motion sensor?
I purchased 2 of them at the same time less than 2 weeks and the battery is showing 77%. I have a Smartthings motion sensor that I purchased in December still showing 100%. Do you think it might be reporting wrong? Maybe it’s the cheep battery it came with.
Thanks
Richy
It may be the battery, but ST is known to be bad at battery status. You’ll get 77%, then it will go up to 88%, and so forth. Only way to know is to let it run its course, and then try with good batteries.
Thanks for the response. That’s what I’ll do just let the battery die and see what happens.
ST is especially poor with lithium battery reporting I’ve noticed. The Iris sensors use lithium batteries so you may see 100% one day 66% the next day and then the battery will go fully dead 6 hours later.
For me the iris open close sensors are worse. 77% after a week. Will probably return and get the smarttings sensors while on sale.
Dont return them just yet they have been really good sensor and for a good price. When I posted this three weeks ago they were at 77%. As of right now they are still showing 77%. I think it’s just the way smatthings reads the battery percentage I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the iris sensor. Like I said they have been working great.
I just installed my first iris motion sensor and the battery life is horrible. We’re talking 1 week horrible. its on the stairs, so it’s a pretty active area, but really? 1 week? One thing I noticed if the temperature is reported very often. Does anybody else’s report this often? Is there a way to change this reporting time? the only option in the settings is temperature offset.
This motion sensor has been in my living room where my family is in most of the time. I have had this since this version came out battery still shows 77% it looks like mine checks temp every 15 min or so.
I think you have a bad sensor. I have 5 of these and one of them is exactly like yours. Battery last one week. Replaced with a new one and no problem so far for a month.
well shit. i think i threw the package away already. hopefully they’ll exchange it without it.
I only have one Iris Motion Sensor and several ST ones. The battery life on the Iris Motion Sensor is plain terrible… I have been wondering whether it could have anything to do with the DTH but the reporting seems correct… Or maybe just bad batteries from Amazon, as it seems most battery deals are for old, expired or counterfeit batteries. Before I waste more batteries, does anyone have any suggestions on how to troubleshoot their terrible battery life? To clarify the ST sensor goes on for months while the Iris one is dead in a few weeks.
I have 3 iris motion sensors and a open/close sensor all since early October and they all say 78% left. I have one in my bedroom which is a very high traffic area, which I use to form the lights and can off 12 minutes after motion stops and even with it being triggered alot in the day and even more at night, it still is at just 78% with the same battery that came in it so maybe you have a fault unit!
What DTH are you using? I suspect it is a set of bad batteries from Amazon after all the bad reviews I read.
I use smartsense motion sensor
I have several of these scattered in my house. Like you I have 1 that eats batteries. I exchanged it at Lowe’s for another one thinking it was the sensor. The new sensor from Lowe"s also eats batteries. Soo now I am thinking it has something to do with where it is at. I just have not had time to experiment and try to figure out what it is, Odd thing is I have another one less than 2 feet from the location that eats batteries and it has not had any issues.
@TN_Oldman - These sensors are zigbee so they operate at 2.4GHz which may be a bit more susceptible to physical obstacles between them and the node they are talking to. Even 2ft may be enough for that sensor to have more trouble than the other to talk to the next node in the mesh network if an obstacle happens to be in the right spot. I installed an Iris Outlet just above (floor above) this sensor in hopes it would help this sensor talk to the hub by relaying its messages. I have also purchased Kodak CR2 batteries from amazon in hopes there is less of a chance they get counterfeited (most good deals on amazon appear to be for old/stale/fake batteries!) like more popular brands (Duracell / Energizer). I placed 4 of the Iris outlets at the 4 corners of the house so as to create a solid backbone for the zigbee mesh network given most, if not all, my zigbee devices were battery operated (thus don’t act as repeaters).
Could be battery but in my case it was the sensor. One battery a week so I ended up hard wired the sensor. I moved it to another location and replaced with another Iris motion with no issue for months now.
Isn’t the IRIS outlets Z-wave?
The control of the outlet is zigbee and there is a separate z-wave plus Repeater built in.
I exchanged one of these at Lowe’s for a new one cause it would eat batteries. I put the new sensor in the same place and it also eats batteries.
Looks like I’ll have to go the powered sensor route. Odd thing is there is another sensor right on the other side of the wall. Less than 6 inches away that has no issues.
Go figure. Odd how some can go a long time on a battery and others eat them like candy.
I also ordered one of the GE powered motion sensors to try in the troublesome location as a test.
