Motion Sensor not detecting motion or reporting false status

#1

I’ll try to keep this from being a wall of words.

I’m new to the home automation thing and am slowly getting deeper into what you can and cannot do. I’m beyond the ability to setup wemo switches/outlets and Hue lights. The next step was to automate some lighting in sporadically used locations. There’s 3 in my house. The Master Closet, Laundry Room, and Pantry. Of those three, the closet and laundry room work great. Other than the occasional Hue blip which leaves one of the couple bulbs in each room on.

The Pantry is a different story though. Upon initial setup it worked great for about 6 hours. Then it started to show a status of unconnected. I disabled health check and that went away for about a day. Then I started to have a problem where it just doesn’t detect any motion. I had a spare sensor, so I swapped out sensors being sure to remove the old sensor from my things in the app and deleting and setting up a new automation. This doesn’t resolve the problem.
For the last 24 hours, the sensor showed motion constant. There is no motion unless someone is in the room and it’s closed off by a door and is a smaller area. The indicator light on it occasionally blinks blue. No matter what I do though, nothing turns on. Looking in the app (Which is down right now), there’s no activity even recorded for the last 24 hours.
This leads to a couple questions.

  1. The pantry wall that I have the sensor attached to butts up against the double ovens. These are standard GE ovens, not smart or anything like that. Is it possible that the metal in those is blocking the communication? If so, why would it work sometimes and not others or report completely false status?
  2. What else can I do? My other 2 sensor work GREAT. This one is used probably the most so it’s definitely the most frustrating.

Thanks for the help

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#2
#3

Second picture

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#4

@poseidon7902
From personal experience, I would mount it facing the door, slightly oblique so it doesn’t see its own reflection from the door/wall.
Constant on usually comes from the clod. Smartthings has been very flaky this year.

#5

What motion sensor? And why did you choose motion for such a small space. For motion to work correctly, a body should pass the sensor completely.

Personally, I would use a contact sensor for that door. It appears to be a door that is mostly closed?

With contacts, you get instant open and close status, therefor, your lights can turn off instantly instead of waiting for the motion to become inactive.

Also, contacts usually have a longer battery life as they do not have to scan for motion.

1 Like
#6

I would guess it’s a mesh dead spot? Total from the hip shot gun blast.

I agree with the previous post. If you close the door when not in use then use a contact sensor.

#7

Necro post in a way. I finally went out and got contact sensors for these two doors. One so far is working fine. The other, the sensor continually shows open and the light never turns off. Starting to lose faith in the ability of having reliable automation

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