New user Problem: Did my handler locked my Aqara Thermometer out forever?

Developer Programs Writing Device Types
1

Hi community,
This is my first post. I have started with HA and SmartThings 2 days ago.

I have 3 Aqara Thermometer and Humidity sensor (Model: WSDCGQ11LM).
It was not initially recognized by my Aeotec hub and SmartThings app in my region. But then, I downloaded one handler from OrangeBucket and it was working well.

But I wanted to learn more and have more reporting options, so I read some material and tried to implement some codes in one of the 3 devices. Then, I was testing with “zigbee.configureReporting” and added the following configure method:

def configure() {
log.debug “Configuring the Handler”

//Set the check-in interval:

sendEvent(name: “checkInterval”, value: 2 * 60 * 60 + 1 * 60, displayed: false, data: [protocol: “zigbee”, hubHardwareId: device.hub.hardwareID])
log.info “Sending ZigBee Configuration Commands to Thermometer 2”
zigbee.configureReporting(0x0402, 0x0000, 0x29, 60, 240, 100)
zigbee.configureReporting(0x0405, 0x0000, 0x21, 600, 900, null)
zigbee.configureReporting(0x0403, 0x0000, 0x21, 600, 900, null)

}

And apparently, since then, the live logging does not show ANY message arriving from this test device.
I was afraid I made a mistake and stopped the device to send reports. And then, it got worse: after hours waiting for a message, the device went OFFLINE.

I try to press the “reset” button on the thermometer, to make it go to pairing mode or to become online/alive again. And nothing. The only thing I noticed is that the “metric” pane of the IDE shows an increasing number of errors of message transmitted to the device (the number of failures is increasing over time).

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I’m afraid to “delete” the device from the hub and lose it forever: as it is not sending messages often, it may be very hard to pair it again.

Did I lose it forever? Any thing I can do to try to get it back online and reporting? Does removing the battery of the device reset it?

Let me know, and thanks on advance. :slight_smile:

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Tagging @orangebucket

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Hi, @scotchgambit.
I don’t know if @orangebucket is free to modify this part as he developed the DTH.
However, there are some samples to configure the reporting for those clusters in the Public Repository (here).
However, it’s highly important you consider that we’re currently during the Groovy sunset transition and since Oct 15th you’ll be able to only modify or delete the DTH.
Here’s the announcement about this:

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I’m flattered you might think I am capable of such a thing but it was largely a cosmetic job on the ‘bspranger’ handler with some minor technical tweaks to make it behave in the ‘new’ environment.

The Zigbee bits are inherited. At the time my now extremely superficial understanding of Zigbee was even more limited , and Lumi did rather plough their own furrow with their interpretation of it so it wasn’t a place to put it to the test.

Nearly all my Aqara sensors went in the bin and I made a point of watching the bin man empty it into the back of the lorry and turn on the crusher. I do have single samples of the sensors left but I also have several hammers to hit them with.

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That sensor is supported by many drivers for over a year. I have multiple sensors on different drivers. One of them is @Mariano_Colmenarejo driver that I am using as thermostat

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To respond to a few specific questions:

  1. nothing you can do with a device type handler can permanently damage your device, but you might have to factory reset it.

  2. you have to check the user guide for the device to find out exactly how to reset it. Some are reset just by removing the battery and replacing it, but some require that you hold down a little button while the batteries replaced or some other action.

  3. are you aware that ALL groovy device type handlers are in the process of being discontinued as SmartThings moves to a new architecture? So most people are not writing anything in Groovy these days.

The replacement are “edge Drivers“ written in the Lua programming language.

This is why @nayelyz gave you the following link.

If you’d like more details about edge, see the community FAQ:

FAQ: I have no idea what Edge is. Is that a new developer tool? (2022)

  1. as @milandjurovic71 mentioned, there are a couple of edge drivers already available that should work with your device. So that’s very good news. :tada: You will need to get it reset. And then subscribe to the edge driver. Other people can give you the details of that process.

  2. Smartthings has been having some platform issues over the last week or so and that might have introduced some additional difficulties for you. It’s often a good idea to check the status page. They don’t post all the issues there, but usually the major ones will be listed. At least that way you’ll know if it’s worth working on before they get it fixed.

  1. Aqara Devices are often difficult to pair to a smartthings hub. One community member has written a list of tips and tricks that might help. (The topic title is a clickable link.)
  1. both smartthings and Aqara have announced that they will have at least some support for Matter, the new industry standard for communicating between devices of different brands. Sometime in the next six months or so it should become way easier to use aqara devices with smartthings. Instead of pairing the Aqara devices to a smartthings hub, A new option will be to pair them to their own hub (easy) and then bring that hub into your smartthings account, which should also be an easy process. The hub will bring many of its devices with it. So if everything goes as planned, you will end up with a local, reliable, easy setup. No custom code required. Plus you will be able to get regular firmware updates for your Aqara devices, something which is quite difficult to do now.

Of course that’s all if everything goes as planned and we don’t have an exact timeline. But I just thought it might be nice to know that within a year or so this entire process should be much much easier.

———-
Anyway, I hope that answers some of your specific questions from your first post, while a lot of the information you got from other people in the thread should be very helpful in other regards.

Welcome to the community! :sunglasses:

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Aqara thermometers cannot be configured. They report when they report, and actually they do check in every 2 hours AFAIK.

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I don’t know what is the etiquette here in the forum, I got so many responses and I don’t know if I reply one by one or all at once.

Anyhow, at a first glance it really feels like this is a community that wants to embrace newbies. I’m glad to see.

Thank you for all the answers!!
In JDRoberts specifically: I will try to reset my device.
I’m a bit frustrated that my first two days of “study” were completely lost as groovy will not be so useful in the future. I will try to adapt, let’s see what edge is about and if I can learn how to build/code my own things there. I hope so. :slight_smile: But let’s not rush. First I’ll read the material you and @nayelyz have linked.

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Thank you for the information. That’s quite disappointing, actually. :confused:

Do you know any other temperature/humidity sensor that whose reports can be configured?

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Literally any other Zigbee temperature sensor.

@JDRoberts can advise you what options you might have nowadays. Probably there are some good deals on Amazon as well.

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