[RELEASE] Low Battery Notification with Customizable Alert/Warning/Monitor, Configurable Thresholds and Device Monitoring Alerts

Low Battery Notification with Customizable Alerts

On request from many users we’ve built a high customizable low battery notification SmartApp with a built in dashboard.

There are some of low battery notifications apps on the community but on request from folks we have custom built this app to include the following features:

KEY FEATURES

  1. Create an unlimited number of Battery Monitoring Rules/Groups on the fly (and delete them as well)
  2. Each group/rule has it’s own battery threshold and list of device to monitor
  3. Create custom names for each rule (optional)
  4. Dashboard showing status of device battery and highlighting those devices who’s batteries are below the configured threshold
  5. Set what time of the day and day of week you want the app to check the device battery levels and send notifications
  6. Multiple notification options
    • Send SMS/Text messages to multiple phone numbers
    • Push
    • Silent logging
    • Spoken notifications (Sonos, Bose, Ikea)
  7. Automatic push notification if there is an updated version of the SmartApp available

Installation Instructions

You can find step by step installation instructions here

If you have any additional feature requests please send it in.

Top votes for battery brands

NOTES

  • See how the battery stability (voltage) varies by load and temperature, lithium batteries have the best stability:
  • Lithium batteries come in voltages from 1.5v to 3.7v, check the correct voltage before using
  • Not all devices are tuned to handle the voltage curves of rechargeable (NiMH) and lithium batteries, adjust your thresholds accordingly (e.g. devices with alkaline batteries expect a gradual voltage drop off where as lithium batteries voltage drops very quickly at the end). Conversely NiMH batteries drop off very quickly at the beginning which may cause some devices to shut off or report lower battery levels

OTHER SMARTAPPS

This app is available on the RBoy Apps server (along with all the premium and free apps)

Please visit our website for instructions on how to get access to all the apps.

Subscribe to our Facebook page to get updates on all of our apps. http://www.facebook.com/RBoySTApps

If you like the Apps consider supporting our development efforts.

(c) RBoy Apps

7 Likes

###Device Low Battery Notification and Monitoring - Version 1.0.0

  • Create an unlimited number of Battery Monitoring Rules/Groups on the fly (and delete them as well)
  • Each group/rule has it’s own battery threshold and list of device to monitor
  • Create custom names for each rule (optional)
  • Set what time of the day you want the app to check the device battery levels and send notifications
  • Support for Contact Address Book notifications (if enabled on your ST account)
  • Support for sending SMS/Text messages to multiple phone numbers for ST push notification accounts
2 Likes

Very nice app. Any chances that there could be a place to add the type of battery that is in the device. That would at least allow me to pick one up if I don’t remember exactly what type of battery is in each device. Naturally the killer app for this would be for it to reach out to Amazon and order a replacement battery directly but until then this is a very helpful smartapp.

5 Likes

What timing, my Schlage lock on the back door died and I needed a better alert app.

[quote=“edden, post:3, topic:59780”]
Any chances that there could be a place to add the type of battery that is in the device.
[/quote] I like this idea

Interesting idea, so I"m thinking about what should the UI look like. Right now you can create rules and groups of devices to monitor and notify.

  1. It could be a whole different page where you can to just keep a list of devices and for each device select a battery. (ugly and complex UI)
  2. Have a separate page with battery groups, Lithium, NiMH, Alkaline etc and then for each group select the devices that belong to it.
  3. Have a separate page similar to the Monitor Rules page where you can define Custom Battery Types and assign devices to those battery types (leaning towards this)
  4. Assign a battery type for each Monitor Rule (which doens’t sound right because you can have different battery types devices within a single monitor rule)

0 voters

###Device Low Battery Notification and Monitoring - Version 1.1.0

  • Added the ability to automatically check for new versions of the SmartApp and Device Handlers for devices being monitored and notify the user

After updating the code, open the SmartApp and click Done for the changes to take effect

1 Like

I’m having an issue with my Schlage lock. It’s reporting back a battery percentage of null. The app see’s the front door and allows me to select it, but it has only ever reported a null for the battery.

Any suggestions on what to try? We used to have nexia and switched the smartthings a couple of years ago and I really missed the ability to see the battery percentage. This would fix my problem if I can get it work.

Thanks!

Have you tried using the universal enhanced Zwave device handler? Usually
it can take up to 24 hours to initially populate

I’ll give it a shot! Thanks for the input! I’ll try the Universal Z-Wave Lock with Yale/Schlage/Kwikset/IDLock Alarm, Notification and Advanced Features and give it a day or so to hopefully pick up all the features.

1 Like

I’m using this to monitor all my battery devices, specifically my blink cameras. I’m not getting any notifications, even though batteries are low in some cases. What am I doing wrong?

Hmm I know it’s working because I just got notifications about some low
battery sensors this morning.

Couple of things to check

  1. Battery thresholds
  2. Click on the app and click Done to reinitialize in case ST had an issue
  3. Do you have address book enabled on your account? If this feature is
    enabled you will be able to select which individuals get the notifications.
  4. Note that the notifications will come only once a day as the app checks
    the battery once a day (at a random time between 9am and 9pm)

I would put my bets on 3 since if your ST phone address book isn’t
configured properly you may not get notifications.

What I did was break out by device type instead of just having a single group. That seems to work and has fixed it. Side note. How come ecobee sensors don’t show up?

1 Like

Not sure that that means. Do you mean it won’t show up in the list of devices to select/monitor? If so the device handler may not have implemented the capability “Battery”. Which device handler are you using?

@RBoy I cannot see them to monitor when I pull up the app. I’m using the following device handler.

I don’t see any device handler on this, page, it appears to be @yracine
The device handler should have the capability Battery and report the battery usage to ST - if it does that it will work with this SmartApp

Ok, it was missing the battery. I added it and now it’s working. Thank you for the help

Hi, the ecobee APIs don’t report the battery usage, so even if you add the Battery capability, it won’t report anything.

Regards

@yvesracine I was about to email you and ask for the enhancement. Correct I tried to add the capability and it didn’t do anything. So this is a lack of API’s provided by Ecobee?

Yes, the information is not provided by ecobee even in their native app or at the ecobee portal.

@RBoy Any way you can add to this app “last event” from devices?

I like the fact that you can be informed of battery status but I would like to also be notified of devices not reporting for a specific time period. That way I can monitor the health of my devices like motion sensors dropping from ST, etc.