[RELEASE] Monoprice Door Window Mailbox Z-Wave Plus Sensor (Official)

Could be the magnet distance. It should be within about 1-2mm ideally.
For testing purposes we put one of these sensors on a mailbox outside the building over a 100ft from the nearest repeater and it’s working fine here.

@rboy the magnet is literally right on top of it. I could not get it any closer or the door will not open right as it would be rubbing the two plastic parts together. but there is clearly no space between the 2 that is how close it is. and I still have the issue. do you think it could be defective?

Could be, most of the time intermittent/timing issue tend to be mesh related (no enough repeaters, bad repeaters, hub/connectivity etc). Sometimes it’s battery or magnet/mounting, if all else fails it could be the device itself.

Official Monoprice Door/Window Sensor Device Type - Version 02.01.03

  • Added basic support for the new ST app

You may need to exclude and re-pair but you can try to manually force it, My Devices -> Click on monoprice door sensor device -> Scroll down and click on Edit -> Scroll down and click on Update -> Force kill and restart ST app
The new ST app is still experimental so it’s recommended to continue using the ST Classic app to get access to all the features of the DTH

Did you ever resolve your issue with not getting updates from the recessed door sensor? I’ve got two units that are just reporting “Open” 100% of the time, and don’t seem to be sending updates, despite seeing the LED flash when I move the magnet in and out of proximity of the sensor.

I recently added about 10 of the 24259 sensors in my house and noticed they are all executing in the cloud. Shouldn’t these be local? If I change it to a generic zwave door windows sensor it works locally.

No custom device handlers work locally. Only the handlers that are in the SmartThings firmware will work local, and then only with SmartLighting or SHM.

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Is there a way to tap into the tamper status to create a push notification or text message? I have the RBOY Monoprice Z-Wave Plus Door/Window Sensor device handler installed. I’d love to get some type of alert/alarm/notification when the tamper switch is tripped.

You can use WebCoRE to crate a custom rule for the tamper event or use this SmartApp to take actions (eg notify or turn on an alarm etc) [RELEASE] Security System: Intruder Alert with Support for Lights and Taking Pictures with a Camera

This worked perfect! Thanks again to RBoy Apps. They continue to be a big part of my smart home.

Do you have any apps that poll once a day to see if devices are available and active?

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The DTH’s have a built in health check feature customized for each device which ST uses to indicate when the device goes offline.
Each device is unique in how they behave and some sleepy devices don’t wake up for a week. Hence the time before which ST can determine when a device has gone offline varies.

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Hey,

I have an issue where the device is starting to not report events (door opened and didn’t register, but started working again later in the day) which to me has always been tied to a dying battery. This is my front door, so it gets a lot of use and it’s been around 10 months since I changed the battery.

However, battery is still reporting as 90%.

Anyone had this issue before?

Could it be an internet issue or a Z-Wave mesh issue ? For the latter adding a Z-Wave Plus repeater (mains powered device) helps in creating a strong mesh. Often just rebooting the hub once in a while doing a Z-Wave repair helps with the mesh.

I should clarify - I think the battery is actually close to run out based on how long I get from other sensors - it’s just this device that never seems to report a decrease in battery with your handler below 90%. Any ideas on if that’s normal behavior with zwave generally or should it be close to accurate? I know my Schlage door lock using your handler also starts exhibiting connection issues after about 8months of use until I change battery - I’ve seen that one drop to 80% but nothing ever below that I guess.

Did you ever get this to work? I have 4 of these sensors and 2 of them is reporting open all the time even if the red led is blinking. I have tried to disconnect and re-connect them again, but no luck.

Posting a quick reference guide since this seems to be a common question, why do some sensors report fine while other are inconsistent. Some sensors stop reporting after a while etc. There are many reasons for why sensors may have issues or appear to have issues over time. It can range from temporary mesh issues, pairing issues, connectivity issues, mobile app server freezing etc.

A couple of hygiene things to check:

  1. Internet connectivity to the hub is working
  2. Check/replace battery in device, sometimes a new battery may be a dud (it’s known to happen) or defective and it dies quickly before the device can register and update the hub

Here are a bunch of things to try to isolate the issue and fix them:

  1. Reboot the hub and do a Z-Wave repair - the mesh tends to degrade over time, rebooting and repairing helps fix this
  2. Remove the battery and reinsert the battery in the device - rebooting the device helps if it’s stuck in an invalid state, it can happen for a variety of reasons from firmware to mesh issues
  3. Exclude the device, reset the device and re pair the device with the hub - sometimes the device/hub z-wave controller loses communication with the device leaving it orphaned or in some cases with uni-directional communication
  4. Add a repeater within 30ft of the device - given the location of some of these devices and they signal reflect off objects/locations some device may not be able to communicate or often lose communication with the mesh over time. Having a repeater, usually any mains powered Z-Wave plus device, helps create a strong mesh and avoid such issues. A sure symptom of this is if the device is paired and works within 10ft of the hub but doesn’t elsewhere, then the mesh is weak and needs repeaters
  5. Reboot your phone and kill/restart the ST mobile app. Sometimes the ST app/server have issues which manifest as the device state doesn’t update. A reboot of the phone/killing the app resets the app/connection and fixes this issue. This is more common than folks think and typically affects the ST Android Mobile app more than the ST iOS app. A way to verify this problem is to open the IDE → My Devices → Click on your device, look at the Current State. Change the device state and refresh the page, if the state changes here but not on your mobile app, it means the device is fine and you need to restart your phone/kill the ST app
  6. Finally, if nothing else works it could be a defective unit

As for battery, it’s very complex topic. I’ve posted/there are lots of posts across the forum on devices and battery reporting. Lots of things affect battery, it’s life and reporting. It depends on battery type, battery age, device type, firmware quirks, distance from repeater (yes, this is another reason to add repeaters across your home as it increases battery life or it can lose the report in a weak mesh and it shows as null) etc. I won’t get into it all here but in general, Z-Wave device report battery in % to the hub, the DTH passes it onto the server as is without any modifications. So what you’re seeing is what is being reported by the device directly. Some devices report battery changes often, some don’t. Typically sleepy devices reports battery updates from once a day to once a week. You can force an update the next time a device wakes up by tapping the Request update button.

Hope this helps.

This an awesome guide to get any device to work in the network again. I read through your suggestions and just remembered that I have instructions for these sensors and got information about how to add and remove these sensors.

This is what I did to get the sensor to work properly again:

I added the sensor to ST and confirmed that it is always showing open.
Then I went to setting for the sensor in the app and choose Remove.
I confirmed that I wanted to remove the sensor and then pressed the temper switch on the sensor for about 2 seconds before releasing it again.
The app then reported that the device has been removed.

After it properly removed, without forcing it, I added the device again.

In the app, add a new device. While the app is searching, press and release the temper switch.

This fixed it for the first sensor.

The second sensor I did the same process to remove it, but when I added the sensor it came up as a different sensor. Had to remove and add it twice before it was recognized as the correct sensor.

Hope this helps anyone.

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Will your DTH allow the Zwave PLus Door/Window sensor to operate with STSamCon?

I am having trouble setting up the external connection. I have an existing alarm system (working) and just trying to add-on the 15270 module. The existing sensor in the door frame is a plunger type. If I disconnect the wire from the alarm system and connect to one of the external connectors on the 15270, then connect the other external to the alarm, it seems to work. But the alarm system doesnt. Connecting the external connectors to ground and zone 1 causes the 15270 to not detect open/close. I have the magnet taped to the sensor. I have also tried both NO/NC settings on the sensor.

Any ideas?

Is it possible to set up an association group with this device (#15270)? The documentation says it supports one association group but doesn’t say which number it is (I assume #1 since I think that is required by Z-Wave+) but I can’t get Z-Wave Tweaker to work with it (to be fair, Tweaker says it is for mains-powered devices only). If I find out that it is possible, I will put some more time into figuring out how to do it. I want the opening of the contact to turn on a couple of light switches directly, without needing to get the hub involved. This sensor and the switches are in a separate garage which has a very long hop to get back to the house and the hub, so it may not be totally reliable. I want it to turn on the lights without hub involvement for reliability and will live with the lights not automatically turning off occasionally.