Disregard that, it finally kicked in 
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I’m looking for a replacement for my Zigbee Iris motion sensors. They work well until the battery drops some, but even when it still shows 100% (such as measuring 3.03V instead of higher when battery is brand new) I have issues with it like it remains in the Active state even long after motion stops. It’s like it fails to properly report its Motion status.
So anyway I’m looking at this Zooz device because it seems to be highly rated and it is Zwave, which tends to work more reliably in my set up than Zigbee. In other threads some people have said that the Zwave devices do not report their motion becoming Active as fast as Zigbee devices. Can anyone speak to whether that’s really an issue?
Also this page https://www.thesmartesthouse.com/collections/motion-sensors/products/zooz-z-wave-plus-4-in-1-sensor-zse40 says the ZSE40 is out of stock because a new version is coming 10/30/17. Anyone know how the new version will be different?
Thanks!
The zooz 4-in-1 dies a little bit below 3v and goes through batteries faster than most, but it takes 2 AAA’s which are cheaper than 3v batteries. The device won’t work with rechaeble batteries unless the batteries are new and still able to hold a 1.5v charge.
Motion sensors don’t report inactive immediately after the motion stops. They usually take somewhere between 10 seconds and 3 Minutes, but some devices allow you to adjust that setting. If the motion sensor is in a room with a lot of traffic, setting it to 10 seconds will drain the battery.
With the current firmware it takes at least 1 minute for the Zooz 4-in-1 to report inactive.
I’m not sure how fast the IRIS sensors are, but the SmartThings Zigbee motion sensors report motion faster than any of my z-wave motion sensors and the zooz 4-in-1 sensor is not my fastest.
If a new version is coming out then everything might change.
The Zooz motion/light mini sensor is one of my fastest z-wave motion sensors, it can report inactive after 10 seconds, and it’s only $30.
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It’s frustrating that the ST app reports the battery is at 100% when the battery is measuring 3.03V. Perhaps anything above 3.0V is considered 100%. However it seems some devices, and especially the Iris motion sensors, are not reliable when the voltage gets down to 3.03V, yet the battery is still considered 100%. It would be great if there was a way to set the scale so I could get a notice when the battery was dropping. Instead I’ll have to manually check the batteries every x months without any warning from the app, it seems?
Thanks, however I’m reporting that there is an issue with ti getting “stuck” knowing the above already. The iris report Inactive after 30 seconds of no motion. That’s perfect for my needs. However, in these times when it gets stuck in the Active state, it stays that way long after there has been no motion. For instance it’ll say Active even after an hour of no motion whatsoever when it gets in this state. My theory is that as the battery approaches 3.0V it cannot properly transmit the Inactive state back to the hub sometimes, perhaps because its signal is too weak, I’m not sure. So the device thinks it reports Inactive but the report is never seen. Later when you walk by it and it now thinks it has gone Active again, it may succeed the next time in reporting Inactive. It’s a bit hit or miss when the batteries get low.
I don’t mind just putting in fresh batteries. But what I do mind is not knowing when it is time to do so. I’d rather get an alert from the device or be able to check the battery status in the app to know to change the batteries, rather than just having to check them or replace them every x months on a set schedule. Because otherwise it messes up my automation when the devices get stuck on Active. But because of what I wrote above in this post about the battery %, it looks like a set schedule is required.
That’s a little long for my needs. Can this be adjusted?
The fast detection possible is really important in my application. What reliable Zigbee motion sensor would you say is the fastest from your experience with them?
That sounds great. Is the inactive reporting period of 10 seconds adjustable? Sounds like it may be worth testing out if so, but I would only be able to keep it if it is just as fast as reporting motion compared to the ZWave Iris device.
Thanks for all the great information!
If the device takes a 3v battery then it shouldn’t/can’t require more than 3v to function because not all 3v batteries are capable of producing more than 3v. Is there a message near the battery that says it requires a specific brand?
I think most Zigbee devices report the battery in volts and the DTH performs the calculation to determine the battery level. If that’s the case with the DTH your IRIS motion sensors are using you should be able to easily adjust that calculation.
Have you looked at my Simple Device Viewer SmartApp? It can send you notifications if the battery drops below the threshold you set and it can also send notifications if it hasn’t checked in with ST for a specified amount of time or SmartThings marks it as offline.
It has also allows you to see the battery level of all your devices from a single screen.
That SmartApp won’t help if the device is still reporting 100% when it dies, but it worked great for the ST Motion sensors that used to die while showing 60%.
I purchased some ST Motion Sensors when I got the hub, but all of my other motion sensors are z-wave and I no longer purchase zigbee devices.
They occasionally report false motion events and 2 of them stopped reporting motion after about a year so now they’re just temperature sensors.
Yes, 10 seconds is the lowest, but you can set it a lot higher.
Thank you Kevin. I’ll definitely check out your SmartApp later today - sounds great, didn’t know about it.
I just noticed that the Zooz and alternatives to the Iris motion sensor are considerably larger in size. For my particular needs it is very important that the device I use has a small footprint - smaller the better. This is one very nice advantage of the Iris.
The SmartThings made motion sensor is also fairly small, although larger than the Iris one. I’m wondering if you or anyone has done a comparison between the SmartThings motion sensor versus the Iris?
I don’t know anything about the iris motion sensor, but the Zooz Mini Sensor is smaller than the SmartThings Motion Sensor although it sticks out farther from the wall.
I haven’t done a comparison of Zigbee motion sensors, but I did do one for z-wave motion sensors a few months ago. You can find the device dimensions listed in the chart at the bottom of this blog post:
It sounds like you’re happy with the size, response time, and the motion reset time of the IRIS sensors so you’re probably better off trying to fix the battery reporting in the IRIS DTH instead of looking for a new device.
Update: So last night I decided to replace the batteries in my TWO Iris motion sensors that are getting “stuck” on Active (staying active after minutes, even hours, of no motion). The issue is intermittent. I figured OK I’ll just replace the batteries even tho they were at 3.03V. With a brand new batteries measuring 3.24V I had the same issue again the first time I walked by the sensors (they stayed Active for an hour straight). So my theory about the sensor performing badly due to battery voltage, at least in this case, is no good.
Any thoughts on what could be causing this? I suppose it could be communication with the hub. That said, it hasn’t been an issue for the past year (just started a few weeks ago). And the hub is only about 20 feet away and just one drywall wall away. I powered off the hub for 15 minutes because I know that is a way that Zigbee devices can reoptimize their network, but that didn’t make any difference.
I suppose it is possible that the sensors have just gone bad. But what are the odds that TWO sensors would start having this issue around the same time, having gone bad? That makes me think it is something else, like a communication issue. Any ideas?
Yes it is the depth I am concerned about. At any rate I will be curious to learn about what’s new in the next gen version that is due out at the end of October.
The new version will include auto battery reports and will feature optimized motion detection (so motion is detected and reported much faster). It will still run on AAA batteries though.
The NEXT update after that will include a change from 2 AAA batteries to a single CR123 battery which will substantially increase battery life for the sensor. That version will be released at the end of 2017 / beginning of 2018.
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I just wanted to say thanks for this. The instructions you provide are excellent, and the code works as expected.
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@krlaframboise Hey, thanks for this DH! I noticed you also have a Fibaro Motion Sensor ZW5 handler that doesn’t have its own forum link (otherwise I’d be writing there)
Do you have plans to add the ability to set the primary display type of the Fibaro sensor like you have as an option for this Zooz? Thanks!
I unknowingly wrote that DTH at the same time as another user and he posted his to the forum about a day before I completed mine. Fibaro is trying to get the other user’s DTH published by Smartthings so I didn’t bother creating a topic on the forum for mine.
I wasn’t planning on making any enhancements to that DTH, but after I finish a few other projects I’ll see how involved that change would be.
Thanks. I don’t have any experience writing a DTH, but I’ll take a look at your code when I have a chance and see if I can’t figure it out.
Making it flexible is the time consuming part, but if you’re looking for something specific I can show you how to make the change.
Same issue with mine. It’s just a couple months old and remains Active for long time at random times. It’s good that this is the only zooz product I bought as they don’t seem to be as good with ST.
The issue he was reporting was with his IRIS motion sensors and had nothing to do with the Zooz 4-in-1 Multisensor.
I’ve seen motion detection reliability issues with the Zooz 4-in-1 Multisensor when the battery dropped below 50%, but besides that I haven’t had any problems with it. I know you’ve only had it for a couple of months, but if you have the reporting thresholds set really low you may already have to replace the batteries.
I’m not sure what you’re talking about because I own every Zooz battery powered device and they all work great with SmartThings…
Zooz is also one of the only companies that actually participates in discussions on the SmartThings forum about their products.
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@TheSmartestHouse is often on here and does a wonderful job supporting the products they sell, including Zooz.
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@TheSmartestHouse Looking forward to the new device, especially if motion reporting and battery life is improved. Wondering if there will also be improvements in Lux reporting. DH currently only reports 50 lux for one device handler, and another popular one on the forum reports 80 lux max. Maybe its fine and I just don’t understand the lux reading but seems like when it reports 50lux as being max lighting I can still brighten the lights which means lighting really is not at max brightness.
@canuck The device has a default motion timeout of 3 minutes. Which means if motion is detected and then motion stops it will not report no motion until after 3 minutes from the motion event. Is it possible that is the behavior you are seeing? If so with @krlaframboise device handler you can lower this time down to 1 minute, but be aware this will reduce battery life.
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