Risk of missing a temperature trigger when controlling house heat

Most battery operated sensors in the price range that most smartthings customers would be looking for are “sleepy devices.“ That is, they are asleep much of the time in order to save battery life. They wake up every once in a while, check to see if they have exceeded the delta measurement that requires them to report, and then either report or go back to sleep. this is what allows them to have a battery life of one or two years.

However, it also means that you can’t just send them a status check question, because if they are asleep they won’t hear it.

So… Over the years some forum members have modified some DTHs for some sensors so that every time the sensor wakes up, it sends its current status. That will get things back in sync, but it can also use up a lot of battery so you have to decide if that’s worth it to you.

Here’s a thread from several years ago in which people are discussing that approach. It includes both Zigbee and Z wave devices. But as always, the first rule of home automation applies: “the model number matters.“ And of course we are on a different platform and a different app than they were, so the code they are discussing might need quite a bit of updating to work now. And some of the people in that thread have moved on to other platforms altogether. but at least it should serve as a proof of concept.

So can it be done? Yes, for some devices, but it will require custom code, and you will pay a price in terms of battery put life.