Second Aeon Labs Sensor dies or maybe not

About two weeks ago one of my Aeon Labs Motion gen 5 sensor got stuck on motion after, coincidentally or not, ST pushed an update to my hub.

I spent several days troubleshooting the device on my own and with the help of ST support, and the event was deemed a hardware failure. So I purchased a new sensor, multi 6, this time.

Yesterday morning, after yet another “update push” according to support, my new sensor stopped working. Again I spent countless hours trying to resuscitate the device but the conclusion was…you guessed it. Hardware failure.

On my lest attempt, I decided to use one of community based handlers and the device now seems to be working. (thanks @erocm1231 for all the hard work)

What could be happening that two sensors ended up acting the same way just weeks apart? I am not trying to blame ST here, just looking for a plausible explanation to avoid this time consuming exercise in the future.

The device is about 15 ft away from the hub. I have a repeater within 3 feet. The first sensor worked with no issues in the same location for about a year.

My troubleshooting steps included:

  • power cycling by taking battery out
  • attempt to reset in ST (failed as device reported “healthy”)
  • resetting the device to factory and then resetting in ST
  • attempt to reset in ST (reported successful but didn’t fix the problem)
  • general exclusion and then inclusion using stock handler (no luck)

And my favorite part, is how my last interaction with support ended:

Support:
I’m sorry (about this).

Me
Am very puzzled of what caused this

Support:
Well, maybe take a nap and sleep on it. Things just happen sometimes.
But definitely, definitely use the Aeon 6 device handler.