Sensative Strips - Invisible Window and Door Zwave Sensor (3mm Thick/ 0.12 Inches)

New to ST. How is (Strips) working out ? Do we have a DTH that supports everything ? Any feedback on battery life ?

I have 2.
One on my patio doors. Only had it 2 months and working OK. Battery 100%.
Another one on my garages external side door has been there for around 9 months.
Its mounted on the door shut so is quite exposed to the elements.
Still working OK with no issues and battery life still shows 100%.
Now I know from looking here and people talking about ST motion sensors that battery readings may be inaccurate, but these are the figures.
Both strips ALWAYS report and I have never had any issues with either unit.
Mine are using the DTH that got allocated during the discovery stage.

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Thanks @bobbles. Sounds like they seem pretty solid. Can you check something for me ? if you go into ST App -> My Home -> Things -> Strips and click the settings/gear icon, can you post what settings you see ? Want to see if the stock DTH has exposed configurable parameters yet.

@rwcrowe
No configurable parameters yet.
Also here is a screenshot of the device in the ide.

Just to let you know there are only 2 configurable parameters for Strips, one is for the LED indicator and the other for the type of notification the sensor sends to the controller and associated devices: http://products.z-wavealliance.org/products/2144/configs

If anyone would like to create a custom handler for the sensor to include these, let us know and weā€™ll send you a sample of Strips!

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I just ordered a couple to try out I will take a whack at the configurable parameters in a custom device handler once I receive them.

Thanks!

TBH Iā€™m not sure a bespoke DH is really required.
The LED flash when the door opens is very quick and Iā€™m not sure you will save much battery life.
Works straight out of the box.

Ya it may end up being overkill, but it will give me something to tinker with. :slight_smile:

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Just to let you guys know, I had some issues with them outdoors when it was windy out the last couple of days. Depending on where you live and your application, you might not be happy with them.

Oh dear.
How did the wind affect them?
Was the door/gate rattling?

My guess is the wind affected zwave signals. I have two of them on my PVC gates on each side of the house. The one furthest away from my hub, I would say 60 feet kept ā€œfloppingā€. The one closer to the hub at 20 feet had one false positive. I had these issues with the ST Multi-sensorā€™s also, but those arenā€™t outdoor rated. We had 50-60mph wind gusts due to a Norā€™easter. What is strange is even the next day when the winds were only 14mph, I still was getting false positives. Seems to have settled down now.

I purchased a 3-pack of Strips from SH but theyā€™re not operating correctly with my hub. They add fine and flash when open/close, but my hub doesnā€™t see the state change. I even upgraded my older hub (VeraLite) to a new ST hub because I saw here and in the blog that it works with Strips, in case my problems were due to incompatibility with that old hub.

Iā€™m using 2 of the Strips but they just show up in ST as Open and with nothing under Recently even though the light flashes as expected when I open/close.

Unfortunately my onboarding experience had been anything but smooth and I canā€™t seem to get the Strips to work with my ST hub. Any suggestions? I modified the notification type for the Strips via VeraLite when I was first to get them to work, but I did an exclude and factory reset before adding to my new ST hub.

Iā€™m having the same kind of issues with getting my second generation ST hub to work properly with these Sensitive Strips. I get through inclusion properly and then I get communications issues (5 blinks) and sensor is showing ā€œopenā€ continuously. Hopefully this gets addressed!

In my case the error was all mine. I had put my magnet near where it comes shipped, not near the square end of the strip and where the star logos line up. If I move my magnet to the correct location then my hub reacts properly with all 3 of my strips.

I did not understand the picture instructions and assumed my magnet position was correct because the strip does blink with the magnet in my ā€œwrongā€ place.

@mikey94025 I also had the same issues with installing the Sensative Strip. Their documentation doesnā€™t show how the strip and magnet should be mounted relative to each other. At first I had aligned the Sensative symbol on the strip and magnet which resulted in false open/close events. When I moved my magnet to the position shown in the diagram below the false open/close events went away. I have had the sensor installed for four months and it has been rock solid. I also submitted the same feedback to the Sensative team.

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Yes! Great pic showing the correct magnet location. All my problems were caused by putting the magnet very close to the left and away from the logo (the light also blinks there but apparently means something else).

A Smartest House support rep (they are the exclusive strips seller for the USA) also offered this useful advice to me for correctly positioning the magnet, to align the star logos:

Are the sensor bodies positioned next to the magnets so that theyā€™re logo-to-logo?

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Just to add on to this explanation, the instructions that come with Strips show installation orientation of the magnet. While your diagram will work, you wonā€™t be taking full advantage of the fact that the Strips are so thin.

http://www.sensative.com/uploads/4/0/9/6/40961817/prod.sheet_manual.pdf

Here, they show the magnet in an ā€œend to endā€ set up where the short edge of the magnet and strip are next to each other, not overlapping. All three of my Strips installations have the magnet end to end with the sensor, and they work great. In the case of my front door, I needed this orientation because my door jamb gap was really small.

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FYI - I have 9 of these so far. They are working just fine! magnet positioning can be a bit tricky, but Iā€™ve not had any issues.

Iā€™m about ready to give up on these Sensative Strips. Iā€™ve had 3 sets - one on each of my exterior doors, for probably 6 months now. The frequency of false positive occurrences (leading to false security alarms) is unacceptable to me. Saying magnet positioning can be a bit tricky is an understatement IMHO. Once I did get them working fairly stable, then it seemed a hot summer day or a cold winter evening would be enough to set off a false positive.
Great idea, but unless thereā€™s a way to control the thresholds - and maybe there is and Iā€™m simply unaware - this has caused me more headaches than being a good solution for me.
Thanks in advance if anyone has tips for meā€¦

It looks like Sensative has updated their website, as well as the strips line of sensors. Since I posted last about magnet placement, they have added more information and pictures on their site. Note our sensors are now referred to as ā€œStrips Gaurdā€ as they are now launching two more sensors.

Here is the direct link to magnet placement details:

Strips Guard magnet placement

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