Sensor says it's open, but it's actually closed. Anyway to fix?

General Discussion
#1

This isn’t just happening on door and window sensors. I notice it on light switches, the garage door and outlets too. Not much of an issue know, but I can imagine if I am traveling, out of the county, etc and I see that the garage door is open I would be a bit worried.

After I refresh and it reports the true state…it reverts back to the error of reporting open when it is actually closed.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

Says that it is Open:

1.PNG1242×2208 90.4 KB

No Activity:

2.PNG1242×2208 114 KB

But when I refresh it reports it’s true state, closed:

3.PNG1242×2208 96.8 KB

#2

I’m sure that’s very frustrating – – it’s definitely not supposed to happen. Some other people have reported this recently, it could be a problem with the platform or with the mobile app. it doesn’t appear to be a problem with the devices themselves.

See, for example:

I would report it to supportthings.com and see what they say.

#3

I had this on the smartthings door sensor I changed it from used in a garage to not and it fixed it.

#4

I don’t think you are alone in this. You may want to check this thread. @slagle can we merge these two?

#5

I have the exact same problem now. It just showed up. I’m getting false positives on garage doors being open, even fell for it yesterday and tried to remotely close the garage door. Of course, that just opened it.

I must say, this system is working quite well, wouldn’t you agree?

1 Like
#6

I guess there was a good reason for not communicating what exactly the updates pushed to ‘improve stability’ were…

#7

Thanks to every one for the replies. I will take a look at this thread and see if there are any insights I can try to help improve the reliability. This device definitely doesn’t have any range issues. almost perfect line of sight to the hub and only about 30 feet away.

#8

Since you’re seeing it with light switches as well, it doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with the sensor device. It’s more likely the software that reports the status that has a problem. It’s just not clear whether that’s the mobile app itself, or the database that is kept in the cloud.

But if it is the devices, support should be able to help diagnose that.

#9

thanks. yes, it’s been across window sensors, myQ garage, Yale door locks and light switches not just the one example I showed. So I would agree I don’t think it is the device(s).

1 Like
#10

I would suggest two steps:

  1. Heal the zigbee network: unplug hub and remove a battery for 15 minutes. Restore battery and power, wait 5 minutes.

  2. Run a z-wave network repair. This can be done from your phone mobile app (hamburger menu, gear icon, scroll down to your hub and touch, bottom of page for Z-Wave Utilities, Repair…) Can also be done from the IDE / My Hub / View Utilities / Z-Wave Repair …

Your system will not be responsive during these steps.

1 Like
#11

thanks @bravenel I will give that a try.

just to be sure, if I pull the batteries and power the hub will still remember all my devices. I know the data is stored in the SmartThings cloud as the IDE has all the device data…just wanted to be sure.

I’ve done stupid things before.

#12

Yes, everything will be fine. It is meant to work this way.

1 Like
#13

This is why I now also have a dedicated web camera on my Garage Door. When SmartThings says “Garage Door left open”, I check the camera first. Smart Things unreliability has doubled my hardware costs :slight_smile:

5 Likes
#14

yes, I have a NestCam in the garage for that same piece of mind!

Thanks for the help!

1 Like
#15

This is an ongoing issue I have been experiencing since January 2016. I have saved down 23 instances where this occurred since this issue really began to bug me earlier this year.

It appears more often than not the dashboard status does not report the true state of the device for my Multi Sensor and Motion Sensor (both ST branded) but I have occasionally seen the issue with lights also not reflecting status.

Example: Multi Sensor - Shows open but its closed.

Door Open Close.png793×467 144 KB

Example: Motion Sensor - Shows motion but there is none.

Motion Sensor.png794×467 112 KB

Example: Lights - Shows some on but they are all off.

Lights_On.png793×467 99.5 KB

@bravenel I have tried your steps over the past few months, unfortunately it hasn’t resolved the issue.

2 Likes
#16

mine did that a couple of weeks ago. I took the battery out and reinserted it (reboot) and it showed up just fine.

#17

I put in a ticket on this a few weeks ago.(3/22/16) The response I got was “What you’re running into is a VERY RARE bug…”. Very rare indeed. They said it should be resolved in the up coming release. I will admit it has gotten better, but still happens occasionally.

#18

This happened to me last night with my sliding glass door. App showing open when door was actually closed and hadn’t been opened all day. I tried refresh etc didn’t work status remained open, I finally just opened and shut the door and it reset. So far so good but lets see what today brings.

#19

Yes, I have had several of these in the past few weeks. Open/close seems to fix it

Rick

#20

Add me to the list. Exact thing happening [quote=“Phobiac, post:1, topic:43663”]
This isn’t just happening on door and window sensors. I notice it on light switches, the garage door and outlets too. Not much of an issue know, but I can imagine if I am traveling, out of the county, etc and I see that the garage door is open I would be a bit worried.

After I refresh and it reports the true state…it reverts back to the error of reporting open when it is actually closed.

[/quote]

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