I have noticed I have several devices that haven’t updated in months (water sensors, door sensors, motion sensors). The batteries are all over 50%, but no matter if I pull and reinsert the battery, it does nothing. A fresh battery turns them back on no problem.
Being the battery is over 50%, I haven’t gotten an alert for low battery. This could be a huge problem if my basements floods, etc. Is there a SmartApp that alerts if a temperature sensor hasn’t reported an update in a specific amount of time? Trying to think of other ways to catch this before it’s too late. Any insight would be appreciated!
I use this to monitor battery status and get notifications when one drops below a certain level. The only issue is you have to install for each time interval/trigger that you want to get a notification that a device has not reported. I had to install a second version to cover a smoke/co monitor that would report every 48 hours or so. The others that i have are all in 12 hour window.
As others have said, these exist, and simple device viewer is probably the most popular.
If you want to look at what else there is, see the quick browse list in the community – created forum and look for “wellness check” under smart apps. These are mostly created by community members for their own use and then shared, so they each have slightly different features and UIs.
Wow! Thanks, guys. That is exactly what I needed. It’s also why I enjoy SmartThings. Obviously I wish the problem didn’t happen, but it’s nice that someone could program the fix and share. Greatly appreciated!
I have a device showing 88% battery, but it’s dead. Is this normal?!?
If it’s a rechargeable battery, anything can happen. They don’t have the same usage pattern as a conventional battery and none of the battery reporting methods really work with them.
If it’s a device that lost contact with the network, then the battery is still reported as the last level at which a report was received. So if you take the batteries out of a device, it might still show as being at 88% or 77% or whatever.
If it’s a SmartThings multi sensor, the newest generation has a known issue with flaky battery reporting.
Other than those three situations then, no, it shouldn’t happen.
