Smartthings multi sensor

[ebishop75 (Eric Bishop)]

Would like to use one of these sensors to monitor a bilco door. Being a big piece of steel, I am assuming that the contact sensor will not work. The magnet side would eventually magnetize the door, and probably cause havoc. Looking to see if the original device handler is available so I can flip the open and close states. Found one that was posted but it did not work at all, plus I lost some of the attributes like Activity and coordinates. Does Samsung publish their original device handlers?

Eric

[diehllane (Brian Diehl)]

You can use it if you put a shield between the contact sensor and the door.

See the below thread for this exact discussion

Ecolink door sensor won't work around metal

Yeah, that can be a problem with magnetic sensors. Commercial buildings with steel doors run into this issue all the time. Usually the magnet part ends up magnetizing some part of the metal and this confuses the sensor part. Remember those old school experiments where you could extend a magnet’s field with bits of metal? This process takes time, which is why there’s a delay to failure. Anyway, there are a couple of things you can try. first, make sure the sensor does still work. Sounds like you did that. if this is a reed sensor with a magnet in only one piece, that’s the piece you have to worry about keeping away from the gate/door metal. If the post is wood, sometimes just installing with the sensor on the gate and the magnet on the post avoids the problem. But once the problem ha…

[schapper05 (Jason)]

You could use something like this http://www.elecdirect.com/spst-normally-on-5aat12vdc-with-faceplate-1-screw-plunger-7-16-long?gclid=CJDJoJ2ZhMsCFUEfhgodo0cLOw

attached to the contacts on a monoprice or zwave sensor that has them. See this picture example

If you used two in series with the 1 monoprice you would get a notificiation any either door was open. just make a tab at the top middle of bottom middle of the doors to install them into.