Hi, I have several Secure HRT4-zw wireless thermostats (SRT321 equivalent) and they’re all getting through batteries really quickly - like they tend to last about a month!
Sometimes we do adjust/check the temp, and on others they’re rarely touched.
The batteries I’m currently using are Energizer AAA alkaline. Does anyone else experience the same problem? Any suggestions on a better battery - or ultimately different stats? (I don’t need all the self contained programming like many seem to offer, as they’re complex to use and all I want is basic wireless z-wave stats).
Thanks,
Dave
A couple of field tech questions:
- Do you have any mains-powered zwave devices within about 15 meters of the thermostats? How far are they from the hub?
Sometimes this is just a matter of a weak mesh: the battery powered devices are having trouble getting signal through, so they have to keep resending multiple times, and that uses up the battery
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any chance there’s something nearby that’s interfering with the signal? This can cause the same issue as point 1: the devices have to send each message multiple times to get through. Wi-Fi and Zigbee are not a problem for Z wave. Most commonly it’s old style baby monitors, cordless landline phones, but also these days, some drones, even a drone which is plugged in and charging.
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have you run a Z wave repair to see what error messages you get there?
FAQ: Zwave Repair from the ST app (June 2022)
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are they using an edge driver and if so, which one?
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have you implemented any polling? This is less common these days without groovy smart apps, but some people do have it set up through home assistant, MQTT, or Hubitat integrations.
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Hi JD
Thanks for your reply and all the info!
- I’ve got about 50/50 split of mains and battery powered devices. They’re in my main house and an annex building. In the annex the HRT4 stats are not configured to my Smartthings system and only talk directly to the boiler receivers (ASR-zw) as I’ve not been able to add them to both Smartthings and the boiler receivers at the same time (story for another day!!). In the house, one of the HRT4’s in particular that chews batteries is within about 3M of two mains devices and about the same distance from the hub.
- I’ve got Ubiquiti Unifi wi-fi points in several places around my house and the annex, and an ADT Visonic wireless alarm system (not in the annex though), but no other wireless devices I can think of (certainly no drones or baby monitors etc).
- Z-wave repair finished successfully, I run this fairly often too. Some devices failed to update route, but that’s fair enough as I know they’re currently disused plugs etc.
- I’m not aware if I’m using edge drivers, this isn’t something I’ve set up myself as I only vaguely understand Edge drivers to be something that runs locally rather than in the cloud?
- Same as edge drivers, I don’t understand what polling is so wouldn’t have intentionally added this either.