What is the reason why Things become unavailable? I’ve noticed that my Iris open/close and motion sensors seem to drop off quite a bit and therefore, mess up the automation. BTW, not battery issues. I’ve checked. Is Iris just junk or is it normal for open/close - Motion sensors to just suddenly stop working out of the blue. I have something almost every single day that drops. Taking the battery out and putting it back in usually solves it but not always. Is there any easier way to repair everything at once?
do they still update status on next open/close or motion event? If not, they really are offline and its probably a range/mesh issue. if they do, its because the temperature isn’t being sent by the sensor. I have one that for whatever reason doesn’t update temperature and it does this. But it still reports motion, so its not enough of a problem for me to reset it and re-pair.
No, they do not operate the automation. When I open a door and the light stays off for example. Then I check my app and sure enough, its an Iris device that’s somehow unavailable. Does anyone have a recommendation for open/close and motion sensors that are pretty bullet proof? Willing to spend a little more $$ to get something that works the vast majority of time.
These are bulletproof in my experience. Do you have any mains powered zigbee devices near them? How far is your hub from your wifi router? have you checked fro channel interference between zigbee and wifi?
i’ve been having the same issues with my iris open/close sensors over the past couple weeks where they had been fairly rock solid.
Interesting @Automated_House. I am not sure what you mean by “mains powered zigbee devices”. But I have other zigbee devices that don’t seem to have any problems. I am not sure how to check for channel interference. Is there a link i can read up on? But that may not explain that this happens very randomly. It’s not just 1 Iris device. I probably have about 20 in all scattered around my house on 3 floors. I use the Google Mesh network so my WiFi is strong around the house. The router and ST Hubs are close to each other. Kinda frustrated here.
have you looked into any other good devices?
Mains powered meaning plugged into the wall. They repeat the zigbe mesh. WiFi mesh doesn’t help zigbee at all, and can even hurt it. You want your SmartThings hub as far away from your WiFi router as possible. Here’s an article on WiFi and zigbee interference https://support.metageek.com/hc/en-us/articles/203845040-ZigBee-and-WiFi-Coexistence
Ah, ok. I have a few zigbee devices plugged into the wall (light socket), and if I am not mistaken, my front door is zigbee (but I guess its not plugged in). I have another plugged into a power strip in the attic. I guess I only have the 1 device plugged in. I guess I should get more.
ST turned on device health on my account without me asking. I turned it off when they first released it and it came on again a few weeks ago. Since then, I have had several devices go offline. Turned off, working now.
I’d start with a couple things:
- move your SmartTHings hub at least 10 feet from a wifi access point
- Grab a couple Lowe’s Iris outlets.
As with “whoismoses”, my zigbee devices, (Iris Door/Window Sensors) were randomly becoming Unavailable a while back. I turned off “Device Health” and they have been fine ever since.
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Device health doesn’t cause things to become Unavailable. It compares a devices activity to a time interval in the device handler, and if there hasn’t been any activity within that time, it flags it as inactive. If the device wakes up or reports activity, the flag is cleared. I actually added the capability to @whoismoses Leaksmart sensor so I could ensure it was online.
Sorry if this is a really dumb question but is device health the same as status? in other words, if I turn off Device Health, will I still be able to see if something is open/closed and temperature etc?
what i don’t understand is nothing has changed for me, and now i’m having the iris open/close sensors, smarthing multi sensors, and ge link bulbs all falling off every few days. no z-wave issues, just zigbee
100% same issue. They seem to drop out of the clear blue for some unknown reason. I am wondering if its an “IRIS thing” and there are more robust products on the market. I don’t have a clear answer on this yet.
I did the pull the plug on the hub thing for the first time for about 30 mins which is supposed to cause all the zigbee stuff to ‘panic’ and rebuild the zigbee mesh network. So far so good. We’ll see if that fixes it. That being said I doubt I’ll buy anymore zigbee stuff. Anytime I have issues it’s always zigbee. Z-wave is Rock solid. Expect for hue bulbs, but then again those are paired with the hue hub then smart things.
Hue uses Zigbee, not Z-Wave.
FYI: It’s Hue Bridge, not Hub. 
right, that’s what i meant, that the hue bulbs are the one zigbee thing i don’t have issues with. sorry - poorly worded
No worries. You could edit the post and say this instead:
I seem to only have issues with Zigbee connected devices, with one exception, the Hue Bridge / Bulbs have no issues at all. As for Z-Wave, all devices are rock solid.
