Aeotec Multisensor 6 false alarms. Dual power a solution?

🛎️ Get Help
1

Hello,

I have several Aeotec Multisensor 6 devices. All are at firmware level 1.08 and are powered via USB. Two of them occasionally are subject to false motion detector alarms. I finally figured out that the trigger is a power outage/restore. My hub is on a UPS, I did some experimenting and found that interrupting the power on the Multisensor for a few seconds will trip the motion detector when the power is restored.

My question is whether I can install a battery in the Multisensor while also powering it with USB and essentially have a built in UPS. Anyone here try that? Will it, as I hope, run on the UPS power and only draw current from the battery when the power is down? Unfortunately the Aeotec manual is silent on this.

I am going to give it a try and will update as I learn more. Should be able to quickly see if the battery prevents a false alarm. Determining if the battery is only used when the power is off will take much longer.

Thanks as always!

1 Like
2

I'm not sure this will work so yeah you'll have to experiment. That said I would address your power issues if this circuit or the whole house is getting brownouts or outages all the time. Possibly a whole house battery that will also clean power as it enters?

3

Interesting idea. Knowing that power param is set when the device is included, I would try the following experiment.

  1. Exclude the device
  2. Put the battery in
  3. Include the device
  4. Add the usb power (I don't know how you'll manage to run both, though).

By the way, including the sensor with battery, then switching to USB has mesh performance benefits.

Good luck!

1 Like
4

Thanks. Well, unfortunately, the battery gets in the way of the usb plug, so there is no way to easily do the experiment. So, I can either do some surgery on the device, which I am not inclined to do given it is clearly not designed to work that way, or as suggested provide reliable power. Maybe a couple tiny UPS’s feeding the impacted sensors?

Any other ideas?

5

You can use a UPS as the battery source.. use the USB wire plugged into a UPS.

There are very small UPS available including:

Don't use a Power Bank battery to try it out... you cannot charge those AND power something at the same time, it requires a UPS like design. to do that.

6

Thanks! I went ahead and bought them!