Yep understand although because I have no expertise in this area I can never truly be confident of my setup. The only thing I can do is to over-build things a bit based on personal installation experiences and recommendations from these forums in order to reduce the likelihood of the most critical issues like having a strong mesh.
I'm on the fence about Z-Wave myself - I wonder if the push for the new LR spec means the Z-Wave+ mesh approach is just not workable long term. Seems like things are in transition again which kind of sucks if you went out and bought a ton of ZW+ devices in order to replace your old ZW devices like I did a year or so ago. The good news is I know I can isolate devices on a separate HE hub if necessary so if I can get a stable configuration I should be okay.
Also will say I have had a love/hate relationship with the MS-6's, they worked fine at first but as my mesh got larger, the poor repeating performance when powered and slower response times (relative to Zigbee sensors) really started to become annoying. As I mentioned subsequent firmware updates may have helped but I've relegated those devices to the periphery of my network - as far as I can tell no devices are routing through them at this point.
My worst Z-Wave device experiences with HE have been the dual switches/relays - Aeotec Dual Nano and Fibaro both have really sucked in terms of responsiveness and connectivity.
I don't even think it's a zwave problem with the MS6's, mine transmit fast after it knows there's motion. I think its more of a sensor problem or something slow in the device itself.
I think the slow-ish response time is a manageable issue if you put the MS-6s in appropriate places. I have one in our garage where a small delay is fine. On the other hand I would NOT use them for something like our basement steps for example. Also have used them as simple lux and temp sensors and they work well in those roles too - maybe not super accurate but certainly suitable for various automations..
Has anyone noticed if v1.14 fixes the HORRIFIC battery life the MS6 gets on Hubitat (while lasting 1-2 years on ST?)
Also, silly question, but if you want to change something like motion sensitivity, is a configure+button push required on battery-powered devices? I never really notice a difference when I play with these settings on mine, (csteele+v1.13.)
I still wish there was some answer to why these same sensors, even with much older firmware, will last years on ST but only a few months on Hubitat. Aeotec says it's not them, (which kind of makes sense given it works well on other platforms,) and Hubitat says it's not them either. All I know is that they are sluggish paperweights that are only useful when plugged in. Just a little bummed I bought so friggin many of them. Been installing Hue motion side-by-side and the performance is night and day. Luckily I don't need humidity, vibration, etc.
That being said, if somehow new firmware magically fixed all these problems specific to the Hubitat platform, I'd bite instantly.
I have an ms6 that is being used as a simple outdoor Lux detector and has been running fine for at least 2 years... it is usb powered and currently on 1.14. Also have one in my garage that is also usb powered has been running for about year.
I had others in my basement but they messed with the Z-Wave mesh - had routing "bottlenecks" (as seen via zniffering) even on USB power. Replaced them with a hacked Iris sensor and some usb powered iNovelli 4 in 1's..
Yeah when you plug these in you get much better performance, but the problem many people have been experiencing on this platform is batteries dying in 2-3 months.
I don't currently have any wired ones, but on battery, the delay is unbearable for motion compared to my Hues. It's been a while since I had the MS6-on-batt connected to ST, but I don't remember it being quite as slow as it is today. Perhaps overall Z-wave issues are harming the performance. I've seen a lot of reports, and 2.2.9 is hopefully going to resolve a few other quirks as well.
It was simple, just winged it - originally used something like this.. had to use a multimeter to determine correct output:
And soldered the outs to the battery terminals and the in's to a standard usb cable with the small end cut off and stripped.. shoved the whole thing in the battery compartment.
Later on got lazy and used something like this:
Just cut the clips off and soldered right to the battery terminals.. You can probably get a better deal somewhere other than Amazon..
@erktrek Does anybody have the "converted" 1.15 firmware. I only use Mac's and don't use Windows machines. Last night (4:00 AM) my Multisensor 6 decided to freak out and started showing active/inactive over and over, turning on/off the front porch light and alerting motion. After I figured out what was going on, I stopped all of my rules. I am currently on 1.12 of the firmware and I thought that I would update that and see if that "healed" it. I am not sure why there isn't a "standard" bin format of the firmware from these manufacturers. It sure would make life easier. Anyway if anybody could point me to the 1.15 version, I would appreciate it.
... Going to give it a try
