I need to implement some sort of battery level monitor system especially on our locks before they die. Our smart lock died and our cleaning lady didn’t have a way to lock the door while we were away.
What are your favorite apps to use? What do you like to use as thresholds? Or do you do it by time? For example, change rechargeable batteries on all locks every “x” months?
Also, we have Tenavolts AA batteries. For those of you that have it, how long do they last in your smart lock?
I was using lithium batteries in our locks and they lasted 9-12 months, but gave little warning before they died (typical of lithium batteries due to the steep voltage curve at eol), so I now us Duracell alkaline batteries. I seem to get about 6 months of use out of them, but they very gradually drop and I just change the batteries when they get below 50%. Battery life can be quite variable with locks. How often they are locked/unlocked and how smoothly the deadbolt slides is going to have a lot to do with how long they last.
Bit of a deviation from the point of the topic... but out of curiosity... what happens when the batteries run flat on various types of locks? Can you still lock and unlock your door? From @HarleysWorld 's comment it would be concerning to me that I or someone else (or a four-legged friend) could not lock or unlock my property if batteries run flat, and I would prefer to not use that lock... Just my 2c...
Much like lighting, but more important, I always want an old-school physical fall-back option...
How does this vary from using the built in Notifications App within Hubitat and setting notification for battery levels inside that app?
You can still lock and unlock smart locks with a physical key. They come with one and with Kwikset you can actually rekey all your locks to use one key (which reminds me I need to do and will do today). We just don’t want to give away the physical key to our cleaning lady, workers, etc because that kinda defeats the purpose of having a smart lock.
Editing to add that I should have told the cleaning lady to lock the door manually from the inside and use a different side door to leave. That would have been the right answer.
For your smart locks, do yours actually gradually go down in battery level? It just seems like my locks go from like 100 -> 70 then immediately to 0 
Sounds like typical lithium battery behavior. That’s what I was seeing with mine before switching to alkaline (which is what was recommended for my kwikset locks).
The battery monitor app keeps track of battery levels at whatever intervals you decide to set. You can say track my batteries by which are 80% or higher that are 50% or higher, etc. There's a third and fourth level not shown in my screen cap above that shows me which batteries are higher than 50%-99, and then finally those that are fully charged.
I get a report sent to me on a regular basis so I can stay ahead of batteries that are getting close to where I want to replace them, for instance if I I'm leaving on a trip and want to make sure nothing goes empty while I'm gone and my wife is home alone.
For your locks (which is really our main concern), what have you set that threshold to?
I like being able to get reports. With the notification app you only see it when it hits your threshold.
The Battery Monitor settings are not per-device...if you want device-specific warnings you could use the Notifications app for that. You could have multiple instances of the Battery Monitor app and assign each of them to one or afew devices, but I think the Notifications app is easier for that approach.
The Battery Monitor app is different, it's designed to send notifications (I use Pushover) for battery levels across multiple devices. At 7:20am every day I get a message showing me which of my devices are at at each capacity level (which have errors or no battery status, which are less than 25%, which are between 25 and 50%, which are 50-99, and which are 100%).
I then take action as I prefer for devices in each section. E.g., if leaving on a trip for a week or two (longest I'd be away from home alone) and a lock says 25% or less, I'd replace batteries just in case. Depends on your nervousness, usage level, and history w/your particular lock. 
Oh I get what it does! Okay that’s totally fine then. Then, I can just take action on the locks that if I report at 50% or something. Thank you for sharing this!
I use the Homebatteries app on iphone. It allows me to set a different battery percentage alert for each device. The prerequisite being that all of my battery devices are imported into Apple Home.
Yeah, we're an Android household here, I have a couple of HomePod Minis but everything else is on the A side.
I've ended up preferring the battery monitor app over individual device monitoring because I like seeing one report showing everything, and I can scan down or search see where my devices are. Horses for courses of course. 
Homebatteries gives a report with devices that need their batteries replaced as well as being able to scroll through all battery devices. Of course that doesn’t mean anything if you’re on Android.
Is there such a thing as a rechargeable alkaline battery? I’m always so skeptical about batteries. I just remember them dying so quickly
50%
Then I replace and move them to some other device that matters less. An Apple Magic Keyboard will happily eat through more half-drained AA’s than my locks will supply…
The Alfred locks I use have a micro USB port on the bottom edge that can be used to supply emergency power.
No. Mine report well with alkaline batteries. I replace them when they get below 50% just to be safe.
One critical point about batteries in locks, for those of you that live in The Great North:
COLD is the ultimate enemy of ALL batteries.
Many of the newer locks do their best to insulate the battery compartment, but the older ones don't.
With the frigid weather that we've had this winter, even if Hubitat shows a lot of battery left, you have to manually check all batteries.
By the way, I personally have found Energizer Ultimate Lithium batteries to last the longest.
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