Battery state incorrect, 3rd reality door sensor

Hey I am having trouble with battery states on two Third Reality door/window contact sensors. At install, they both showed 43%, I left them in-situ that way for several weeks, not much decline, but figured the OEM batteries were likely poor quality, so I replaced with brand new Duracells, and the level is still not updating as expected.
The Garage door sensor did go up to 97% for a bit, but is now back to 41% after only a few weeks.
The front door sensor I just replaced, clicked configure in the device, also clicked refresh, currently reading 48%.
Also, how hard would it be for the device to report "lastbatt" in human form instead of Unix?

3rd Reality seems to have factor-of-two issues with battery reporting. There are various discussions both in this community and on other forums. Values are about half or double what would be expected. I did not see any definitive resolution.

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Yep, I consistently see ~half values on my motion sensor and door sensor. I swear that hasn't always been true, but it's been true for quite a while now.

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I thought I was going crazy. Thanks for this post. Iā€™m seeing the same whacky reporting.

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Hopefully this can be resolved in the future one way or another... I'm rooting for Third Reality -- aside from this pesky battery thing, I'm very impressed with their performance and reasonable price.

I know their AA/AAA battery form-factor isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I love it as that allows me to use a battery-conversion power kit -- I use a few of those out in my detached garage where wiring prettiness isn't a big deal, and one for the 3R motion sensor in our bathroom.

And for the record, the battery-reporting issue persists whether I use regular batteries or a conversion kit.

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@hydro311 Hey Chris, with the battery conversion power kit installed, do you still get the same ~50% erroneous level reporting?

I reached out to ThirdReality on their FB page messenger and reported it, they got back to me asking which hub platform I was using, gave them full details and mentioned how we are all experiencing the same issue. -- We'll see what their response is... :man_shrugging: :mantelpiece_clock:

Well, now my bath motion sensor seems to be reporting OK... Now I'm questioning my sanity -- I swear that was ~50% low too earlier.

But my contact sensor is still 50% low. And I've gotten the half-off readings using both regular batteries and my conversion kits.

But now I see there's a new thread started by (what seems to be) a 3R rep asking for Hubitat's assistance to get it fixed-- unclear yet whether the fix involves updating the driver codes or new firmware -- I guess we'll see!

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Pasting link for easy reference:

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This is an old thread, but it doesn't appear that the issue has been resolved.

I have several Third Reality door sensors and they all oscillate from 100 to 200% battery level. Makes it hard to determine what is going on.

I have tried all the suggestions in all the other posts or threads and nothing works.

can you post a picture of the driver data section for this device?

I was the one who got 3R to reach out to Hubitat and get the initial problem with half reporting battery levels straightened out. All my devices are reporting correctly since then. It required the firmware to be updated.
I had to get a replacement for one sensor a few months ago, the new one had proper reporting firmware already installed.
I've not seen the double value reported!

The current firmware on my sensors is (according to the device page) * firmware MT: 1233-D3A2-00000017
The current driver installed is the "Generic Zigbee Contact sensor (no temp)". I have not found another community driver which is specific to these sensors, but mine have been pretty rock-solid since the FW update, aside from one I have on my my garage door - I have it mounted to the electric bolt lock used in Chamberlain Elite 3800. The magnet does not move far, so sometimes it fails to show status correctly. Need to fine-tune mounting.

I have several of these. Most are on firmware 23. I was able to get one of them up to firmware 30. But they all still show 200% battery.
@mike.maxwell

  • endpointId: 01
  • firmwareMT: 1233-D3A2-00000030
  • softwareBuild: 00000030

I just noticed one of them has not gone over 100% battery. The data section is different.

  • endpointId: 01
  • application: 23
  • firmwareMT: 1233-D3A2-00000023
  • manufacturer: Third Reality, Inc
  • model: 3RDS17BZ
  • softwareBuild: 00000023

Here is even another different data section.

  • endpointId: 01
  • application: 1F
  • manufacturer: Third Reality, Inc
  • model: 3RDS17BZ

Why would they be different? They were all bought at the same time, about 3 weeks ago. And installed within a few days of each other.

Any comments on this from anyone???

This one didn't submit all the data when it joined, the manufacturer and application are missing, this information is required in order to report the correct battery levels.

So 3 out of 6 I installed didn't report right. Why?? And how do I fix it?

For each that doesn't have manufacturer and model in the data section:

  1. factory reset the device (DO NOT DELETE IT FROM HUBITAT)
  2. start zigbee pairing and join the device again.
  3. once the join is complete the other info should now be in the data section after you refresh the device page
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So far this is not working. Tried it 2 times on one of the sensors. Factory resets just fine. Goes into pairing mode and repairs as the same device, as it should. But it still doesn't show the manufacturer, etc. And battery still going to 200.

Have to wait for the family to wake up to get to the other sensors.

EDIT: Tried it on the other sensor (There was only 2 of them not right, instead of 3). And it didn't solve the issue either. Neither of them showing the manufacturer even after factory reset and repair.