Ecolink Firefighter battery level notification

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I am using the Ecolink Firefighter (Z-wave plus. version) and am very pleased so far with the HE integration. Seems to be very reliable and notifications are working very well. In addition to setting up notifications for smoke, CO, temp and tamper, I also set up one for low battery level.

Does anyone know what the numerical battery level is for the CR123A at which the FF will still report but when the battery should be replaced? I suppose I can sacrifice a battery by progressively discharging it, putting it back in the FF and getting a reading of the battery level, then determine what the minimum level is that will keep the FF operational, but I was hoping someone would already have this information.

I arbitrarily set the low battery warning level to 50% but do not know what the device driver battery level percentage is based on. If it is simply a percentage of full charge (around 3.2-3.3v) , then of course the low battery warning should be set to something closer to 2.8v - 3.0v divided by a fully charged voltage of 3.2-3.3v (or 84 - 87.5%). If the 0% is 2.8 or 3.0v, then the percentage used for a low battery notification would be much lower. In other words, what voltage is the 0% level in the device driver set to?

As the Firefighter has a supported driver, I am hoping that one of the staff can answer this question. Also, is there a standard way in which battery level is reported for Z-wave and Zigbee devices in general? It would be great to know so that proper notification levels can be set to optimize the timing of when the batteries should be replaced as it will vary based on each device’s efficiency and how often it is reporting or activated. Thanks for any info and help.

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In my very recent experience, 1%.

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@aaiyar,
Thanks so much for your quick reply. I am assuming therefore that the 0% level is set to the actual “failure” voltage of the CR123A (typically around 2.8v or so?). I guess I can lower my notification level for battery replacement down to around 5-10% (to give me time to make sure I have one on hand) as lithium batteries do not have a linear relationship between voltage and remaining capacity. Thank you again.

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I would also point out most battery reporting is iffy at best... I would never depend on the accuracy of any device reporting a correct battery level. That said, in HSM I simply set up a low battery notification for any battery unit I use when it gets below 20%. It sends a repeated message to my phone until I take care of it. I figure that even if it's not accurate, at that point the battery should be replaced.

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thanks @rlithgow1 ,
I guess that 20% would be a good safe warning indicator since lithium batteries hold voltage pretty well compared to remaining capacity then voltage drops off rapidly near depletion. Unlike alkaline, which has a much more linear relationship. That is why I was wondering what type of algorithm was being used by HE (or at least the FF) to estimate remaining battery charge.

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He doesn't provide the math, it only reads the device. The device is what sends its battery levels

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Its been 10 months now that I have been using the Ecolink Firefighter (Z-wave) and it has been working well. It successfully notified me of a kitchen “accident” as well when periodically testing the fire/CO detectors. I originally asked about the battery reporting algorithm and received this response:

My battery level is still reporting 100% after 9-10 months. This got me thinking of what the resolution is of the battery reporting (to help me in figuring out at what level to set my battery warning). For example, my YoLink valve controller and temperature sensors only report in resolutions of 25% (100%, 75%, 50%, 25%, 0%). I originally mistakenly thought that the resolution was higher so I had my low limit set to <20%, which would not work since the lowest reported “working” level would be 25%.

In my OP, I asked what was the lowest level the CR123A could get to where the FF would still report, and @aaiyar responded:

This led me to believe that the FF would report in 1% increments. However, as my battery still reports at 100% after almost 10 months, I am wondering if the actual reporting increments are larger. In other words, I would expect that after 10 months of use (monthly testing etc) and due to the self discharge rate of lithium batteries, that it would at least report 99% by now if the increments are actually exhibit 1% resolution.

So (tl:dr), does anyone know who is familiar with the API what the actual battery reporting increments are? Thanks for any info and help on this. I really appreciate all the help and guidance the community has given me over the last two years.

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Honestly who knows? Battery reporting on any device lies as bad as my ex-wife. And like my ex-wife, it should not be relied upon for anything. :rofl:

For HSM battery notifier, I simply pick 20% to be notified because I figure if anything gets below that its an indicator it's probably time to change it out because it probably has 1% left on it.

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Sorry for the long post:

Agree with you 100% that it varies so widely between devices, conditions, battery type, etc. so the actual numerical value should not in and of itself be relied on. That being said, I respectfully suggest that you may be slightly misunderstanding why I am asking about the reporting increments though.

If you know what the device reporting resolution is (e.g., the community integration with YoLink converts the YoLink battery report of 4, 3, 2, 1 to 100%, 75%,, 50%, and 25%), at least you can set a minimum alert level at =25%, and not <=20%, since 20% will never report until the device reports 0% (if it even will report at that point). I understand that the low value you select can only be 1) determined with experience with that particular device and battery, use case and conditions, but also that 2) can only be even remotely useful if the device actually reports to that level of resolution, given that 1) above is actually determined through experience.

As an extreme example, if a device only reports 100% or 0%, then any reading of battery level is completely useless (at least as a warning that the battery level is “getting” low). Increments giving 100%, 50% and 0% is at least a little bit more useful. 5% or even 10% increments may be even more useful. @aaiyar suggesting that 1% was the level he selected seemed to indicate that the reporting resolution was in 1% increments, but that would suggest that after 10 months of use, just due to self discharge characteristics, that I would not still be getting 100%, hence my inquiry. I suspect that the FF does not report in 1% increments (has anyone had a FF battery reading of, say 94%?).

The alternative is to just replace batteries on a fixed time schedule regardless of what level the device reports, or when the device no longer reports or just dies (I also use Device Watchdog and the Hubitat Ping driver to monitor my devices as well). For more critical safety/protective devices, I prefer to error on the conservative side, but I also don’t want to hassle too frequent or unnecessary replacement. I use Hubitat to at least give me automatic battery warning notifications as I do not check on each of the devices’ individual apps or websites on a regular basis. HE makes it much more convenient to look everything up on one dashboard (not to mention the convenience of Pushover notifications).

My hope was that since the FireFighter integration is a native integration, that someone on the HE staff could comment on what the increments the FF device reports, regardless of how “accurate” to true “level remaining” the reported number actually is. The developer of the YoLink community app @SteveBarcus was able to provide me with this info for the YoLink devices, which led me to change my low battery warning RM rule to a level that would actually report. I was hoping that the HE staff could do the same for the FireFighter driver. Sorry for the long post, thanks for the help!

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As I said, it can reach 1% battery and still report. I don't know how many steps it took between 100% and 1% - I remember seeing 29% ...... fwiw, batteries last at least 2 years.

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Fantastic. Thanks @aaiyar! If you saw 29% that indicates to me that it probably was in 1% increments. Thanks for the info!

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I changed the battery in mine about a year ago, and it is still at 100%. I think when it declines, it does so pretty quickly - classic behavior for a Li-ion battery.

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