Somewhat true, but I also have a ZSE43 on my garage door and have had the same less than desirable performance. At the same time, I have a ZSE44 temp/humidity sensor (released at the same time as the ZSE43) mounted inside my gun safe. In over a year and a half I have only had to replace the battery once, and it is rock solid (verified periodically with an Accurite non connected Hygrometer positioned next to it inside the safe. That ZES43 is closer to the hub (only about 4 feet away through drywall/wood frame), it is mounted on the vinyl face of the insulated door and has had 3 batteries during he same time (the second battery within days of installation. No, the ZSE43 is just a weak product.
I just encountered this exact behavior. Zooz XS sensors have issues with Duracell CR2032 which is odd since they are highly recommended for shelf life: ZSE43 Tilt | Shock XS Sensor FAQs - Zooz Support Center. Guess who just bought an 8 pack to replace Zooz sensor batteries 
1 Like
That's interesting! It was probably a Duracell battery that I used.
I've been happy with the Ecolink TILTZWAVE5.0-ECO. It's been reliable for 6 months now and the battery still shows 100%. To be fair, I don't use the garage door every day. But, still I think that's pretty good. The Zooz went in the trash bin, so I can't try it with a different battery.
2 Likes
If you have issues with the Duracell it is probably from the bitter coating. I ran into this issue with an AirTag as well. If you shine a bright light you can see it is just around the edges on one side, which is exactly where the little contact pin is for an airtag. A little sand paper (nail file actually) took care of it and they work fine once you get that stuff off.
BTW, do not recommend taste testing 
2 Likes
Regarding tilt sensors, I've had 3 Ecolink 2.5's on my metal doors for a couple years now, I think. They just work. Connect direct at 100kbps at a pretty good distance.
Of course, two batteries read 100% and the one I use most reads 99%, so I don't know how accurate that is.
If lithium, then they're not. They'll read 100 or 99 until a moment before they're dead.
2 Likes
Still, while using a bigger battery than zigbee, the z-wave devices last pretty long.
I had a few minutes yesterday, so I finally did the AA battery case conversion for ZSE43. I only removed half of the case to access the battery, keeping the PCB clipped into the other half. The adhesive peeled cleanly from the garage door and probably could have been used to adhere to the battery case. I chose to completely remove the adhesive and use a dab of hot glue instead.
To re-attach to the garage door, I grabbed two rare earth magnets (guessing 8-10 pounds pull force for both). The magnets are adequate to attract to the batteries through the case and to secure to the garage door. The bonus of magnets is that I can reposition to tune for best combination of signal strength and sensitivity of tilt/shock.
