My lock seem to be locking only when they want and I cannot figure out why. I have a Goodnight rule that when I push a button on my keypad it shuts all lights off (except stairway that comes on), and locks all the doors. I noticed last night the kitchen door did not lock. This morning I turned on the logging and ran the app again. Today it locked the Kitchen, but not the back door. It looks like the command was sent just not received. However just after it failed (I waited a minute or so) I locked the door via the dashboard and it locked, so it seems it is communicating. Not sure what my next steps should be to figure this out.
FYI the locks seem flaky with all rules not just this one, but this was a good example as the presence sensors are harder to run "as needed", I figure this one was easier to troubleshot since I can "trigger it" as needed.
Lock log (Note - it unlocked at 5:55am which is a rule) It did not seem to get the command at 9:13am but did receive my dashboard command at 9:15am (I did nothing else between the two commands)
FYI also know the kitchen and the back door are less than 10 feet part. I have a z-wave switch right next to the back door, and a z-wave outlet on the inside, 4 feet from the kitchen door. There is also a iris garage door opener, aeotec multi sensor (plugged in), and another z-wave switch on the far side of the garage that all work reliably.
What type of lock are you using? I assume z-wave? My lock gets flaky when the batteries get low. I have an excommunicated schlage connect z-wave lock. It is joined securely. I have two z-wave plus plugs. One close to the lock, one close to the hub. All of my switches are zwave and zwave plus, so there are plenty of clear paths to the hub. Before you do anything too heavy, change the batteries. Then run a zwave repair.
Backdoor is schalge and kitchen is Yale both z-wave. I have a Aoetec outlet in the basement next to the hub as a booster.
When I left today the backdoor locked but the kitchen did not. I could not control it via the app. Nothing in the logs even though I asked it 5-6 times to lick the door. Now I am back and the kitchen door is completely unresponsive. Experience tells me that time will make it come back online, or if I go enter the lock code, it will also start responding again, until it decides not too.
The lock batteries are at 71%(in log). I use rechargeable and general recharge at 50-60%. Should I be recharging sooner? Don't want to ruin the batteries by not draining them.
IMHO I wouldn't use rechargeable. I think it's your batteries or maybe a mesh issue, but I'd change to new duracel (it's what i use) and when mine get below 80 in the logs, my lock starts acting up. I think it's your batteries. Try that first.
I hate to be one of them, but as a migrant from ST I can say the Yale has never given me an issue even with the battery so low the lady can't finish telling me it is low. Does ST have different requirement than HE (like not encrypted or something)?
The Kitchen is at 81% (was last check in). I am willing to try new batteries but pitching batteries at 80% is a massive waste of money and resources.
EDIT - Is there a reason against the rechargeables? Just seems like if I have to feed them batteries might as well recharge them, no?
Which Yale lock do you have? I have the YRD256 and lately both of them have been giving me a hard time. They would just stop responding at times and then wake up. It’s random. It hasn’t always been this way. I can say it got like this after the 2.1.7 update.
Others have switched the module to zigbee and no longer have issues.
It’s not battery or interference and shouldn’t be mesh as I have enough repeaters and every other device works perfectly fine.
The only thing i can think of is that these are my only devices joined securely. I’m not sure if that makes a difference.
I've never found that battery reporting was correct. I have a tester that shows me that they're dead when they're still reporting good. I've never depended on battery reporting in any of the platforms.
I moved my hub to the other side of the house and put it next to a Aeotec outlet. This should force it to use the outlet as a repeater (I hope). So far today it has been working, but time will tell.
I couldn't even exclude/include the device until the hub was in the same room. I then left it there for a day to settle down and of course had no issues.
I moved the hub back to its spot, did a repair, and now they are working better than before but still drop off and come back every now and then.
They must not be using the repeaters. I have every light switch and even an extra repeater in there with no luck.
There are times a fat-fingered misspelling just tickles me. My response to this might be, from the HE hubs perspective, Would you want to lick your back door. I wouldn't care how many times you asked, politely or otherwise, "I ain't licking nobody's door".
Is there a way to test to put a plug «between» so that there is a step through a plug on the way to the basement?
Also search for the application called Reliable locks, and install it. That helped several people out with instabilities before.
Agreed, I only have this problem with the devices I connected securely. To get them connected the hub they needed to be almost touching the lock. All other devices have had no issues.
I think you might be right. When testing with Z-wave toolbox, the hub would not use the repeaters even when very far way, and after many repairs. It would just fail to send the signal timeout after 4+ sec.
I moved the hub to be directly under the locks (in the basement). And they seem to be happier. Even with the hub that close the locks I have timings well above 1 sec. While other devices respond in .02 sec. even on the 2nd floor. It certainly looks like the encrypted signal is weak/slower, but that seems logical to some extent, more data to pass.
For now it is working, but I can see this distance issue to become a problem if it won't relay an encrypted signal (just an observation not a proven fact).
Check the voltage..
Rechargeables tend to be slightly lower than throw aways.
(Normally 1.2v as apposed to 1.5v)
0.3 volts doesn’t seem a lot but x4 = 1.2v which could make a difference to reliable operation.
I ended up moving the hub right next to the two locks. I then excluded and included the locks. They wouldn't exclude until I put the hub in the room.
Once I did that, I left the hub their over night. No real reason to leave it this long, I just wanted them to get familiar with each other. (I actually forgot it there until the wife reminded me).
The next day I moved the hub downstairs, ran a zwave repair, and it his a been a lot better since.
There are still times when the commands seem to get lost to the lock. But I have rewritten the drivers for these locks and included an auto retry/verify option in them so if they don't reply in 5s it will retry again up to 10 times. I notice this has helped the reliability of it locking.
I have installed that. It does and does not help. It does retry so if the lock is being "flaky" it helps. However my backdoor lock just fell off and would not come back on the network at all. Reliable locks does not seem to try anything when the lock is "offline".
To fix it (for now) I had to dissipate power and reboot. (Remove the batteries, hit the Schlage logo with no batteries in it, put batteries back in and hit logo again).
For now it seems to be working. I really hope this sticks. I have everything on HE now, and it is running great EXCEPT these stupid locks, which is a BIG exception. I obviously can't deploy the HE solution commercially if the locks are not 100% reliable.
@Cobra I checked all my voltages when adding freshly recharged AA and all were above 1.3 (1.320 - 1.407) I am going to switch over the most offensive lock to fresh Duracell this week and test it for a couple weeks against other locks with rechargeables to see what happens.
I do recharge the batteries both when taken them out and right before going back in. Also volt meter test each one, if one charges below 1.3 it goes into my wireless mouse, or other low voltage units until it dies.
