If you have one with the expansion header I will take one. I want to put the ultrasonic distance sensor on it so I can detect my garbage can. Good sensor for a take the garbage out reminder.
All of them has expansion, there are many ultrasonic sensor. If you get the one that generate analog output that should work.
PM me know if you want it.
Hi Iamn, I received my sensor but having difficulty in pairing. I've loaded the driver from Github. The LED is illuminated on the device, so power is good. I never see the sensor try to join at all. Usually with tough to pair devices I can see a new 16 bit address showup in the zigbee logs, and I'm not seeing that with the sensor.
It also never shows in my xbee scan, as some xiaomi devices do when pairing.
What else to try?
@Rxich, It is really strange. I tested your sensor before I ship it out. There is no issue pairing.
Can you share with me the Zigbee channel that you use? Do you also have a way to check if there are interference with near by wifi? There is a free Wifi Analyzer that I use if there are strong wifi signal which overlap with my zigbee network.
Once we double check that this is not an issue with interference. I think the first thing to do is to reset the module. Please unplug the module from power and battery. Without the battery and the sensor is unplugged, press the button on the back. Plug the sensor back to USB power (without the battery) and keep pressing the button for 5 second and then release it. During this troubleshooting time, please try to reset the sensor when you are having issue.
Please make sure the sensor oriented sideway (not upside down). You can also try to pair the sensor close to the hub temporarily.
Once paired, you do not need to do reset like above and can move the sensor to any locations.
Please let me know. I am really interested to get this sort out.
Hi Iman, I tried again after resetting, no success. I even tried to pair to my smartthings hub and again nothing.
My hubitat channel is 25 and ST channel is 19 and neither hub can find sensor.
As a test, right after sensor fail to pair, I added a new Xiaomi vibration sensor and that was found easily in same environment. My WiFi is way down at channel 1 to avoid interference, and hubs at opposite ends of house.
I used this driver;
I check the link it is not the correct driver.
The correct driver is
Here is the ST DTH
If the driver is not found, it should show up literary as a "device" in hubitat. It should show up as "thing" in ST.
I have the same ST and Hubitat hub as well. I tested the module in the same environment. They paired just fine. In some rare occasions, ST hub steal devices during paring. I experience this myself at some time. I do not see them now days. Please check if you see any devices in your ST shows up as "thing".
I think channel 25 should be fine. However, I do have some note that it mention issue with channel above 24. If you are fine about changing your hubitat zigbee channel to test, this is something that you can try.
As last resort, you can send me back the module. I can send another one. I do not want to waste our time by sending back and fort modules until we get to the bottom of it. It is possible that the module is broken during shipment. In this case, the broken module is valuable to me to learn the weak link. I am open to do this as well. I am really curious with the pairing issues.
In previous revision, I heard some small paring issue. Typically, they are intermittent. It was unlikely a hardware issue.
This morning also test the pairing for the modules again with what I have left here. They went and paired just fine.
| deviceJoin | New ZigBee device joined | 1325 | 2018-12-09 10:27:21.917 AM PST | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| deviceJoin | New ZigBee device joined | 1324 | 2018-12-09 10:14:06.684 AM PST | |
| deviceJoin | New ZigBee device joined | 1323 | 2018-12-09 10:12:37.047 AM PST | |
| deviceJoin | New ZigBee device joined | 1322 | 2018-12-09 10:11:47.168 AM PST |
Hi Iman, I tried again after resetting, no success. I even tried to pair to my smartthings hub and again nothing.
My hubitat channel is 25 and ST channel is 19 and neither hub can find sensor.
As a test, right after sensor failed to pair, I added a new Xiaomi zigbee vibration sensor to hubitat, and that was found easily in same environment. My WiFi is way down at channel 1 to avoid interference, and hubs at opposite ends of house. Neighbor WiFi is low signal and don't believe is causing issue, as I regularly pair zigbee devices and don't have issues.
What would you recommend at this point?
EDIT- I see your prior response. If I have no sucess by morning, I will securely pack and return ship to you for "autopsy"
I can send you a new one. I would like to take the one you have. It is important for me to find out if anything is damage during shipping.
It is eventually important for me to use component that is robust to ship.
Lets assume for now that it is what happen.
I just thought I would mention that one very common theme I see a lot in this forum is trouble pairing SOME zigbee devices when in the higher channels. While others work great. It happened to me and had me confused for awhile.
It might at least be worth a shot on lower channels.
Edit. Just read a bit further up and saw the ST hub is not picking up as well...
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Hi Iman, sorry for all the headache..
I did return sensor via tracked mail to your address. You should have it with a day or 2.
Please reuse my packaging to ship replacement so we can rule out shipping and handling as causing issue.
Thank You,
Rich
I will do that. I will let you know what I find with the module that you sent back.
Thanks.
Iman
@Rxich, I got the module back. First thing I did is to pair it with my hubitat without attempting to repair anything. I just straight plug it in to the USB power. I also change my hubitat zigbee channel to match yours to 25 just to make sure I have as close as configuration as yours.
The module pair with hubitat effortlessly. This is not a news that I like. I am hoping that it is a broken hardware.
I do have another variant that I can have you try. At the same time, I just want to give you a head up. It is unlikely a hardware issue. It is more of an environment issue. I really cannot speculate what exactly be the root cause at this point. I also try pair with smartthings hub without any issue. Lets hope for the best on the new module. I just want to rule out at this point that it is a hardware issue.
I am preparing to send the replacement back. It is either tomorrow or Saturday.
Thanks
Iman
Thank you Iman, I appreciate your testing the module and sending replacement. Please let me know if I should reimburse your postage., I'll be happy to.
Question, do you have xbee repeaters in your mesh? And what voltage &erage did your power the sensor with?
I think I will shutdown everything in my home, cordless phones, xbees, in addition to WiFi and leave only hubitat powered on and hope for the best. I already have a very good mesh and over 20 xiaomi devices, which usually are a challenge for zigbee.
Thanks,
Rich
Don't worry about it.
I can set one up. Is there anything you would like me to check with xbee? I actually have plenty of xbee. They are just used for end devices.
It is hard to guess from my end on what is going on pairing issues. When I got the module back, I was curious. Lets just power it on and try to pair it. It paired with my hubitat hub. Then, I removed it. Next, I paired it to ST hub. I have no issue.
Do you have other repeaters in the network?
I looked around the community in regard trouble with pairing. Some people perform Zigbee heal. If you shutdown your coordinator (and or router), when the power up they may reform their internal table which may give a better result. You do need to keep the hub down for some minutes. I am guessing the goal is to flush the current internal setting (or tables). The hope is when it power up, it rebuild the table with better entries. Therefore, it will give you better mesh. This is just an idea.
I do have 2 xbees, both as routers and I can see my LQI is very good through my home and mesh is strong I noticed many devices prefer to join to Xbee, even over hub, maybe that is my issue.
I would be curious if adding XBee to your mesh would affect sensor pairing.
I will follow your advice and completely shutdown for 15 minutes and allow table to rebuild, although don't understand how that would help with pairing, and would suspect that would help more with device drops and weak mesh.
Thank you for your help with this, I'll let you know how it goes.
Rich
Iman, I've been thinking about how to create a remote temperature probe for barbecue that I would be able to set target temps and trigger TTS announcements, send notifications and adjust temp with a fan if needed. I have the original sensor from you and I know you said the expansion of an external probe requires a firmware update. There's not way for me to flash this is there? Sorry if I asked you this already. I think I asked, but can't recall if I was specific about possibly doing it myself.
What is the max temp range of your device?
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Sorry, it is not easy to flash it at this point.
If you have the expandable version, you can use the following.
I am not sure about the max temp of the device. It is design for ambient setting of indoor room. I would not exposed it to extreme heat. With thermocouple probe, you should be able to isolate the module away from the heat sources.
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I have learnt a new issue with the battery backup module. I want to share what I have learnt with the community.
I did get some PM from community members that they have hard time pairing the modules. This is very unusual. I have seen some difficulties with pairing at much rarer instance. I ask the module back to investigate. I do not have any issue with the modules that comeback to me once I got it back. I also test the module before I ship them out. I know that the modules that I ship should be fine.
By share of luck in the past week, we experience a couple storm which knock down power in Washington. During this power down time, my Zigbee mesh was down. I had a generator that I use to power the hub and a new battery powered module. I was curious what would happen running one hub with one of my module only. With one on one setting between the hub and the module, it had hard time pairing.
The module can pair. However, the performance of the radio is much lower than I expected. This is an extreme test (running one hub and one repeater). However, the radio performance is differ so much with the older board without battery backup. I consider this as an issue.
Once I have power back, I cannot reproduce the issue anymore. If you have a dense Zigbee network in your house, I have been testing in such mesh. I have not seen any issue. I have a few GE bulbs throughout my house. When It power up, all my modules connect just fine. If you manage to get one module connected, the second, thirds modules can connect just fine. Once in the network, the module repeat and functions just fine. It can repeat other battery backup modules just fine.
I am not giving up on the battery backup module. I have started looking at the designing different way to do battery backup. I can probably do exchange with you at that time if you have any issue with the current one.
If you managed to pair, I would suggest to stay put. It is fully functional module. There is no firmware issue that I can see during this investigation. I personally are comfortable running the battery backup modules at my house.
I have very limited count of non battery backup modules. If you really need one as replacement, please let me know in PM.
I am sorry to bear such unfortunate new. My goal is to build a very good module for all of use. I have to take some risk in providing new features. Hiccup like this can happen.
I have learnt something very valuable here that allow me to build a better modules for all of us. With all the sensors, It gives major information of what you need in a room. It is a repeater that you can build your Zigbee mesh. Eventually, we will get a a module with proper battery backup.
I hope everyone have a good holiday season. Happy holiday and Happy new year.
Thanks
Iman
2 Likes
Hi Iman, I have the new sensor and observe the same behavior. I shut down ST hub, shutdown wifi and 2.4 GHz cordless phone. With sensor inches from hubitat hub, it will not pair. Next I shutdown all xbee repeaters (3) and try to pair again. Even with reset of sensor it never makes attempt to join, and I don't see any activity in zigbee logs.
When pairing other devices I must put them in pairing mode first, so I wonder how does your sensor go into pairing mode? Am I supposed to push reset button to initiate pairing? I did try that and no luck. Is there a certain number of clicks to get sensor in pairing mode?
Which repeaters are you using? I can try to hook those up and see if that changes anything, although the xbees are usually excellent routers/repeaters.
Happy Holidays to you and thank you for your help
