Iris Motion Sensor stuck at initializing

I got a bunch of these off E-bay and most had to have the battery pull, hold button while inserting battery thing more than once. I did not do anything with the HE except restart the Discovery. Some worked the first shot, others needed several, but they all work and work really well.

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Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I've added another one of these and it works fine...this one is not working fine, obviously.

I just tried again, started Zigbee search, went to the sensor and tapped the button a few times, waved my hands in front of it, wore a tinfoil hat, but it did the same, getting stuck at initializing.

What I'm wondering is whether the try and try and try again is the best/only approach - that's all there is to try?

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Well, your sense of humor appears undamaged :wink: :laughing:

I can't really say. It worked for me so I didn't look for other ways. To be clear, because it may be lost in your humor, I didn't try anything other than the "hold button 2 seconds while inserting the battery" and maybe inserting the battery w/o holding the button AFTER having done the former at least once. BTW, once paired these things have been rock solid.

Maybe some of your favorite adult beverage would help?

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I have way to much adult beverage at home these days, I need to reduce or my waistline will be like Raymond Burr and the universe, always expanding.

Thanks for your help, I'll just keep trying again for now, and see if I get lucky.

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Or leave the battery out for a few and do something else then try again. I've had to do that to one of the Iris moisture sensors.

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What Zigbee channel is your Hubitat Hub using? How about your ST Hub? I personally like Zigbee channel 20, as I find it conflicts very little WiFi (assuming you’re access points only use channels 1, 6, and 11) and it is compatible with all of my oldest Zigbee devices. Some old ST Zigbee devices are not happy with higher Zigbee channel numbers.

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Thanks! I'll give that a try now. Justifies a short nap while I let it sit, and if the wife asks I can truthfully tell her I'm working on our smart home stuff. :smiley:

You just showed your age, or at least your generation. I might have also said William Conrad (Cannon) instead.

On the more "helpful" side, I occasionally have one of these that will never pair correctly. I can pair a bunch, and have one fail. Or sometimes it is the first sensor that I try, and all subsequent pairings work fine. I am not sure the reason behind it. I just put them into the box of shame, and use a different one.

Thanks, @ogiewon.

I am on channel 20 on the Hubitat. I'll have to check the ST hub, I can't remember.

If the ST hub is also on 20, should I boot it to another channel? And if I do that what's a good channel for ST that won't interfere as much w/HE?

What if I heard about him from my grandfather?! :wink:

Ahhh, William Conrad, what a mountain of a man. Wacthing him run on Cannon was an experience not to be missed...

I have had a few devices that ended up in the shame bucket in the past, but this one seemed to work well on ST. I have a number of these that I bougth a while ago so I will have to move on if it remains unfaithful to me.

Channel 15 is another very good Zigbee channel. Not sure if ST allows the user to change it, though. At least users weren’t allowed to when I was using ST.

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I actually can't remember where to check my ST Zigbee channel. Do you remember where to find it?

NVM - found it in the IDE of course - it's on 24. And you're right, I don't see any way to change the ST zigbee channel.

Having HE on 20 and ST on 24 sound OK, or should I move HE to 15?

That should be fine. Sorry to derail the troubleshooting...

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Not derailed at all, good to learn a little more about Zigbee channels. And in fact I've been napping as I type so this has been a very productive time for me. :wink:

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Are you trying to pair this particular sensor far away from the hub? Or close by?

I also saw you’re using some Peanut Plugs as Zigbee repeaters. One idea would be to temporarily unplug the Peanut Plugs, and try pairing the Iris Motion sensor near the hub.

Some folks have discovered that too many Peanut plugs can lead to Zigbee mesh instability.

See below for more information

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Thanks! Yup - I have two peanuts, one is on ST and one is an early move to HE to start building my mesh.

And now I see some folks have had problems w/them. As usual it's a mixture of "They are an abomincation!" and "I have zero issues with them." :wink: However, it is one of the best thread titles ever. :smiley:

The device is relatively far away, the biggest issue is probably that the hub has to go through my garage to get to the device. If it won't pair in place I'll move it closer and try again and then take it back to the desired spot and see what happens...

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As I remember, I had this issue, and it worked better when close to the hub for pairing.

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And the winner is...@eibyer! Pulled the battery, waited for a while (of course I forgot to note when I pulled the battery, but it was probably 10-15 minutes), and went out and put in the battery, started zigbee pairing, tapped the button on the motion sensor and it came up intializing and then complete in less than a minute. Woot! :slight_smile:

I put aside a small portion of my trust fund to reward the person who provided the winning tip. so he will receive a small portion of the 32 cents I currently have left in my account (I do a lot of day trading and I'm not very good at it). Looks like Christmas came early for someone! :wink:

Seriously, thanks to everyone for the help and info, very useful now and in the future.

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I sold 10 of these on EBay and wish I hadn’t, they’re great units. Anyone in the UK wanting to sell some I’m up for it.

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