Iris v2 motion sensor battery longevity

Wow, 2-1/2 years on the original battery for our powder room before it gave up the ghost. I wish they still made these things....

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Yeah I have a few of these and I wish I had bought more of them before Iris shut down.

Or before Alex_sari on eBay ran out of them!

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Yeah I got 20 of them from him... Best 50 bux I ever spent

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Always wondered what, where, and how he came upon a boatload of that Iris stuff. I've seen where folks buy trailer loads of returns/excess inventory from the big boxes. Wonder if that's how.

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I have only one. I use it in my walk-out basement to alert me if someone breaks in. It has been reliable for many years. And the battery life is amazing. The battery is down to 37%, so I will need to start keeping an eye on it.

My most recent motion sensor purchases have been Hue sensors. They use standard AAA batteries, so replacement is easy. However, they are fairly expensive, certainly a lot more than the Iris sensors used to be,

I did have one Hue motion sensor fail, but the temperature part still reported. I now use that sensor in a chest freezer to alert me if the temperature increases. Of course, in that low temperature application, battery life is reduced.

I did the exact same thing. The battery life was fantastic but I hardwired 4 of them due to locations, high traffic and because I just wanted to try it.

When I bought mine they were listed as used with no batteries. All 20 came with batteries and they seemed brand new with battery tags in place.

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Just hardwire it!

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Note: this is an older pic - buck converter is in the battery case, there are newer ones with the converter in the usb socket.."battery eliminator" style.

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If you get a chance someday could you take a pic of the guts of that hack.

Thanks

Would love to see more info on this newer hack.

Best motion sensor ever...have a bunch of them bought back in the day and more recently when I could find them on eBay or from users here.

@PunchCardPgmr / @danabw - here you go! Hopefully I've been able to hide the poor soldering job..

This is with a buck converter in the battery compartment. I clipped the battery terminals for additional room and soldered closer to the sensors circuit board. Also used a dab of hot glue to hold things into place. Just used the red and black wires in an old usb cable for the bucks inputs and wired the outputs to the battery terminal stubs.

Here is a sensor using the battery saver wiring.. all I had to do was clip the clips and solder the wires directly onto the terminals:

In both cases just drilled a small hole in the back of the sensor to run the wires through..

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Thanks for the pics.

Below is how most of my soldering projects end up, so I am in no position to complain about yours. :wink:

image

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I can see @lewis.heidrick 's eye twitching with a vein pulsing in his forehead just looking at this picture :rofl:

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LOL!!! :rofl:

Shhh, don't tell him, he already knows about my problems with hammers...

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Very cool. Never used one of those Bucks before.

Do you have a "go to" reliable brand/label/source.
And I assume this could apply to a wide spectrum of devices we use in that 3 VDC ball park.

Thanks for taking the time.

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Yee Gads as they say in some parts of this country.

Hotter, thinner tipped iron pre-tinned,
maybe some flux or at least a good rosin core solder.
I know even with that it takes practice...just know less-is-more, it's all about that "first swipe" of the iron. If the heat isn't applied right the goober-ing still happens to me. ( Let's avoid the topic of stick welding. )

Keep an eye out on https://www.allelectronics.com/ sometimes they have some really good temp control-able stations at a good price.

Haha, I have a stick welder. Needed it when my welder ghosted me 3 days before the engineering inspection on the house. Hooked up a 50 amp breaker and welded 4 steel posts and 2 I beams into place... It was a tad ugly.... Somehow the engineer looked it over and passed it.... Hey, my second floor is still intact... :rofl:

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So I did this a while ago and appears I did not use Amazon - can't find the order... as long as the dimensions are okay then something like this should work:

https://www.amazon.com/MP1584EN-DC-DC-Converter-Adjustable-Module/dp/B01MQGMOKI/

or maybe this one which can be set to a fixed voltage:

https://www.amazon.com/Weewooday-Regulator-Voltage-Converter-Transformer/dp/B08JZ5FVLC/

You'll need a multimeter to make sure you are getting the proper output voltage.

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You and me both. I have a bunch, that's the only one I will use, its way better than the stuff sold now. Same with the door sensors. smaller and fast and more reliable than anything else I've used. These rebranded centralites are just amazing. And yes, Ive had the same battery in ALL my iris v2 stuff since I installed about a year ago and still going strong.

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Same. they were advertised as no batteries and all were brand new with tabs.