Astonishingly, I'm still seeing 2 weeks before death. That's with no movement at all -- just dies in a static configuration.
I set up a rule today with a fresh set of batteries to toggle from 0-100-0 every 60 seconds. Once it fails to move, it will alert my phone, so I'll know how many hours it ran. It's pretty clear right now that these vents have a MASSIVE stand-by drain. Guess it's time to contact Keen on the issue. Based on my previous interactions, this will not be pleasant at all...
Where you able to find anything out from Keen? I am experencing massive battery drain since I migrated my vents over to Hubitat. I had no battery drain issues when they where on the Keen hubs, nor when I had them on SmartThings. I moved my Keen vents over to Hubitat recently as one the the last things I migrated off of my ST hub. Ever since the vents have been chewing though batteries like crazy. Something is clearly wrong.
Not sure what this means, but this is 4 days old:
"Hi Steven,
Thank you for explaining this need within our solutions. We’ve submitted this request as a product enhancement to our product development team. If the team as additional questions, they will contact you directly. Thank you again for such a great evaluation.
Best,
Aljone"
Just wanted to post an update from Keen -- not much help, but kind of interesting, nonetheless. I have explained a few times now that I do not even own the Keen hub. Curious if anyone here has one, and if they're getting better battery life?
|### Aljone from Keen Home|4:27 AM (4 hours ago)
Hi there,
Thanks for writing in and sorry to hear about the vent trouble!
If you see it automatically opening and closing to different amounts, it likely got stuck in demo mode. This can happen if the vent's circular black button was accidentally held down while installing it:
To reset the vent out of this mode, you'll need to 1) fully eject the battery cartridge, 2) after ten seconds or so, insert the battery cartridge, then after letting it finish calibrating (open/close) 3) press that same black button five times quickly. This should cause the vent to begin double-blinking green.
Then you should be all set - let me know how it goes! If it's still giving you trouble, please include which vent it is and I can check it out from my end to help investigate further.
Best,
Aljone
Keen support finally read the actual words in my email and told me that it's totally out of their scope to use their vent on a third-party hub. They will not assist.
This is about the same level of support I received when my vents showed up 3 months late in the first place. Not thrilling service.
Keen says there's nothing they can do, and the only suggestion is to factory-reset the vents. They've said many people experience massive battery drain on SmartThings as well, but they SHOULD work just fine.
Sweet. I sure wish there was something I could do on my end to make this work a tad better.
Just to update, that support also just told me that there is no way to update the firmware using their hub or even USB. Surely there has to be a way to troubleshoot what's going on from a Hubitat perspective..
Vent finished another round of hourly tests. Lasted 10.8 days. Pretty horrible.
From their site:
Our vents are operated by 4 AA batteries, which should last between 3-5 years. Lithiums or Alkaline batteries will work just fine.
I don't know if this was mentioned, but what about something like this? No idea of the reliability of the below device, but it has a fairly thin cable. Would only work if you had an outlet close by.
Interesting device, (although I don't think it would work unless your device is running on 1.5v, and not putting the batteries in series.) You'd have to do some research on what voltage the vents run on internally, and how the battery tray is wired.
Either way, that sure would be ugly to have a wire coming down from the vent. It's just frustrating that something advertised to last YEARS only goes 10 days. Seems that many people in the forums are experiencing the same thing. Keen even admits that some ST users are seeing similar results.
What is it about ST/Hubitat that could be causing a 182x drain when compared to the official hub and/or Ecobee integration?
That is an unknown to me, what Keen does for voltage, and I didn't see a clear answer for this battery eliminator either. I suppose you could swap out the power supply to the correct voltage.
For sure, but better than a set of batteries every week. I hope you have rechargables? And on that topic, you probably should be using something like an Eneloop or other LSD battery.
So they explicitly say it works with other hubs on their site. I cannot believe that they cannot or will not investigate this issue. If this device doesn't work well with other hubs, they should remove that from their site. Myself, I would press for some type of refund or replacement of these devices.
I think it does that automatically, especially on a newly added device.
If it turns off after 20 minutes, how are we supposed to investigate the issue on our own? Guess I'll email HE support to see if they have any ideas.
Oh, and I would just like to say that I have used the included Alkalines, Eneloop blacks, whites, and also I have AA lithium-ion rechargeables, which work amazing in all my other devices. (Not cheap though.) There MIGHT be a range of 2-3 weeks depending on battery type and usage, but it's never more than that, no matter what.
I just emailed Hubitat support with my fingers crossed, and also Keen again. I am asking them if I were to purchase one of their hubs, if they could gaurantee it works and actually support me. I did question why it is that they specifically market the product to work with third-party hubs, that they are unwilling to support it at all when used in that manner. We will see what they say.
I swapped to a 12-hour cycle test, and it only lasted 2 days. Sigh.
I had another 2x daily test that lasted 27 days. That's the highest I've ever seen.
Everyone one I have ever talked to about these vents say they chew through batteries like crazy.
If it helps, my 5 vents go through 1 set every 6 months in summer. During summer they are moving once every 45 minutes or so.
This is astounding! What driver are you using? I assume paired directly to HE hub?
Stock driver through the hub.
I also have a Keen vent paired directly to the HE hub using the stock driver that gets about 6 months on a set of batteries. It does not appear to be repeating through any other device. It only moves a couple times a day or so.
I experienced the same battery life on Smartthings.
I am wondering if there are design changes keen made over the years that made things worse. I have one of the original builds.
Download the Hubitat app
