Anyone know how to enable the external switch inside the monoprice contact sensor? I am trying to use them with Kidde SM120X and CO120X fro Smoke/CO detection.
Krlaframboise created a Smartthing driver that exposes the ExnternalSensor and allows you to enable it. I am thinking I have have to use the Basic Z-Wave Tool to change a parameter, but not sure what to use.
There is this in the ST driver that seems to be code to enable it:
Looking at his code (that snippet wasn't quite enough), it is setting parameter 1 of size 1 to 255 (or 0xFF in hexadecimal). My suggestion would be to use the Basic Z-Wave Tool and put those values into the parameters for the "Set Parameter" command--i.e., 1, 1, and 255, respectively. Because it's a battery powered device, you'll also need to make sure that it's awake if you don't want to wait until its next wakeup interval for the change to take effect. Kevin often helpfully includes these instructions in his drivers, and this is no exception:
open the back cover of the device, wait until the red light turns solid, and then put the cover back on
Also, if it's not too late already, if you're on a C-7 hub, you might wish to consider joining these with a secondary controller so you can use no security instead of their default (and only option besides no security) of S0, given the problems some people have reported with S0 devices, or at least a sufficiently large number of them. If this is your only device, you'll probably be fine. I left mine paired at S0 and haven't had any problems aside from the fact that it's either not sending battery reports or its wakeups don't count as "activity," so unless I actually open or close the sensor, I don't get any "Last Activity At" data on Hubitat. I forget what its "old" or non-S0 behavior was, so I suppose it's also possible this is always the way things were...
I was under the impression the external "contacts" were in parallel with the internal sensor. So when the internal sensor is open (no magnet I believe) and you short the external contacts you will get a closed report.
You're correct that it does also require the internal sensor to be in a specific state--I forgot about that. I do believe it's closed and that I soldered something over mine to make it stay that way (keeping the magnet attached would also work), but it's been a while and I can't remember. Or maybe there is some way the internal and external values get combined, but I don't remember precedence. (Or I guess it could be the above, but I'm using a stock driver that only reports one value.) If I had to do it again, I'd just get the Ecolink.
I'd really surprised a battery device would have the internal switch closed in the normal state (normal state would be a door closed). Reason is the battery has a higher drain when the switch is closed. Besides when being open there needs to be no additional hardware (i.e. cost) to use either.
