These modern batteries are simply amazing in they retain voltage to the last hour or so. What I mean is.. if you look at battery discharge graphs, the end looks like a cliff. The result is, it's unlikely we'll see a device, that runs on those batteries, self detecting the end, for that price point.
If I get any message at all about a low battery, it's that it's at 50% and if you (again) look at a graph, that's minutes from zero. (Zero being 2.8 v which is where the circuitry quits working.) Hard to send a "battery's dead" message when the battery is... dead.
But your major point, I think, is the consumption. 21 days.
I had something similar during my transition. With multiple systems hammering my 60+ devices, battery life was grim. I do have a lot of Aeotec product here.. Recessed door, mini, nano and wall motes, micro and nano switches, and MultiSensor6's. Once I got everything over and the other Hubs shutdown, battery life went back to normal, although it seems Aeon is less long lasting than their competitors.
But never, ever... can't say I'm ready to agree to that.
Well, I am perhaps in the same boat you were as I scaled out the z-wave mesh and rebuilt it several times. I certainly hope the battery life gets better, but even at "better" the batteries in the aeotec stuff lasts a fraction of the time that most of my comparable zigbee or non-aeotec z-wave stuff does. Sure, you can get the aeotec stuff working, but when I look at the value proposition what I see is more trouble at a higher price, with shorter battery life, slower reaction times, and less accuracy.
It's their uniqueness that drives their use around this house. Recessed door sensors, for example. Only two manufacturers.. Monoprice (no Name) and Aeon/Aeotec. Try the Monoprice. You won't be as happy as.. oh wait.. ok, won't be happier. Everything you don't like about the Aeon is true of the Monoprice regarding the case (plastic, jams by virtue of wood swelling) and comes with a magnet that is 2x more powerful than it needs for the application. (The choice of mounting location is left to you and me, and me, I picked places where the magnet never gets far enough away, The Aeon, however works fine with that spacing.)
Multisensor 6 - this one is simple, there isn't another if you want Humidity and motion and lux.
Aeon's button products are at the other end of the spectrum. Again, unique, and therefore difficult to find a viable alternative... MiniMote. Nothing like it. Discontinued. Wallmote and NanoMote. Again, unique, nothing that is just a button and doesn't try to bundle another $30 of something inside.
I'll stop with the product review and get to the simple conclusion, Aeon doesn't have better battery life because they have no competition nipping at their heels. Sheesh, they make it easy enough too. They announce products more than 2 years before they actually ship. No one else can get a something built in 2 years either? Regulatory (UL, FCC, et al.) is certainly expensive and there's scheduling delays, but 2 years of delay?
Battery acquisition is, as far as I can tell, the "price" I pay.
Can relate to the wobbly drill thing. Don't have the Aeotec ones, but the Monoprice ones (3). No issues at all either with state reporting or removal of the guts & re-insertion.
The 3-way is easy enough with Micro or Nano switches, since you have two traveler wires in a normal 3-way installation. I did it 2 years ago and I can remember that much... if you're still interested I can see if my brain can recover the details.
motion+lux: I'm pretty sure Hue motion sensor supports lux under smartthings, but it doesn't look like the HE driver for it does. Hmm...
motion+humidity: NYCE ceiling mount or wall mount. I really like the ceiling mount one, it just kind of visually disappears.
All three? Yeah... you're looking at a multisensor 6. Your motion reports will be 2 seconds slower than cheaper zigbee sensors, you're lux values will be off by a factor of 10, and humidity will be reported as sporadically as twice a day for reasons that you'll never be able to figure out, but yeah it does all 3.
The Iris (Lowes) is the one I went with when I needed only Motion, In my bathroom for example, I have an Aeon that senses motion and Humidity, and extends the on time of the lights that kicked on by virtue of the Iris.
And I have no care in this use case for accuracy of humidity. I just want to know it's a positive delta.
You have to adjust the reporting periods/change for the MultiSensor to make it functional and must USB power it if you want a report less than 4 mins. (240 seconds) 4 mins happened to be OK when I first built this because the Iris triggers a 10 min light on, ie. 2 Humidity readings. I've since had time to add usb nearby, and so now I have the option <4
The iris ones are a good choice. Cheap, fast, and readily available. Though perhaps not so cheap any more given the $19.95 price point of the new ST motion sensor, and what $8 for the Xiaomi?
Yeah I have 2 multisensor 6s and I run both on USB power. I want nearly continuous lux readings out of them and that's the only way to achieve it. One thing I will give them is that both of mine have survived 2 years outside in the PacNW. I don't even have the back cover on one of them because you can't get the cover on with a standard microusb cable. I have it all taped up with duct tape, the real stuff, the foil kind. Weatherproof!
As you guys have the Multisensor 6, can you tell me if it's z-wave comms performance is typical, compared to other z-wave devices?
I bought the Multisensor 6, and it's my only |z-wave device at the moment. In testing I found it to be poor in my house. The Zigbee devices perform much better, which was a surprise, because my internal walls are 21, 16 and 10 inches thick solid brick, so I was expecting Z-Wave to be better.
