I am brand new to Hubitat and the forum. I purchased twelve of the Aeotec MultiSensor 6 with the intention to mainly use them for their motion and lux capabilites. I paired all of them in replacement of my SmartThings motion sensors and they only work about 10% of the time, some don't work at all, and performance is not consistent or reliable. I have tried them with both the built-in Hubitat drivers as well as the AeotecMultisensor6 groovy drivers.
I don't understand what gives or why something as simple as motion sensing could be so difficult but I would greatly appreciate any advice or assistance. I really love the Recessor flush-mount capability of these sensors so I would very much like to get them to actually work out. Thanks in advance guys!
System Setup:
Hubitat w/ some SmartThings Outlets, EcoSense open/close & garage tilt sensors
Hue Bridge with 24 Hue bulbs, integrated to Hubitat
Two Lutron Caseta Bridges, one for upstairs, one for downstairs, both with extenders, combined controlling approximately 98 Caseta switches/dimmers, integrated to Hubitat
Just a first reaction to your set up is that you may have a very weak zwave mesh. Only your sensors are zwave and they don't repeat unless plugged into USB power (even then I believe if you pair them on batteries they may not repeat even when plugged in). Having either zwave repeaters or some permanently wired switches or dimmers may help....
These sensors are great but they need a good communication route.
I have about 8 Aeotec switches or so and have had decent success. Not the fastest responding devices and maybe some delays here and there but mostly okay. I am using them because they can be powered via usb. Also am using @csteele's driver on some of them - my upstairs ones. Not sure if that makes a difference or not but there are more config possibilities.
I have 12 of the Aeon MultiSensor 6 and across several 'vintages'. It's why I began finding, using and added features to what is now called 'AeotecMultisensor6' (so as to be less confusing than all the other multisensor6 drivers I bumped into.)
They all work well but as some have mentioned, ZWave wakes up slower than Zigbee and therefore that delay adds to the response time. From 'blink' of their light to Action, seems as fast as the Zigbee (iris) motion sensors. But from Walk into range, to 'blink' is slower on Zwave, for my observation, at least.
Built-in Aeon Multisensor 6 driver + Basic ZWave tool = AeotecMultisensor6 (in my opinion)
In other words, it doesn't do more or better, just exposes the parameters that can be manipulated via the basic Zwave tool easy enough.
I have six of these mainly because I am a fan of the recessor. They work well, especially with @csteele driver, but are the slowest responding of the types of zwave motions that I use. Like others have stated, my guess would be that you don't have a strong enough zwave mesh. Personally I have around 40 Zwave plus dimmers that act as repeaters. I would suggest adding a few AC powered Zwave plus devices to strengthen your mesh.
I love the Recessor, I have two, but have never been brave enough to commit to a specific location. All of mine are attached to walls using a 3M Command strip. Swap out a wall outlet or a wall switch with a ZWave device and pair it up. That's it, you have a Repeater. You don't actually have to automate it.. although of course you will.
Initial impressions and testing confirm you guys are in fact correct in that it seems to be more of an inadequate mesh network than anything else (although these sensors respond like a Yugo in comparison with the cheap SmartThings motion sensors I was using). Shout out to csteele because I was already using your drivers and love the additional functionality - your work there is much appreciated, sir! Upstairs I have the liberty of being able to easily power all of the sensors on that floor from the attic but downstairs is a different story. Because I want to mount all motion sensors in the ceiling to keep them recessed and hidden away it means I don't have easy access to constant power, so my current plan it to try and place each sensor close enough to a light so as to be able to borrow the power supply of the light while it is on (which of course is switched and not constant). I plan to use that switched power to keep some cheap lithium usb battery packs charged and have the MultiSensor 6 units plugged into that. In effect, I see no reason the sensor wouldn't assume it was plugged in constantly, and every time the lights are on you are in effect charging up the battery pack that you have been depleting, so I will let the community know how this works out. Thanks to everyone for being of so much help on this. Once I get these 12 sensors working and am comfortable in the performance and stability I plan to use them across the whole house, which will require around 34 of these sensors. I probably should start a new thread for this, but does anyone have insight as to how many devices is too many for Hubitat to reliably and quickly be able to manage?
So one thing to consider is getting a 2nd hub. I am kinda sounding like a broken record in these threads but the stability has really been great in my experience. Of course others have had great success with just one but I like the distributed nature...
All opinions are valued. While I am new to the SmartHome trend, I am a tech guy at heart (note: not programming unfortunaely (more of a hardware guy), which doesn't bode well for my success in this venture, haha). I got my feet wet with SmartThings and some Leviton Z-Wave switches, which seemed about as reliable as anything a politician says on TV (note: pretty sure this was more the Leviton side than the Samsung side). That being said, I longed for more functionality and control, hence ditching SmartThings for Hubitat (preferred the local vs. cloud processing as well). The implementation is an 8000 sq. ft. home split into two levels, so naturally I worried about one small hub being able to handle the logistics of everything (easily 150+ devices, which sounds stupid, but definitely doesn't take long to add up). The only smarthome thing I have been blown away by thus far is Lutron's Caseta system ... I know it's going to sound like I got paid by them, but this system is advertised to work for 30ft and it will easily and reliably do 3 times that, even in an electronically noisy brick home. I have yet to have a single Caseta device not work as if you just pressed a mechanical switch - no delay, no drama, dead reliable. That being said, I would rather implement additional hardware to maintain and assure reliability and consistency, so I am certainly open to any and all ideas and am happy to share the results with the community. I am loving Hubitat so far and the only thing I am really missing compared with SmartThings is more native integration with established brands like Ring and August (I have yet to successfully get either playing nice with Hubitat yet). This seems like a truly great community and I am excited to be a part of it - I honestly thank every single person who immediately jumped in to help; you guys are great!
The limits of ZWave are 252 devices and a max of 4 hops (through routing devices = AC powered devices.)
8000 ft might or might not hit the limits depending on where the outlets and switches are. If, for an absurd example, all the outlets and switches are at the edge of the house, almost none in the center. That could be a problem
If however there was a room, like a kitchen, that 'spanned the gap' between the two edges, then adding even a single ZWave outlet would solve it. (probably.)
The point is, to try and locate the radios in the center of the sphere of your ZWave devices and add devices outwards.
The Lutron bridge are both Pro and are implemented flawlessly with Hubitat. Zigbee has definitely proven for me to be less fussy than Z-Wave, but because I love the recessed implementation of the MultiSensor 6 units, Z-wave is a necessary evil for me. I plan to definitely work on my Z-wave mesh better, either through usb powering these MultiSensor 6 units, or adding some repeaters if necessary. Everything will be spread out nicely throughout the house ... thinking of it logically, a MultiSensor will be required to operate lights all over the house. The house is 90' x 45' on two levels, so the actual distances are not as bad as the larger initial sq. ft. number shock might indicate. For some reason I was thinking 2 hops for Z-wave, but with 4 there should definitely be no problem at all, even with the more modestly powered MultiSensor repeaters.
I committed to z-wave when I was on Smartthings and invested in a houseful of Levition zwave plus dimmers, switches and plug ins for the lamps. Its really been very reliable and I have rarely issues with speed (planning on trying a second hub architecture but been trying to focus on learning RM and automations recently).
The only downside I see with the Lutron system seems to be that you don't build a good z-wave/zigbee mesh unless you add repeaters/outlets or other approaches that will allow the sensors and other devices to work well within the whole network.
With an 8000 sq ft property you do need to ensure sufficient density to work well. I'd also caution against having the multisensors sometimes on battery and sometimes powered (which is what I think you are suggesting). I've found them to need factory resets when switching from one to the other. It may work but Id carefully check it out before committing.
I see this is from some time back, but wondering how you are going with your Multisensor 6's now? I have a number of these and also nano dimmers and nano switches. I too have issues with motion lighting rules etc not triggering/delays. Delays are my biggest issue. I have a smaller home and several devices in each room so don't think my mesh is an issue (although not positive on that).
I am having the same issue. I have 21 sensors all recessed ceiling mounted with USB plugged in. I have upgraded the firmware to 1.13 on all devices. Using the AeotecMultiSensor6 driver by C Steele. There is just a long delay and I have z-wave plus switches in every room. I have done z-wave repair. Most of the time there is at least a 5 to 10 second delay sometimes longer. Below are my settings I am using.
I have a Dashboard with all of my Motion sensors on it... Iris, Dome, and Multisensor 6's
I watch that Dashboard on my iPad while I walk in a loop through the house, verifying their functionality because a lot of mine are still battery powered.
Any that don't react 'instantly' (<1 second) would get investigated. I haven't seen a non-instant response.. at least not in my memory.
I just took the 'tour' and found one battery dead device.. in my kid's room. All of them reacted in <1 second.
I have 2 of them in very defined locations.. defined in the sense that they are almost 'curtain' sensors because of walls. I can creep right up to their boundary and then pop into their detection range and know exactly how well they react.
I appreciate the response. I will setup a dashboard and see what I see from that perspective but even the LED light on the devices seems delayed. So I don't know if there is just a design flaw or what. I am seeing this same behavior on at least 5 (every single one that I have tested) of them (I have not tested all of them as this is a house I am remodeling currently). If I am seeing a delay on the dashboard what would be your next recommendation?
All of mine are attached to walls using a 3M Command strip. Swap out a wall outlet or a wall switch with a ZWave device and pair it up. That's it, you have a Repeater. You don't actually have to automate it.. although of course you will. 
All of them reacted in <1 second.
