I got tired of our Zigbee Sonoff Motion Sensors timing out, so I replaced them with Zooz ZSE18s during the Black Friday sales. Zooz products have always been reliable and I have a much bigger Zwave network because of all our light switches.
I noticed that they use CR123A batteries, which I’ve never even heard of before. While I was looking for rechargeable lithium ion 1.5V AA batteries yesterday, a few members have recommended the Coast Portland ones. One user even having done personal testing on these batteries.
I notice that they carry rechargeable lithium ion batteries for the CR123a called the ZX310 Rechargeable Batteries. Has anyone tried these before with the Zooz Motion Sensors?
Being a battery freak, yes I've used CR123A rechachargables, you need to charge them about every 6-8 months depending on load, but they do save money. I have used Shockli, Tenergy, EBL & Soshine RCR123A. They require a special LiIon charger. However beware that these rechargables commonly run at 3.7 volts while the disposable CR123a run at about 3.2volts. All my Iris sensors don't mind them, however I killed a Wink siren with the higher voltage of the rechargables.
You can find 3 volt RCR123a but they are hard to find, and there are lots of garbage ones with very low capacity.
For a bargain CR123a I've tested MXBatt CR123a at 1360mAh capacity, not quite a duracell capacity, but also not 5.00 per battery. My Amazon review is the one with a video (user LLM)
Any of the brands I mentioned work well, it depends what you're able to source. Don't forget, the special charger needed for the 3.2 volt(LiPO4) is different from the 3.7volt(LiIon) charger. Some chargers do both. Do not buy a cheap azz charger, it can be a fire hazard. Xtar, Nitecore, Opus make good chargers. Some models do both battery types, ples NiMh NiCd
Yeah this is one of the problems I see. But this is true with any lithium ion battery. For example, we have recharegable lithium ion batteries for all our locks and it literally goes from being charged to being dead. I've had to set up the Battery Monitor app to report low as 50% or less for these. But the upside is the lock never gets weak over time since the voltage is constant.
The other issue I see is these are typically 3.7V so it could potentially fry the sensor. Maybe I'll try it with one sensor first to see if it kills it.
Our main reasons are for green and long term cost reasons, yes.
Do you have a link to the MXBatt you reviewed by anychance? I can't find a review by LLM for this one. I'll check out the EBL & Tenergy ones. They're always priced so well and they current have a 25% off. Thanks for the tip on the charger.
Edit: Dangit... The Tenergy Cyber Monday code doesn't work anymore. We'll have to wait until Christmas.
Back in 2021-22, I tried a few different rechargeable batteries for motion sensors, which for me a few dozen Iris v2 (CR2) and a 3 Aeotec Multisensor 6 (two CR123A). The CR123A rechargeables I tried were EBL ones that were 3.0V (CR123A 3V Lithium Micro USB Battery | EBL), since Aeotec specifically says not to use 3.7V rechargeables.
They worked fine initially. I was expecting the normal issue with battery level reporting not working well.
But, both types of motion sensors started reporting errant false motion events after about 6-8 months, as the batteries were getting low on charge (but still reporting 100%). This played havoc with HSM the first time I had it Armed Away and the house was empty, I got dozens of alerts from the phantom motion events.
In the end I stopped using rechargeables on any motion sensor. I do use them exclusively on (interior) contact sensors, however.
