RM Rule for Devices that have stopped working

So I'm just trying to conceptualize a rule because I have a lot of windows and doors. What would be a good way to create a rule that would alert me that I need to address a non-responsive contact sensor.

My first thought goes to battery, but battery seems to be largely unreliable across multiple sensors.

Any thoughts?

How could it know the difference between a sensor that has not triggered and one that is unresponsive? Seems to me the only way you could do that would be with two sensors on every door and that just seems like overkill. Xiaomi contact sensors are relatively inexpensive if you want to go to that extreme.

Which contact sensors are you using?

If they are guaranteed to generate events on a regular basis (i.e., every X minutes) that could possibly be used for a rule, as long as the events relate to a supported capability, like temperature, humidity, battery, etc.

For example, the Xiaomi contact sensors check in with the hub either every 50 or 60 minutes, and always provide a battery report at the same time. So if there hasn't been a battery percentage event for over 3 hours, it's fairly safe to assume the sensor has dropped its connection / become unresponsive.

1 Like

Then I am on the right track, however I was going to use temperature as Temperature (on the lowe's IRIS) seem to be more reliable in terms of updating.

So then how to express the following rule:

  1. If [any contact sensor] temperature remains unchanged

THEN

A. Delay by 24 hours
B. Send Push Alert "Your device has become unresponsive - [name]"
Cancel on Truth Change

I was thinking of doing something similar especially with water sensor. It's the same concept as health check in ST world. My idea is just to get an alert if there is no event from a sensor for more than 2 days.
Maybe RM to monitor both temp and battery.
For motion or contact. Monitor all temp, battery and event. Send an alert if any of the 3 not checking in 2 days.

Replying to my own thread but I can't seem to figure out the condition because all the rule conditions look for a change in temperature and I am looking to see temperature has not changed/updated.

Any thoughts?

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Your request got me thinking that it would be a good idea to do this.
I'm not sure if you have webCoRE loaded but I knocked this up quickly and think it may work. Here it is. Time will tell if it works or not.
PS. All the devices are my battery devices.

I had webcore with ST. Yes that would work, but haven’t made the leap into webcore using HE as I am awaiting a bit more stability as well as perhaps a docker integration to control the web UI.

if any of you use rooms manager / occupancy ... i was thinking of adding feature to check all rooms devices and generate an alert if there have been no events from a device in the last 6 hours or may be in 12 hours.

would it be useful if i added that as a feature?

thank you.

1 Like

Sure!! I don’t use the app but it may compel me to do so.

1 Like

will do. if you do give the app a try let me know if you miss not being compelled earlier. :slight_smile:

done. planning to update the code on github and thread this weekend:

1 Like

OK folks, here is an update for you.
I have a webCoRE piston defined as per post #8.
I removed a battery from one of my Xiaomi Motion Sensors at the date and time as per below. At the time I removed the battery the device said it was ACTIVE.

At 19:01 on the 7th the above piston sent me an SMS message that the sensor was INACTIVE, as per above screenshot.
Looks like the piston works OK but with this type of sensor it takes a good 24hrs to report it is INACTIVE.
Not exactly quick, but it does work.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.