I know that battery levels in Zigbee devices can be twitchy, but I have had two out of 8 leak detectors drop down below 30% in battery so I decided to replace the battery. In both leak sensors Hubitat is reporting battery level at 0 while the sensor is working just fine.
These Samsung sensors use a CR2 batter which seems to last about 2 to 3 years in service. And I purchased a box of them from Amazon in anticipation that others would go out soon.
Any thoughts of how to get the battery to report again? I have read that sometimes the battery brand is the issue but CR2 batteries are hard to come by and the ones at say Walgreens from Energizer have a manufactures date of over 4 years ago.
Leak sensors are sleepy devices. The only time they communicate with the hub is when they are active. That prolongs battery life. Try placing your sensor on a small puddle of water and see if it works. That should send the battery level long with the alert.
Already done that last week when I put in the batteries, I am getting the temperature updates so the issue has to be the battery circuit in the device.
You can see the logs showing "0" in each reporting cycle:
I have 15 or so of the Samsung/ST sensors. Battery reporting is terrible as they will stay on 0% for 6-9 months still working. I gave up using the actually reported battery level and just wait until they stop reporting and/or replace the battery after X days. I use NodeRed to push data into a MariaDB where I monitor my battery devices.
I typically reset the sensor when I install a new battery by holding the button when inserting the battery. I then start Zigbee pairing mode in the hub and being Zigbee it pairs in place and bettery value resets.
I too log battery levels in InfluxDB and dashboard with Grafana. Now that I have a couple of devices that are not reporting I will have to take them off the battery level notification and put them into the "not responded in x" notifier.
Do you have a way to measure the battery voltage? It's possible it's so low the device is just reporting 0 for battery. It is actually sending events, otherwise you wouldn't see that in the table and I might assume it just hasn't done so yet (that's not always instant). But that's not the case for you.
Without being able to show that this isn't actually the cause, I'm not sure I'd start with an assumption that something else must be the problem. But I also wouldn't pay too much attention to pay battery readings in the first place, as you seem to know; I prefer to just see when they actually stop reporting, suggesting that the battery did actually die.
Lithium primary cells last a long time. That's a bit older than I normally find, and I'm kind of surprised a big store or big brand would let that happen -- but even so, they probably have just as long left of shelf life or use. FWIW, I like Battery Junction as an online source, though you may have to dig through their product listings or search results a bit to find single or smaller packs rather than their industrial-size offerings.
Remember that Samsung has divested itself of the home automation business, other than server/software support. All Smartthings devices are now made by Aeotec.
I found the issue. I was able to look at the labels on the batteries on the box and out of 12 batteries in the Amazon box for CR2's 3 of them were 8 years old while the other ones are just 2 years old. So somehow who ever packages the batteries for Amazon put in what I considered on the edge of shelf life batteries. I put in the ones that were manufactured 2023-03-26 and the battery indicator is now showing 100%. Phew.
I have already written Amazon hopefully they just do a complete swap of the product.
I have had good service from Panasonic batteries. I have recently purchased some batteries from LiCB. They work well with the exception of some of the LiCB CR2450 batteries that have a recess on the rim that does not work in older Samsung motion sensors.
They are the Amazon basics. Count of 12 in the box. Not sure who makes the batteries for Amazon but I am thinking they had some "edge" life stuff in inventory and have been throwing a few in with some boxes. I used the same ones 3 to 4 years ago when the first round of batteries were used up in my Samsung (Yes I said it because it's printed on the label) leak sensors.
