Sonoff SNZB-04 Contact sensor - eating batteries

🛎️ Get Help Devices
1

Hi

I have placed two of these sensors on both of my gates and then sealed them with a spray. For a while they worked well, but are now chewing up batteries within a week. Initially I thought it was just a cheap battery, so replaced it with a quality one. But that has now died. The only things I can think of are.

  1. The main unit is attached "upside down" i.e. the battery is at the bottom and not the top. Had to do that so that reed switch faced the magnet. I did notice that the battery was quite loose in its holder, so I don't know if that was causing a problem.
  2. Looking at the Zigbee signal strength it is quite low (-37 versus -68 to -71 for my other sensors). I am not sure that would cause a problem because the sensor is having "to work harder".

The gates aren't opened/closed a lot - the sensors are mainly there to let me know if the gates are left open and/or if they are opened when we are away.

Any advice? Thanks

2

-37 is much higher than-71, but that only tells us what the last hop signal strength is, and it’s possible that the device is connecting to a repeater much further from it but closer to the hub which would explain the battery drain.
I would just reset and rejoin the device at its final location and see if the battery life improves.

3

I placed a folded square of paper from the box it came in on top of the battery. Others have mentioned problems with the sensor related to the battery losing contact.