ThirdReality Door Sensor?

Do you have any other zigbee devices handy? To test the hub's radio with?

Pairing one sensor shouldn't be this challenging, so I understand your frustration. Do you happen to see a message in the upper corner saying that your Zigbee radio is offline? Also, as @aaiyar suggested, do you have another device to try to see if that pairs?

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I only have the 3 pack of third reality contact sensors.

Do you mean "ZigBee network is not online?" That is the message.

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At least we know why zigbee devices won't pair to your new C-7. Maybe the engineering logs will help @bobbyD and @support_team figure out why the zigbee radio is offline.

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Bobby FTW, once again! :slight_smile: Good call.

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1 foot might be a little close. That is the reason I start out further away and walk toward the hub when pairing battery powered sensors. At some point, you will be at just the right distance to get a great connection.

The device has to have a great connection to transfer all the information to complete the pairing. Once the device is paired, it can get by with a lesser signal.

Can you post a screen shot of this section of your Zigbee Details screen:

All is working. I did as somebody suggested and it worked and I finally got the device showing:

  • disabled the radio
  • unplugged the hub
  • waited one minute
  • plugged the hub back in
  • enabled the radio

I can't find the post now. I think I got a hint from danabw (thank you) about the radio being offline and googled that and found the above steps.

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You might want to monitor your resources though in case you have some sort of memory leak or other resource issue. When things get tight sometimes the Zigbee service can shut down among other things.

You can install this awesome driver and/or look at the logs..

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I wish I could take credit but think that was probably @bobbyD.

:wink:

Glad you're up and running.

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It was actually @thebearmay. I saw the post @user911 made earlier wishing that a troubleshooting document detailed the procedure. While in the past (a few years back) the Zigbee radio on C5 model occasionally stopped working, is not the same with C7. While in rare situations the radio may drop offline and restart on power cycle, more often than not the problem resurfaces, without taking measures to remedy what caused the radio to shut off, in the first place.

@user911 hope your situation is one of the rarities and the radio stays online. But if it goes offline again, please send me a PM. You may be dealing with a hardware malfunction.

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Funny part is that I was referencing one of your old
posts that had the steps in that post. :sunglasses:

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So freaking meta... :wink:

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Yup, from a few years ago :sunglasses:

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My apologies attributing the solution to the wrong person. Maybe I can fix that. Too new here and got mixed up with the posts.

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This is a big community, the knowledge gets passed around quite a bit, and many times no one can recall who said it first. Main thing is that if there is a solution to be found someone on here will generally find it, even if it has absolutely nothing to do with their own implementation. None of us walk in here knowing everything about the platform, the strength of this community lies in the fact that as a collective group someone knows the answer and is willing to share that information.

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I have 5 of these door sensors and I like them because they use a Hall effect sensor rather than a reed switch for sensing, and they seem very sensitive meaning I can have the magnet further away and the sensor will see it.

HOWEVER I am having a problem with the battery level being reported.
They seem to report NO MORE than 48% battery with NEW batteries.
So I measured the voltage at the battery holder while powering the sensor, and it was great! About 3.2 volts.

SO I tried an experiment, realizing that I might cook the sensor, but I wanted to test.
I connected a regulated bench supply to the battery contacts and increased the voltage until the reported battery was 100%.

That voltage was 4.35 volts.
I would imagine that the electronics are rated for 3.3 volts with a max of MAYBE 4.5, so 3 batteries might cook the sensor, so I didn't try for very long.

I wrote to 3rd reality to see what they have to say and am waiting for a response... we'll see.

I just like to monitor my battery devices to make sure they don't die without knowing, and things don't work.

What are others seeing as a battery level on these sensors?

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Something seems odd with the way 3R reports battery, or HE parses it or something like that... There's another thread about battery reporting issues with 3R motion sensors.

I have 1 each 3R motion sensor and contact sensor... The motion sensor seems to be reporting OK on some Eneloop rechargeables, although it dropped from ~70 to 30-somthing in the last couple days so that seems odd...

But my contact sensor -- I use a AA battery conversion kit on that one, and I just now reverified that it's kicking out ~3v (2.99 to be exact) - exact same as the day I installed it last fall. My contact sensor was reading ~70% for as long as I can remember, but when I checked it after reading your post here, it's down to 34%. That's what prompted me to check the conversion kit.

I really like 3R stuff - though not super sexy, it's very reliable gear and the price is right... But there definitely seems to be an issue (maybe HE related, maybe not) with 3R's battery reporting.

Hi Hydro..
Thanks for responding!
I am happy to hear that someone else is having the same problem, although NOT what you want to hear!
Interesting that yours are reporting very low as well.
If I remember, when I first installed mine, they were reporting 100%... all of them!
Then over the last week or so, they dropped to where they are now... even after R/R the batteries.
Seems strange that all of the sensors are dropping off like this (the 3rdreality ones).
The fifth one I spoke of I JUST tried today so it was only on for a few MINUTES, unlike the others that have been on for weeks, and it too reports about 43%!

I wonder if one of the hub updates changed the way the battery levels are calculated for these sensors only.... weird.

I am going to try a few more things, but my opinion of these sensors is still high!
Thanks...