I purchased a bunch of Thirdreality water sensors (zigbee) and have connected them to my c-7 hub. I had a leak and was fortunate enough that these sensor have a loud siren and someone was home, because they didn't report back to the hub. When I look at Zigbee settings on the hub, Last message is current and I can see them green on the device graph, so I assumed they were connected. However, when I go the devices themselves and look at Last update time or events, is it months old, basically when I installed them. I have no other problems with the 5 zigbee bulbs throughout the house. Anyone else have this problem with these devices and find a way to solve them?
Did you set up Device Activity Check on them?
It keys off the last activity date/time.
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I have one and it reports battery percentage every 12 hours. I haven't actually tested it in a while to see if it reports a leak. I use the device activity method suggested by @jtmpush18 above.
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Similar to Device Activity Checker. But if you are a dashboard user you could create a tile with Tile Builder Activity Monitor and it would show you the last activity on those devices.
I do something similar for monitoring battery levels.
I can tell that the battery in 'Gary Remote' is dead even though it last reported 100%.
I set up Device Alerts a week ago, and since then I'm getting an alert every day. I do have it refreshing beforehand.
- why is zigbee settings showing them on the network with last message current, but can't even look at events and last activity from Device Details shows a date consistent with the Device Alert?
- how do I get these things to stay connected?
BTW, I have 3 of them, Dishwasher and Washing Machine are exhibiting this behavior, I also have one under the Kitchen sink (next to Dishwasher) that is staying connected and not alerting through Device Alerts. .
Thanks, but don't use a dashboard, do it all through HomeKit
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I will answer your second question first.
2. You keep them connected by making sure there is a good repeater between the sensor and your hub. Check the ZigBee graph chart to make sure the repeater is doing its job. Remember that ZigBee bulbs are not to be used as repeaters
- Please refresh that ZigBee Settings page , and the time/dates should change.
Thanks @jtmpush18, I don't have a repeater, haven't needed one in the past. The bulbs are further away from the hub than the sensors (about 20 ft). And the Zigbee graph chart shows them all connected, here's a picture of it and all show last message today
But when I go to the device I see this in it's settings
I don't understand how Zigbee settings and graph shows it's connected, but at the device settings it's not showing connected, and Device Alerts says it's not - got another daily notification 1 hr ago.
To make it more interesting, I just pulled out the Dishwasher Water Sensor and put it on a wet paper towel to set it off, and got an alert from HomeKit. The Last Activity date/time on the device page updated to current.
I'm thoroughly confused, what is Last Update Time on the device page for? And why is Device Activity telling me this thing isn't connected when it seems to be?
One thing at a time...
The column "last message" on the Zigbee settings page isn't necessarily the last time that the device showed any activity. It could have just passed along a message or showed something else. The only thing that I can really surmise for that screenshot is that "Spare Bedroom Lamp" may be an issue - no messages at all.
As stated previously, the best approach to telling whether a device has fallen off is the Device Activity Report.
Again, may I recommend a repeater close to your Hubitat? A simple plugin (Sonoff or Third Reality or Samsung) is inexpensive and does the job. Alternatively, you can buy from aliexpress.com a simple USB plugin for just a few dollars.
Device Activity Report will tell you that the particular device hasn't reported back to the Hub in X hours. (X can be set to whatever you want). You can also do a refresh on the device just before you check it. If you make X a time period of 24 hours (which I have found to be appropriate for water sensors), and the device comes up on the report, then further investigation is required. Most of the time, the battery is dead. However, sometimes, I have to repair that device to the Hub (you know, strange things do happen sometimes). If that continues to happen (that is, it keeps on falling off) that's a perfect indicator that you need a repeater.
Possible reasons for falling off:
-wifi channel interference (look at your router)
-channel interference with neighbours (do a channel scan)
-lack of repeaters (zigbee device graph)
-etc...
Thanks @jtmpush18, appreciate the follow-up. The Spare Bedroom is off, that's why it's not reporting, but if I turn the light switch on it works so that's not a concern. The concern is the ThirdReality water sensors specifically.
I'm getting notifications from Device Alert that include the water sensors, and I'm assuming when I get an alert that means they have fallen off the network. However, when I test the sensor it seems to work, so not sure why I'm getting the alert, When looking at the logs/events they don't seem to provide much help.
I will order a repeater and try that, seems to be the easiest thing to resolve this, and suppose it can only make the network more robust. Thanks again. I'll report back if that doesn't work.
Bought a thirdreality plug and installed next to the hub but nothing has changed, still getting the same device alerts about the water sensors. Any other suggestions?
Installing next to the hub does not do much good. Install it in a central location so that it can reach those sensors tha the hub is not communicating with.
I installed a second one within a couple feet of the sensor. So now I have the hub, 2 repeaters, and two sensors within about 20 ft with no walls. The sensor under the sink isn’t reporting on Device Alert, but the Dishwasher sensor is. Any other thoughts?
Again, using Device Activity Report allows an option to force a refresh before checking the activity (traffic from that specific device) state - Basically the "Last Activity At" field on the device.
I'm not familiar with the "Device Alerts" app, but it sounds like it's checking every 24 hrs, given your statement of getting a daily alert - My Third Reality (TR) Water sensors, typically check in around every 24 hrs (and that's not exact, as I don't think that have a very accurate internal clock). So not sure if you can push the "Device Alerts" alerting interval back to 36 hrs.
Either way, The TR devices are likely indeed staying connected - You can actually test this by changing the device driver type for the device in HE to a generic ZB switch, and turn the device "on" and you'll hear the alert beep. - Obviously switch back to the proper Zigbee water sensor driver, after testing - But, if you can turn the alert beeper on/off, then it's obviously still on the ZB mesh
My suggestion, as I've had problems with the "periodic check-ins" on some devices, is for those with problems, write a quick RM rule to refresh the problem devices, if no attributes activity is seen in "x" hrs (the below uses 34 hrs for the max refresh interval, but you can adjust as needed, given your alerting period). You don't want to just force refresh these things every hour, or you get lousy battery life, but the below "pings" them now and then, automatically, if they haven't had any activity in 34 hrs - Then the existing Device Activity check does the appropiate alerting for anything that's still unresponsive (usually dead batteries). I don't do this on all my TR ZB devices, but it something goes 2 days without a check-in, and the beeper/alert test shows it working, then I add that device to this rule.
This was worked well for me, for a year or two, and avoids false alerts, yet doesn't add much to the battery load with pointless wake ups and traffic. YMMV. - But I put up with a bit of extra work here on TR ZB sensors, as I like the local beeper, the fact that these sensors are cheap (but a bit ugly), and I LOVE the AAA batteries, versus dealing with more coin cells - These things seem to run about 2 years before requiring a battery change. I use the Zooz Z-wave water sensors where they are visible, and not inside some cabinet.
Thank for the info and RM to refresh.
I'm am using the refresh for these devices in Device Activity Check and that's set to 24 hours. The Device Alert I mentioned is related to the alert/notification I'm getting from Device Activity Check.
What is "Last Activity At" field related to? It seems to be related to the last time the device was triggered, or in the case of the TR sensors they alert, It doesn't seem to the related to whether or not the device is reporting / responding and connected to the hub, I'm coming to this conclusion because it's using "Last Activity At" which is when the last time I triggered the sensor. That is the date I see in the field in the devices details section, the devices events, and when I get the daily Device Activity Alert report, they all say 4/13. However, I also see the command to refresh the device every day since then at exactly the same time, and on the zigbee settings I see the last message as being today. Clearly it's currently connected, but I'm still getting the Daily Activity Report notification with this device on it showing last activity 4/13. Shouldn't I only be getting the notification for a device that's no longer connected?
It’s best to let go of the idea that battery-powered Zigbee End Devices maintain a connection to the hub.
I think there is some kind of minimum heartbeat/keep alive requirement for ZEDs to communicate with the controller in the Zigbee spec but from memory it’s measured in days and many ZEDs don’t bother with it (eg Sonoff). Thankfully HE is permissive about those and in my experience they never get kicked off.
So ZEDs are only ever paired to the mesh the hub is controlling and are only “connected”, in any useful sense of the word, at the very moment they communicate something and not otherwise.
Thank you for your reposes, but I'm bit confused by this, and the meaning of highlighting of portions of my earlier response. Are you saying this because zigbee, when powered by battery is not reliable, or is it something else? Does that mean that leak sensors provide a false sense of security, considering most are battery powered, and many do not have audible alarms so they rely on staying connected?
I've been a long time hubitat user an have my whole house automated, but never had leak sensors until I recently had a dishwasher leak causing $50k worth of damages that the insurance company denied to cover. So I researched what I could do to not let that happen again, resulting in buying pans and leak sensors. I did quite a bit of research on the sensors themselves finding that TR seemed to be a reliable choice that also offered audible alerts. I thought the dishwasher was fixed until I got a call from the wife telling me that something was beeping loudly under the dishwasher, however, I got no notice on my phone. The device that I thought was connected, was not, and luckily she happened to be home to hear the audible alert. So I did more research to find Device Alert Report that would supposedly tell me if the device was off the network so could proactively resolve. However, it's sending me a report from every daily check listing this and some of the other devices which I'm interpreting that the device has fallen off the network based on the documentation for the app. As mentioned, that you highlighted,
I'm trying to understand how this app works because it seems to me that it does not work as it's described, or I'm not understanding something. I was hoping it's me not understanding something with the app, but that doesn't seem to be the case, it just doesn't do what it says it should do.
Ultimately, I just want a reliable way to detect leaks. If there's a better way to do this I'd love to hear about it as this has become more difficult that it should be.
Have you seen this?
What version of the firmware are you running?
(By the way, if you do decide to update the firmware, please note that it takes a few minutes. Check your logs to make sure that the device is finished updating. Only do 1 device at a time. )
You should get messages in your log like this:
P.S. After updating the firmware of my TR Motion Sensor, the Battery went from 35% to 98%. So, I'm just not sure how accurate the battery number is.
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Thanks @jtmpush18 and @bbrannon, nice to see I’m not going crazy and this is a known problem. Found that 2 of the 3 sensors have firmware 38, and the other is 34. Tried updating the 34 but it doesn’t seem to be working. I have using the generic no temp driver. I did remove and re-add the dishwasher sensor and it seems to be reporting temp with the refresh from Device Activity in events, the last activity in the device’s settings is updating at that same time, and it didn’t show up on the report today. The other one that is 38 is not showing any of those events. I’ll give it a couple days to confirm it’s operating correctly, and then I’ll remove the others and re-add them to see if that solves their problem. I’ll report back
