I've got 2 Zooz Zen31s in my toddler's room. One under the dresser and one under his bookshelf. I have them both joined in a group so I can control both at once. There is a motion sensor under the bed that at night will turn them on like so
Now... here's the weird thing. Over time, the lights get slowly dimmer until eventually there is no light at all. Unfortunately, the plugs are in places that are hard to reach (behind a bed and behind the dresser) so the only way to easily power cycle them is to flip the breaker.
Here are the same lights, triggered by the same rule, 3 days later.
Two days later (so 5 days after the last power cycle) the lights under the dresser are not even bright enough to get a picture of, but if I look I can tell they are just barely on. Here's the light under the bookshelf.
And here is the log for the group that contains both Zen31s.
These are all logs from today, taken 7 days after the last power cycle. I can't power cycle them at the moment because my PC is on the same circuit, but I will do that later and see if the logs are any different.
Could this be an issue with the Zen31s? The light strips? The power supply? Or something else entirely?
I won't bother posting the screenshots for the log for the ones under the dresser. They are identical to the ones under the bookshelf. I guess the next step is to check the logs again 3 days from now (so it aligns with the 2nd group of photos I posted) and see what it shows.
Until then, any suggestions for what could be causing this?
From the way they are getting dimmer/redder I would say looks like a power issue. The LEDs are not getting enough power to keep them fully on.
That LED strip is WAY more than that power supply can handle. Your power supply is rated for 5A. But that LED strip could use up to 24A(!) if you had every LED (RGB+W) on fully brightness at the same time. They recommend at least a 6A power supply (which could be a bit reasonable since you likely do not need fully brightness all the time). You also say you are using 2 strips (hopefully not full lengths). Just as another piece of information... that strip CAN use up to 4.8A per meter. So if you cut it to a 1 meter (~3ft) section the power supply could handle it fully (more if you keep it dimmer and not all colors on at once).
If you want to keep full strips AND possibly make them super bright with all colors, you are going to need a much more beefy power supply.
Rule of thumb is 20mA per LED (color) at maximum brightness. So an RGB uses 60mA per LED and an RGBW uses 80mA. That strip has 60 of those per meter (~3ft).
It's not full strips. The one under the bookshelf is 2ft and the one under the dresser is 5ft. Each one has it's own power supply.
But I don't understand why they get dimmer over time. This is not constantly powered on either, it's triggered by a motion sensor only between 10pm and 6am and only for a few minutes at a time. And it turns on at only 4% brightness.
Darn. They both have the exact same changes despite different power supplies... so it is definitely NOT the power then. I did not notice the lengths (if mentioned) in the initial post but at those lengths it really should not be an issue of power even if you WERE running them hard. Unless (as was mentioned) there is a wiring issue.
If you do not mind my asking, which driver are you using to control them?
Not sure if any of it sounds familiar, but @mario.ricci had a previous problem with these that got resolved (when involving motion).
Hey - did you add them without security? I had the same problem and excluding/including without security fixed it for me. I see you referenced my post but wasn't sure if you saw my solution. Can you let me know if you've tried that?
