EDIT: I just realized it isn't working again. Could it be that I had a bunch of aluminum patio furniture stacked up in the garage, which I got rid of yesterday, and it was somehow acting as an antenna?
If there's a "general discussion" section I couldn't find it. I don't need help, I just have a question.
I have an Aeotec sensor on my garage door and a rule in Hubitat that sends open/closed notifications to my phone.
When I first installed the sensor it worked but over time it was unreliable. I fussed with it and was never really able to get it to be reliable. I figured it was the metal of the door, the distance to the hub or whatever and gave up on it.
It has been many months since I got the open/close notification. Then a few days ago out of the blue it just started working again.
I'm curious if anyone has any ideas what changed? Could it have been a problem with Hubitat cloud?
Temperature swings can pretty easily mess with the gap distance, and it doesn't take much either way to induce inconsistent results -- could that be a possibility here?
It's possible. Do you think having a bunch of aluminum patio furniture in the garage could be why it started working? I got rid of that stuff yesterday and now it's not working again
Wow. I know mine is affected by vegetation and rain, in a bad way, but that's outside.
I don't recall anyone posting about something like this, that got it working.
I might try the same because the ZEN tilt sensors are unreliable like yours. Ecolinks have been fine. Now all I have to do is go to the dump and find some old lawn furniture.
Have you confirmed the device is not recording events that you know happened? E g. By looking in the device events page. Basically, what are you basing your concern about the sensor on, the notification not arriving or events logged (or not) to HE?
@hydro311 may have been correct here about the contact distance. It was warmer for the past week and a little cooler today. Or maybe I bumped it and that's when it started working. I just went out and peeled it off the double sided tape then put it back on so it's nearly making physical contact with the magnet and now it's working again.
I wonder if the garage door itself has some play and isn't always seated in the exact same place. I'll have to keep an eye on it.
My Zigbee one reports temperature as well, so you can get a sense of it being connected by the temperature changes. Does yours do this? Or just the contact?
Also, is it battery powered? If so, could it need replacing?
My garage is detached and unconditioned, and it sees seasonal temp swings from 100+ down to -20F. After I set up my reed sensors, I noticed the one on the vertical rail could get a false open during strong wind gusts against the door, so it took a bit of trial-&-error to nail down that sensor's positioning to accomodate both gust-related and temp-related movements/shifts. But it's now been solid out there for years since.
