Yale YRD110/B1L burns through batteries

Hi everyone

Several years ago I bought a Yale YRD210 deadbolt for my front door. It's one with a keypad AND a keyed lock cylinder - I told myself I wanted the key backup just in case. Now, years later, I haven't used the key a single time. The batteries on the lock last for over a year, and I've been super happy with the lock.

So I decided to get Yale z-wave locks for my other doors. They make the YRD110 (also known as B1L) model which looks the same, except it doesn't have a key cylinder. It has 9V battery terminals on the outside so you can power it up to enter a code if the batteries are dead. This one has z-wave built-in, rather than being a separate module like on the YRD210.

So I ordered three. Got them all installed, got them paired up to hubitat no issue - all 3 showed that they were securely paired. All 3 behaved properly.

But they've been burning through batteries like crazy. When I first got them installed, I used whatever AA batteries I had sitting around. After a few days, 2 of the locks were dead. Could have been my bad batteries - so I ordered the top of the line Energizer Lithium AA batteries and installed them. Now, about a month later, I noticed that they aren't responding and the last action in hubitat is from 7/29. The third YRD110 is still working.

All locks always report 100% battery to hubitat. I guess this is a Yale quirk? Even the dead ones reported 100% most recently before they died.

As for usage, the front door is really the only lock that gets locked/unlocked remotely with any regularity, and its 4xAA batteries always last over a year. The only time the other 3 new locks get used is once per day when I hit the "good night" automation and it sends a lock command to them - yet they're draining over 10x faster.

All 3 locks are within range of hubitat such that they don't go through repeaters. I COULD TRY excluding them, hard resetting them, re-including them RIGHT by the hubitat, and leaving them there for 5 minutes before reinstalling them, but I don't really see what that could do for me, especially considering one of the offending locks is on the door going into the room with the hubitat, so it's maybe 6 feet away at all times anyway.

Has anybody else experienced this? How am I supposed to keep track of it if it always shows 100% battery? Is there a different/better driver for me to use? Can I configure hubitat to ALERT me if a lock doesn't respond (so I know immediately when the batteries are dead instead of realizing a week later that the buttons don't work)?

Edit: I guess I should also point out that I am using Homebridge to expose my Hubitat devices to Apple Home - I considered that perhaps this could add excessive polling, however I can't imagine this is the issue, considering my YRD210 still gets stellar battery life.

What is the voltage on the batteries for the locks that appear "dead"? And I would strongly recommend building a strong z-wave mesh with repeaters before including 4 locks ......

Edit: FWIW, in my experience, a brand new AA cell has about 1.62-1.65 VDC, and my locks are fine until the battery voltage drops to around 1.4 VDC.

I checked the voltage on one of the dead batteries and it was stone cold dead, didn't even lift the needle on my AA battery voltage checker. Maybe I got a bad batch of batteries?

As for my Z-wave network - I have lots of devices, including hardwired ones, and a good mesh going - what I am saying is that all 3 of the new locks are within 15 feet of the hub - there are no other z-wave devices in the middle - so in this case, I don't NEED any meshing devices to relay the signals, and that should simplify the troubleshooting. Due to the way my house is set up, all 3 of these new locks are right near my IT room.

Radio waves find their own path; it is very rare for the actual path to meet what is anticipated by oneโ€™s eyes. I would recommend adding a single dedicated repeater within 3-4 feet of the Hubitat.

I added a Aeotec mains-powered dedicated Z-wave plus repeater/extender, installed it in the room with the hubitat, securely paired it, and did Z-wave repairs on my deadbolts. Unsurprisingly, none of the deadbolts are using the repeater to reach the hub. One is bouncing through a hardwired light switch and the one that dies in 2 weeks is communicating directly to the hub.