Hi All,
Im struggling to get the device activity reported correctly for the zigbee devices. This doesnt seem to affect z-wave devices.
Here's the situation. I have device activity check app, by RMoRobert installed, set to report on inactive device based on the "Last Activity at" value and the app is working as designed, so no issues there.
But, here's where the issue is. I can see active messages from the devices in question in the zigbee, settings details applet, so the devices are definitely online and communicating, but the " Last activity at" for those devices isnt updated and can be reporting last activity for days ago, which of course give me a slew of false negatives in the Activity monitor report. The only way, it seems to me, to get the "Last Activity at" to update is to actually trigger an action for that device. So at this point my assumption is that "Last activity at" value isnt tied to the device zigbee routine messages that are going back in forth and is only tied to the actual action? Is that right?
Which, at the end leaves me with a question, how do i then properly monitor for these devices actually going off-line, if the " Last activity at" value isnt it.
Thanks all!
Correct, those values are are not stored in the hub database or accessible to apps (there was some discussion about this a while back, and it's intentional because of the amount of traffic there could be).
That is still likely your best option. You have a few ways to make this work better:
- Increase your "inactivity threshold" for that group of devices in the app you're using (my Device Activity Check) to an interval that more accurately represents your device usage
- For, ideally, small numbers of rarely-used devices that do not otherwise generate activity, consider enabling the "Refresh" option for that group -- if your devices report new "Last Activity At" data after a "Refresh," as many do
Also, consider if this kind of monitoring is even helpful for that kind of device in the first place; it's great for battery-powered sensors where you want a way to know if the battery may have gone dead, especially something like a water leak sensor that might be important and hard to see in real life or a motion sensor or remote that might at least be annoying. Mains-powered actuators are not the kind of thing likely to just "fall off" your network, and if they do, you'll likely notice during use -- and it would be good to find and fix whatever the cause for that was.
Keep in mind that, as I mentioned, you can create multiple "groups" of devices that all have different criteria. I have some with days of "inactivity" allowed due to their low reporting frequency (300-series Z-Wave sirens, for one).
I'd second what @bertabcd1234 has said. Monitoring battery devices for battery failure is quite useful. I find I have some contact sensors that start at 100% and are still at 100% when they stop reporting because the battery is dead. So I monitor inactivity and battery level side by side.
My "Office Door" is looking dodgy there, if it gets to 24 hours it's dead for sure.
Unless you are having problems with your Zigbee mesh (things not operating) it probably isn't worth worrying about it as fault tolerance is built into it.
If you are curious about what is happening on a repeater you can try my Zigbee Monitor Driver which will show you all the neighbors, children, LQI etc
[RELEASE] Zigbee Monitor Driver - Like XRAY Vision for Zigbee Repeaters and simple Switches There is a substantial difference in signal strength between different manufacturers devices.
Because I wrote the Zigbee monitor driver and Tile Builder I have ignored my own advice and keep a view of my Zigbee data (from the driver) which is updated hourly. Fortunately, after some rework and getting rid of some poor repeaters my Zigbee mesh is now very solid except for a couple of 3rd Reality devices but their signal is so poor they don't have any children.
Thank you very much folks for very insightful responses.
@garyjmilne your driver looks terrific! Already installed it onto a virtual device and will play around with it, when i have some free time.
@bertabcd1234 I've setup additional device refresh rule, via rule machine to run on nightly basis, as im not sure if the device refresh option through the activity monitoring app is doing what is has to.. i ran the ad-hoc report this morhing and the inactive list is smaller already. Still its a mix of outlets, lights and leak sensors. Honestly, i'm not worried about the outlets and lights all that much, and i can always setup another rule to do a quick on/off toggle on them, as part of the refresh rule. My main worry are the leak sensors, as these are the last sensors you want offline without you knowing (or being false negative/positive)
Here's the list of the device currently being reported on as offline by the activity app. As you can see some of them are reportedly offline for a while, however, in-fact, all of these devices are online, as i can see active messages for all of them for today, in the zigbee details.
FYI, on these list there are only two brands that seem to have an issue. These are either Leaksmart water sensors, or the Sylvania/Osram flex lights are outlets, which are always on and whereas i can understand the leaksmart, i dont understand why the Sylvania devices are having the activity report in issue.
