Zooz 4 in 1 - illuminance is always 53, never changes

I'm new to Hubitat and bought the Zooz 4 in 1 to play with.
The temp, humidity & motion all work fine, but illuminance is always 53.
Bright light or dark bag, always 53.

  • deviceType: 8225
  • inClusters: 0x5E,0x86,0x72,0x5A,0x85,0x59,0x73,0x80,0x71,0x31,0x70,0x84,0x7A,0x98
  • firmwareVersion: 17.9
  • deviceId: 8449
  • manufacturer: 634

Any ideas on if I need an update or to try some different?

Also, I found that once outside of the range to check-in, it kills the battery fast... from what I read it's trying to check in often and will suck it dry.

Thanks for any help down my new home automation journey!!

Rich

I have one outside. The max LUX never gets higher than 53. It's well within range of my Z-Wave mesh so the battery is doing really well.

I have 3 of these that also only ever report Lux of 1. It never changes no matter what type (sun, flashlight etc) or how strong of a light I try shining into the sensor.

The rest of the sensor seems to work like normal. I have run "config" a few times to see if it will do anything.

Driver bug of some type? Error upon inclusion?

Understood, but mine never changes from 53... in the dark it's 53, in the light it's 53.
Something isn't reading on the driver as the other readings all work.
I'm too new to Hubitat to try to play with drivers at this point... hopefully someone will tinker :slightly_smiling_face:
I do appreciate the reply!

Yeah, seems to be something up, maybe driver.
I'll try excluding and reincluding to see if that helps since I have no rules other than testing at this point.

you guys understand that this device doesn't actually report Lux right?

Internally it reports a value of 0 to 100, which is 0 to 100 percent of what?, exactly...

We attempt to convert this into Lux by doing some math on it, but if you actually want real Lux values you're going to need a different device...

From the manual:
Light Sensor
Reports light level in percentage (1-100).
Parameter 4: Use it to choose light percentage change to be reported by
the sensor.
Values: 5 - 50 where 5 stands for 5% and 50 stands for 50%. Default set to
10%.
Size: 1 byte dec.

I was figuring that out, but 53 is still 53... no change.
Conversion or not, a never changing number is still an issue :slight_smile:

Might want to ping Zooz...

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Mine are all also stuck at 1, no changes ever. I don't care about the scale, whether it is lux, percentage, or whatever. It is that the light sensor are totally unresponsive.

What are the chances of having 3 bad ones that were purchased at different times from different sources? I would say the chances are pretty slim, but you never know...

Mine is showing values between 1 and 53. I only purchased 1 as I was not impressed with the illuminance feature of the device, but it is reporting.

Turn on debug logging, put it under a light for 5 minutes, then move it somewhere darker and wait 5 minutes, and then post the logging results for that device.

It usually checks the temp, light, and humidity at 3 minute intervals and if any of those values exceed their reporting thresholds then it reports all 3 values. In theory, after performing the steps I mentioned above you should see at least 6 SensorMultilevelReport entries in the logs.

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Turn on debug logging, put it under a light for 5 minutes, then move it somewhere darker and wait 5 minutes, and then post the logging results for that device.

There was no response from the two sensors (only two are easy to access for testing) when I did this.

I did an exclusion and inclusion to both sensors, but I did it less than a foot from the hub. I'm not sure how far away or details of how I did the inclusion last time, so I can't compare notes.

I don't know what happened, but after the re-inclusion, both sensors seem to work as you specify, at least at this point in time. They are not particularly fast sensors, but they seem to work.

I suspect there may be something flaky about Z-wave inclusion with certain devices or something. Weird that all 3 of the same device flaked out on inclusion, and with the same parameter...

I'm using the ZSE40 in an upstairs hallway to turn on lights if there is motion and the light level is below a threshold (i.e. night vs. day). It works well for that and I get various "lux" readings (typically 0-25 because it doesn't get direct sunlight). My battery is still at 100% after several weeks of use.

How often are you getting lux updates? The manual discusses the long default wake-up interval. You can set the light change trigger to 5% to get more frequent updates.

If the tests that @krlaframboise suggested don't resolve the issue, I'd suggest contacting Zooz support or TheSmartestHouse (if you bought it there). I've found them to be very responsive. Maybe @agnes.zooz will also see this and be able to provide some suggestions. In any case, good luck.

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Thanks for the ping @RichCNJ!

@rich1
The sensor may give an impression of not updating values for 2 reasons explained above:

  1. You're testing it by turning the lights on and off and expect an instant response but as it was already mentioned, the sensor only probes the environment (for temp, humidity, and light) every 3 minutes to conserve battery life. It was designed with typical automations in mind so to serve as trigger based on natural brightness levels which don't usually change rapidly. So please wait at least 3 minutes after turning the lights off to see if the sensor updates (if it doesn't, get in touch with our support for more detailed troubleshooting).

  2. 53 seems to be the equivalent number of lux coded in Hubitat for the 100% which the sensor interprets as "bright daylight" (i.e. brightness level that doesn't require additional lighting). That's why it never goes beyond 53. I believe this number (equivalent of 100%) can be adjusted within the handler. Just like with programming a sensor that reports lux, you need to observe which value to match to the level of brightness you're looking to use as trigger.

I hope that helps!

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