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battery changing ..


alandee

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Hi,

 Now, I've been down this path before, every year indeed I go through it .. the manual ( in this instance I am referring directly to the Fibaro Door Window Sensors and it's manual

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) suggests you have to change the battery when it turn red ( in my case when I get sick of all the reminder emails which we can't control frequency etc ! ) but the reality is for a number that I change it will not go smoothly, and this year it has annoyed me more than usual

 

<rant>

 

Quote

Replacing the battery:
Life of the battery included with the device is from 12 to 24 months
(on default settings).
In FIBARO Home Center controller current battery level is displayed
in the interface. If a battery icon turns red, it means the battery needs
replacement.

 

The reality is, you need to ensure the door is open so as to avoid an accidental reset.

The reality is, you need to wake the device up once you have finished.

The reality is, you often have to reset the device.

The reality is I've had to remove and re add a device once I've changed a battery.

 

Why does the manual just say change the battery !?

Am I doing something wrong all these years ? ( not according to the manual .. just change the battery ! )

Is there a way to change the frequency of reminder emails ? I'd like one a week then perhaps one a day, not one every 2 hours for the duration ;)

 

</rant>

 

Cheers,

al.

 

 

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I can confirm what you say: the last year, changing batteries on FGK-101 has not gone smoothly here either. It ended, a few times, in exclude/include (the excluded didn't do anything, confirming the idea that the sensor was reset). So, although I am fully aware of the possible accidental reset, it happens to me too. I think you can add this to the list: to wake up the device, the tamper switch on the back has to be pressed (it gets "un-pressed" because the foam of the sticky tape expands over time). Also, the new batteries have to be of really good quality (low series resistance). To test with a voltmeter, I always load the battery with a 1 k resistor. If voltage <= 3.4 Volt it's not good. There is also the possibility to force the battery status via API, as far as I can tell that will give "battery full" for 24 hours, but I don't know the details behind this.

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  • On 24/10/2016 at 6:19 PM, petergebruers said:

    I can confirm what you say: the last year, changing batteries on FGK-101 has not gone smoothly here either. It ended, a few times, in exclude/include (the excluded didn't do anything, confirming the idea that the sensor was reset). So, although I am fully aware of the possible accidental reset, it happens to me too. I think you can add this to the list: to wake up the device, the tamper switch on the back has to be pressed (it gets "un-pressed" because the foam of the sticky tape expands over time). Also, the new batteries have to be of really good quality (low series resistance). To test with a voltmeter, I always load the battery with a 1 k resistor. If voltage <= 3.4 Volt it's not good. There is also the possibility to force the battery status via API, as far as I can tell that will give "battery full" for 24 hours, but I don't know the details behind this.

     

    Cheers Peter, It makes me a little less annoyed knowing you also have had an issue or two ;-)

    Door open or closed ? I've done both, neither seems to make it more smoothly though.

    I agree with the sticky foam, I've got aluminium doors in the newer part of the house and they are stickied on .. i change the sticky each battery change as I find the tmp button on the top unreliable, but it may be as you suggest now that I think about it !


    Cheers,

    al.

     

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    • 4 weeks later...

    @ Peter and AlanD

     

    I have one Suggestion but have not tried it on those fibaro devices yet, but on other gear which does not allow for an interrupted battery change as well.

     

    I used one new battery and was soldering two cables on the poles (+ and -). At the end of the cables there are those "grippers" - hope you know what I mean. Then I connect the battery with the cable in parallel to the one which should be exchanged. I then exchange the almost empty battery and replace it with a new one.

     

    This way I make sure that the device is not running out of power during the battery Exchange.

     

    Again - I have not tried it on a fibaro device but on other devices were the RAM might never be disconnected from power and it worked.

     

    It is a lot of tampering around initially but once you got the hang of it it saves you from re-including, resetting etc. pp the device....

     

    Thoughts?

     

    BR

     

    kandetvara

    Edited by kandetvara
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    @kandetvara thanks for sharing! Indeed, I remember "the (not so) good old days before flash memory and EEPROM". Memory was kept alive by means of coin cells or special modules (anyone remember "DALLAS" real time clock module for PC? With built-in lithium cell?). I think the only drawback of your suggestion is possible reversing of the polarity. The FGK will survive, it is protected agains that "manoeuvre", but it kind of defeats the purpose. It'll work though! Just for fun and pleasure, I added a 1 F (farad!) 5.5 V "super capacitor" to FGK (you can connect them to the screw terminals, where you normally put a Dallas temp sensor). It's an ugly hack, the capacitor looks like a somewhat bigger 2032 coin cell and dangles from the sensor. But I have replaced the battery about 30 times and my sensor didn't reset once... :-)

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  • genius !

    I love the aligator clip idea, and the capacitor idea .. :)

    Cheers,

    al.

     

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    • 2 weeks later...

    All this with batteries on door/window sensors is strange. In just few days I get e-mail from two of this sensors that battery is low. When I checked with my scene that scans all battery powered sensors for this two I always get that battery is on 255%! How battery can be empty and on 255% when it is on 100% when is new and full?

     

    On the other hand when battery drops bellow 20% there is no e-mails or warning?

     

    So my question is: on what percentage system gives alarm and sends e-mail? What is the threshold of battery emptiness in percentage when it gives warning? Also why is system showing 255% for empty battery (even this two are not empty for sure!)?

     

    First door/windows sensor was brand new with new battery but for some reason system started to show that battery is empty. When sensor wake up and send battery status it was green and ok for about five minutes and then again show that battery is empty? After soft and hard reconfiguration what didn't help I excluded and included back this sensor with SAME battery and now is ok.

     

    The other sensor has same problem. Battery is quite new, replaced two months ago and it seems that I will have to exclude and include this one too.

     

    On the other hand I have several motion and smoke sensors which batteries are still on 100% after 1 year in service :-P  Blah, something stinks here, doesn't it?

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    1 hour ago, Sankotronic said:

    All this with batteries on door/window sensors is strange. In just few days I get e-mail from two of this sensors that battery is low. When I checked with my scene that scans all battery powered sensors for this two I always get that battery is on 255%! How battery can be empty and on 255% when it is on 100% when is new and full?

     

    As far as I know 255 is the same as completely empty.

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    1 minute ago, Alex said:

     

    As far as I know 255 is the same as completely empty.

    Nice, but from where did you get that information? Anyway that is not answer to my question. My question is at what percentage it is jumping to 255% and start sending warning e-mails?

     

    BTW, after closing window, that second door/windows sensor battery suddenly became normal again showing 46%!

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    Yes, level 255 is the same as level 0. You can find it in the openzwave source code. I quote:

     

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    Please note this important, and I think very accurate, subtlety in the comment: "we RECEIVED a report". So when the battery is empty, the device has to send "battery empty". In order to do that, it has to switch on a transmitter that uses 1000 x more power than when the device in standby. I think, this is speculation, depending on calibration, temperature and battery quality, the device may fail to sand an "empty" message. It does not happen very often, but a MultiSensor (the old one) using NiMH batteries, can exhibit this behaviour too... If it's really important to know if a battery operated device is alive, I can only think of using the "last update" of one of its properties to guess if it's still alive.

     

    I do not really know the % that is used to give warnings. But I'm not sure if you could attach a lot of meaning to this. Every Z-Wave device uses its own battery detection mechanism, and Z-Wave does not oblige the manufacturer to give any kind of accuracy to the battery level. And then it still depends on calibration, temperature and battery. BTW one of my battery powered devices only has 4 levels: empty, full and two "in between". I don't remember which one, sorry!

     

    I think it makes sense, on the FGK, to force a wake-up after a minute or so. I'm under the impression that it helps, but I'm not sure.

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    Hi @petergebruers,

     

    What you write actually make sense. But it is strange that sensor is reporting normal battery status and it is green for five minutes and then goes to red alert showing that battery is empty until next sensor wakeup. BTW during wakeup I get "Transfer OK".

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