Question

Last Wednesday I installed a Samsung multipurpose sensor in our mailbox. It works good to alert us when box is opened but I noticed the battery steadily going down - it’s at 64% after only 5 days. Is this possibly a bad application af this device or maybe a bad battery or battery calibration, like maybe it will go down to 1% quickly and then stay there for a while?  

Answer 1

Generally it goes down fast right off the bat then settles in.  

Answer 2

I posted the same question recently. Mine went down quick and stopped dropping. I've been told the battery reporting is unreliable.  

Answer 3

I tried that but it went flat in a week. I suspect that the mailbox blocks the signal so the sensor polls more frequently thus flattening the battery. I moved the sensor to the outside of the box and it lasted a lot longer.  

Answer 4

Dropping fast at first is fairly common. Many battery powered devices do that, drop like a rock the first few days or week, then steady off and hold there for awhile. Battery level sensing is crude at best in these devices.  

Answer 5

I've had a motion sensor on 1% in a heavy use room for 5 months now, and it's not an isolated incident, all of my ST battery devices are pretty much the same. Battery reporting is very unreliable, so now I just wait until devices completely die. I dread to think how much cash I've wasted on batteries changing at 1% in the past.  

Answer 6

Also someone advised me its how you hold the batteries I did not know if you hold them front and back it creates the circuit and drains them when u put them in. Just thought I'd pass it on apologoes if I'm teaching you guys how to suck eggs.  

Answer 7

Mine is about 25 days old and down to 85% . how close is the sensor to the hub? are there any zigbee routers inbetween (plugs or bulbs)? when i first got my zwave door lock i had hub at opposite side of house the battery drain was horrible, i moved the hub closer and now it lasts months. also as mentioned above the material of the box could be having a negative impact

Comments

@pachton8 hey Pete. Thanks for the reply. To answer your questions - the hub is about 75 feet away. There are 2 zwave switches in between but I guess they don’t repeat for Zigbee?  

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No, you would need a pugin zigbee device to help . Zigbee is quite a weak from my understanding (in comparison to say wifi) so the smaller the gap between a end point and a router device the better

Answer 8

I ordered these. They work natively with SmartThings and take a 2 AA batteries. They are refurbished. Great price.  
https://www.ebay.com/itm/163688695117

Answer 9

Just FYI if you have a metal mailbox, you essentially have a Faraday cage that you’re electromagnetic sensor lives inside. If you notice the battery running down, it’s probably continually trying to connect and maybe succeeding and then failing in a loop. A thick brick mailbox will have almost the same effect depending on the distance from your wireless access point or closest Z-wave repeater device.  

Comments

@foredo2221 thanks Josh. This is a plastic mailbox - definitely was a deal-maker on this trial that I happened to have a plastic box.  

Answer 10

Lol, percentage went up today, was 63 yesterday now it’s 79.  

Answer 11

I just setup the same thing last weekend. Lol

Answer 12

Battery powered devices need an AC repeater to connect when the device is 30+ feet from the hub. They will eat batteries trying to communicate with a distant hub. Compound that with the sensor being in a mailbox. Replace the closest wall switch with a Zigbee smart switch. Or add a Zigbee plug in a protected outside outlet as close to the mailbox as possible. It’s true that battery level reporting isn’t 100% accurate. In that sensor you should get about a year on a battery if your Zigbee network is strong.  

Answer 13

You can probably decrease power drain by improving your mesh and having a repeater as close to the device as possible.