Excessive Battery usage

[mbreeden]

I am have an issue with one of my HSM100. I put brand new batteries in on Tuesday of last week and they were dead by Friday. These are setup just like my other two HSM100 and I usually get 3-4 months from those and they have the same traffic patterns if not more. This has been an ongoing issue. I tried to see if there were a hardware setting that could be different from the others but they are setup the same.

Any Ideas??

- Mike

[Mark42]

Mike,

I have previously posted on this topic as well. I opened a ticket on this on 29-Oct-09 as I believe it is a defective unit (I have 2 other HSMs which are fine). The ticket is currently still unresolved.

The HSM in question has previously burned through a set of batteries in 6 weeks, but the last set expired after about 3 weeks.

Mark

[tahl]

Me too

I'm brand new to these devices. One of my devices which has been up for about 4 days and in a very active area still shows 100% battery. The other one has been up for the same time but in a _low_ traffic area and it's already at 96%. They are set up identically. So I'm wondering what gives.

The bad news is that I just ordered 4 more!

[Mark42]

tahl,

My experience is that the reported battery % is very unreliable. My (presummed) faulty HSM100 never reports anything but 100%, but when the batteries finally die, it reports motion when there is none (as reported by others as well).

I have two other HSM100s which work fine (but always report 100% battery); I think they are still on there original batteries ~9-10 months.

I would not worry about the reported 96% value.

Mark

[tahl]

faulty reporting?

Well that's horrible.... I was hoping on my automation adding a to-do task to replace batteries when they got low but if it's unreliable, I guess I won't. That was actually a selling point!

Also, faulty motion reporting is also not good although I never believe motion detectors 100%. I will assume 99% though.

Tahl

[kaldoon]

What version of HomeSeer you guys running? The latest version 2.4.0.1 is a major improvement for battery operated devices over earlier versions of the software. I am utilizing 4 HSM100's sensors in my network and they have been far more consistent.

[tahl]

battery pooping out

I'm running 2.4.0.1 BUT I'm not sure what that has to do with it unless you believe the reporting to be incorrect vs. the device reporting the wrong thing.

If it were the software, I would expect consistency of reporting across devices whereas I think what people are saying is that some devices report battery level in an unexpected way and some don't.

Tahl

[Mark42]

I'm still running 2.3.0.19.

It is unclear to me how this would affect the % battery value reported every 24 hours (1440 minutes) by my HSM100s. Perhaps others see more diverse values with faster reporting rates?

It is also unclear what, if any, resolution I will see on my open ticket.

Since the issue on this HSM100 is current draw, not motion detection, perhaps I should consider this unit as a candiate for a wall wart conversion.

Mark

[tahl]

Don't give up!

I think we should get an explanation from Homeseer. Afterall, it was advertised as having the four functions -- including battery check. I, for one, cannot but a wall wart in some places. It might be a logical explanation ... who knows?

Tahl

[kaldoon]

What do you have the wake-up interval set at - the 4 HSM100's on my network are set to wake-up every 6 minutes battery life is 8 to 10 weeks. The battery level indicator has been flakey at best - my sensors will display anywhere between 96 % to 100% with new batteries - they will display like for along time maybe going down 1, 2 or 3 percent when the Sensor stops working if I wake it up the battery might drop 25% or 30% but that's not every time. Change the batteries - I keep 50+ AAA's on-hand.

[Mark42]

My wakeup is set to 1440 minutes and only the battery level is logged. The temperature and light level and configured to not log; this configuration apparently helps with battery life.

Mark

[tahl]

Has HS resolved battery issue?

mark42,

Was your ticket ever responded to my HS? I have two out of my six HSMs showing 100% battery, but since the last time they were checked was 12/1, I'm thinking something's flakey. I suppose it theortically possible but seems highly unlikely.

I was going to write a script to add a task to change batteries when low automatically but if it's flakey, well it's probably now worth the bother.

I'm hoping that since my HSMs are brand new that I won't encounter the flakey issues that you guys are....

Tahl

[Mark42]

Tahl,

I have heard nothing on my ticket.

In an effort to cloud the issue with facts (as an old boss of mine used to say) I ran the following test today (and appended the results to the ticket submission).

I powered a 'good' HSM100 with an external 3x AAA battery holder with a milliamp meter (Simpson 160) attached in series. At power-up the good HSM100 consumes ~25mA for 10 minutes; after this the power comsumption drops to ~0.05mA.

The same test was performed with the 'bad' HSM100. At power-up it too consumed ~25mA; after 10 minutes however, the power consumption dropped to 3.0mA approximately 60 times more than than the 'good' HSM100. This would explain the drastically shorter battery lifetime of this unit.

The 10 minutes would simply be the 'wake up' time of the Z-Wave device. Both devices had the same configuration from Homeseer. Both tests were conducted with the HSM100 units in a closed box so there was no light and no motion.

Interestingly, after the reset both HSM100s initialize to Motion Detected and remain in that state until the first wake-up and report interval (1 hour).

Mark

[Rupp]

Tahl,

I have heard nothing on my ticket.

In an effort to cloud the issue with facts (as an old boss of mine used to say) I ran the following test today (and appended the results to the ticket submission).

I powered a 'good' HSM100 with an external 3x AAA battery holder with a milliamp meter (Simpson 160) attached in series. At power-up the good HSM100 consumes ~25mA for 10 minutes; after this the power comsumption drops to ~0.05mA.

The same test was performed with the 'bad' HSM100. At power-up it too consumed ~25mA; after 10 minutes however, the power consumption dropped to 3.0mA approximately 60 times more than than the 'good' HSM100. This would explain the drastically shorter battery lifetime of this unit.

The 10 minutes would simply be the 'wake up' time of the Z-Wave device. Both devices had the same configuration from Homeseer. Both tests were conducted with the HSM100 units in a closed box so there was no light and no motion.

Interestingly, after the reset both HSM100s initialize to Motion Detected and remain in that state until the first wake-up and report interval (1 hour).

Mark

Are there any dates on these devices that may help identify the differences? Sounds like a library issue or bad electronics.

[Mark42]

Rupp,

The 0.05mA device is (I believe) serial number 1832, the 3mA device is serial number 1815. Both were purchased about 11 months ago from the Homeseer store (I have a total of three purchased from Homeseer in the last 12 months). I can't be absolutely sure about the serial numbers as the number is on the removeable back; during testing in the last few months the unit could have been switched into a different back.

The 3mA device has what looks to be a date code of 1208 (partially obscured by the battery holder). This would be consistent with the purchase date.

Mark