Inclusion of Nest Protect battery Devices?

[MNB]

Is there some way of adding Nest Protect Device (Smoke and C02) unit battery to this plug-in? The issue is that the Protect device only has a "Battery health" Virtual Device that has three conditions; -1 = Unknown, 0 = OK, 1 = Replace. so handling these Heath state isn't the same as battery levels but to be cover all battery devices it would be nice to know their states even though its binary. Any thoughts? Mike

[SteveMSJ]

Is there some way of adding Nest Protect Device (Smoke and C02) unit battery to this plug-in? The issue is that the Protect device only has a "Battery health" Virtual Device that has three conditions; -1 = Unknown, 0 = OK, 1 = Replace. so handling these Heath state isn't the same as battery levels but to be cover all battery devices it would be nice to know their states even though its binary. Any thoughts? Mike

Tricky but I have an idea.

You can set a BatteryFactor in the pi globally, or more usefully for individual devices, to multiply the battery reading by for devices where the range isn't 0-100%. If this was set to a negative value for these devices, say -10, then:

-1 (Unknown) would give a level of +10%
0 (OK) would give a reading of 0%
+1 (Replace) would give a level of -10%.

If the alert was set to -10% for the device then it would alert at the Replace status.

You can't do this at the moment because I purposefully correct negative values to positive values in the pi, assuming they are typing errors. Also -1 for a device BatteryFactor is a special case that the pi sets to indicate that the device should use the global setting.

If you want to pursue this I will see if I can modify the pi so that it is possible.
Can you give me a screenshot of the full group of root/child devices for one of these physical devices so I have a better idea of what they are like.
What monitoring method do you use in SDJ-Health to check they are still alive? I presume Activity Checking.

Steve

[MNB]

Steve,
The attached are screen shoots per your request, if you need something else please don't hesitate. I would think for these type of battery device it would be check that they are still OK. Mike

[SteveMSJ]

Steve,
The attached are screen shoots per your request, if you need something else please don't hesitate. I would think for these type of battery device it would be check that they are still OK. Mike

Thanks Mike, I think that probably gives me all the info I need.

I guess they don't have any kind of heartbeat and neither the parent/root nor any of the children will be updated unless there is an alarm or a test. Unless they are pollable, which I seriously doubt, it doesn't look like there is anyway HS can know whether the device is alive and working other than relying on the battery replace warning. Personally I much prefer devices that have some kind of regular wake-up or heartbeat signal so you know there has not been a hardware failure or a sudden battery death.

I will look at modifying SDJ-Health so that monitoring of the battery replace signal can be incorporated with the monitoring of other battery devices. Whilst I will use Activity Monitoring you will need to turn off alerts on missed wake-ups, for these specific devices with only Level and Life being of use.

I will probably need to get you to add the word 'battery' to the 'Device Type (string)' to be able to recognise the device. As none of the 'Device Type Internal' parameters are set, and I suspect that the 'Device Type (string)' of all the devices is set to 'Nest', there isn't really anyway for the pi to identify the battery health device.

I can't promise when I will get the changes made as I am about to go on holiday but I will certainly do it unless I run into some insurmountable problem that I haven't anticipated.

Steve

[MNB]

Steve, Holiday? August has come and gone other than Guy Fox which is still to come . Other than a heart beat, the only way I would think to tell if the device is either On-Line or Off-Line as it reports within the root device (see attached), Mike

[SteveMSJ]

Steve, Holiday? August has come and gone other than Guy Fox which is still to come . Other than a heart beat, the only way I would think to tell if the device is either On-Line or Off-Line as it reports within the root device (see attached), Mike

It does seem a bit late for a holiday but at least everything is a lot cheaper out of season

Interesting, but I wonder what the Online and Offline of the root device actually means. It might just be the cloud connection that is online rather than the device. Is it a cloud connection or is it local? I have to admit I don't know anything about Nest devices. You could try popping the batteries out of one and seeing if it goes offline, if that is easy to do.

Steve

[MNB]

Going anywhere nice and warm? Looking at my NEST app when I look a specific device it has; WiFi, Battery and Sensors as last checked. So as long as the device can communicate back to NEST central at some polling rate (must not be short in order to save batteries unless its an Alert). I place a post to ask Spud as he developed the HomeSeer NEST Plug-in your inquiry, Mike

[MNB]

Spud responded with the following;

if the protect can access the Nest cloud servers it is "Online"

https://developers.nest.com/referenc...er=2#is_online

[SteveMSJ]

Spud responded with the following;

Try testing by removing a battery and seeing how long it is before it is reported offline on the parent/root.

Using this would be a different methodology to how I detect other battery devices have died so I need to make sure exactly how it works first.

Thanks,
Steve

[MNB]

Steve, as per your request I've removed the batteries to one of my Nest Protect device and am waiting for a report, will advise once it has occurred. Looking at my NEST app it looks like the last report for sensors, battery and Wi-fi was 20 hrs ago soo... Mike

[SteveMSJ]

Steve, as per your request I've removed the batteries to one of my Nest Protect device and am waiting for a report, will advise once it has occurred. Looking at my NEST app it looks like the last report for sensors, battery and Wi-fi was 20 hrs ago soo... Mike

Mike, great it will be interesting to see what happens.

Do the devices in HS3 in anyway reflect the information of the report 20 hours ago you see in your app (e.g. last change time on root)?

Steve

[MNB]

Short answer is no, but that's because within the configuration tab of each NEST Protect virtual devices the "Do not update device last change time if device value does not change:" is set so in the case of this device the last change was back in May 28 of this year. I think for this device I will deselect the option and see what the timestamp indicates. Mike

[MNB]

Steve, did some research and found the following;

Nest Protect device checks its batteries and sensors over ~432 times a day. Nest Protect automatically runs a Self Test, where it checks its batteries and sensors every 200 seconds.

How long does Nest battery last?
Best answer: The Nest Protect's battery will last five years for the battery-powered version

Nest Protect device will connect to the Internet at least once each day. In the event of a Heads-Up or Emergency Alarm, it will immediately connect to the Internet.

When you make changes to Nest Protect settings in the Nest app, such as turning Pathlight on, your changes will automatically be updated within a day. But for potentially dangerous smoke and carbon monoxide events, Nest Protect will immediately connect to the Internet, update its status and send a notification to your phone. Even if multiple events happen within a short time, it will connect and update for each event.
To find out how long it’s been since your Nest Protect connected to the Internet, sign into your account in the Nest app. When you select your Nest Protect, you’ll see when it last connected.

How to connect and update Nest Protect manually
As long as there isn't a Heads-Up alert or Emergency Alarm, you can press the Nest Protect's button to manually connect anytime. Nest Protect will announce that it is "ready", and will automatically connect to the Internet, updating any settings changes you've made in the Nest app. It may take a minute or two for the app to update with the most recent status from your Nest Protect.
In the event of an emergency, Nest Protect will automatically connect to the Internet.

So far in regards to my device its looking like the 24 Hr polling is spot on, will advise ~ 8:30 am tomorrow once I have real result. Mike

[SteveMSJ]

Steve, did some research and found the following;

So far in regards to my device its looking like the 24 Hr polling is spot on, will advise ~ 8:30 am tomorrow once I have real result. Mike

If it turns out that it doesn’t update the root device last change time each time perhaps you could ask Spud if it would be possible to add that feature.

Steve

[MNB]

Well the Nest Protect device finally reported via the NEST app that the affected Device is offline and Wi-Fi has a caution symbol but the battery still show as a green check mark. Within HS I get the Upstairs Nest Protec is offline but the battery health is still OK (even though the batteries were removed yesterday (10/1/19 at 8:32 am) the offline shows that it occurred around 12:20 pm (today 10/2/19). So it looks like the NEST cloud only shows what it knows (offline) but doesn't update the other devices (makes sense) so I would need to have bad batteries to see how the failure (battery weak or "Replace") manifest its self before the offline fatality. Mike