Plugin to monitor Z-Wave battery device Health - CLOSED

[SteveMSJ]

Just starting to try this out. What monitoring method are you using for:

Locks (Kwikset)
Door/Window sensors (Aeotec)
Motion sensors (Ecolink)

Thanks!

-Mike

Hi Mike,
I'm guessing details of the individual devices as I don't have the specific ones. However the Door/Window sensors and Motion Sensors are most likely non-listening devices which will wake-up at defined intervals. As long as 'Log Poll and Wake-up messages' is ticked in the Z-Wave plug-in, these devices will be picked up automatically by SDJ-Health and monitoring devices created the first time each device wakes up. How long this takes will depend on what wake-up interval you have set for each device.

The Locks are most likely listening devices so they don't wake-up at predefined intervals. They can be monitored using method 3, polling the battery child. For this you need to select the devices you want to poll from the 'Devices Requiring Polling' list on the SDJ-Health Config page. Monitoring devices will then be created for the locks selected.

I hope this helps.

Steve

[msbreton]

Thanks. Checking out those options now.

Any suggestions for devices that just always saw 100% battery level?

Most of my Aeotec door window sensors have always shown 100% battery in the battery HS device. One of them shows correctly. The Ecolink motion sensors have also always shown 100%.

-Mike

[SteveMSJ]

Thanks. Checking out those options now.

Any suggestions for devices that just always saw 100% battery level?

Most of my Aeotec door window sensors have always shown 100% battery in the battery HS device. One of them shows correctly. The Ecolink motion sensors have also always shown 100%.

-Mike

It doesn't actually matter what the battery level shows as the plug-in can alert you when the device stops communicating, i.e. the batteries are dead. That is it's main purpose. It is reported through one root device so a simple event, no long lists of 'Or If's that need editing every time you add or remove a device.

If the battery levels are reported correctly then it can do a lot more, like alerting on low battery level and high discharge rate. It can also record battery history and alert you when the batteries have exceeded a set life. All parameters can be set globally but also adjusted for individual devices if necessary.

The actual battery levels are determined by the device and the plug-in that owns the device, e.g. the Z-Wave plug-in. A plug-in can't interfere with the device owned by another plug-in so there is nothing I can do about the battery level communications between the device and the Z-Wave plug-in. My experience is that some devices report accurately, some don't. I even have some identical devices where one reports accurately and the other sticks at 100% or 0%. Whether the problem is with HS or the device firmware is anybodies guess but I suspect it's a bit of both.

Steve

[Freddan101]

Is 3.0.2.8 the latest version? I thought I would try it out together with some RFXCOM sensors.

[SteveMSJ]

Is 3.0.2.8 the latest version? I thought I would try it out together with some RFXCOM sensors.

3.0.5.2 is last version released. Message #241 top of page 13.
https://forums.homeseer.com/showthre...186122&page=13

I am actually running 3.0.5.3 which corrects some very minor bugs but I haven't packaged that up yet.

Steve

[olof]

Hi Steve, I have done a factory reset on my Homeseer and uninstalled old app. Installed newest app but have issue that it is not catching up the event. Is there a way to really start from scratch with the plugin?

[Freddan101]

3.0.5.2 is last version released. Message #241 top of page 13.
https://forums.homeseer.com/showthre...186122&page=13

I am actually running 3.0.5.3 which corrects some very minor bugs but I haven't packaged that up yet.

Steve

Thanks. I will download and try it out.

[SteveMSJ]

Plugin to monitor Z-Wave battery device Health

Hi Steve, I have done a factory reset on my Homeseer and uninstalled old app. Installed newest app but have issue that it is not catching up the event. Is there a way to really start from scratch with the plugin?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'not catching up the event'. If you mean that it is not detecting wake-ups check that you have 'log wakeup messages' set in the ZWave plugin as noted in the guide. This may have been deselected by resetting Homeseer.

I'm not at home at the moment but, from memory, if you want to start from scratch I suggest:
Make sure the plugin is disabled.
Delete any SDJ-Health monitoring devices, parent and children.
Delete the SDJ-Health.ini file from the Config folder.
Perform an installation of the plugin in accordance with the guide.
That should set you back to scratch with all settings at defaults.

Steve

[Freddan101]

I installed the plugin last night and devices have been created as expected. But when I choose Plug-ins>SDJ-Health>Config I end up with a blank page (both in Chrome and Edge on Win10). Is this a known problem?

[SteveMSJ]

I installed the plugin last night and devices have been created as expected. But when I choose Plug-ins>SDJ-Health>Config I end up with a blank page (both in Chrome and Edge on Win10). Is this a known problem?

I've not heard of this problem before. I am using Windows 10 and Chrome without issue. Can you set the LogLevel to 2 and see what is logged when you try to access the Config page.

To set the LogLevel without access to the Config page you need to edit the SDJ-Health.ini file. This should be in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Homeseer HS3\Config folder. Disable the plug-in first then edit the line:
LogLevel=1 to read LogLevel=2
Save the ini file.

Filter your log to show just SDJ-Health messages from the Type dropdown, start the plug-in wait about 30 seconds and then try and access the Config page. Wait another 20 seconds and then copy the log and post it here.

Thanks,
Steve

[Freddan101]

I've not heard of this problem before. I am using Windows 10 and Chrome without issue. Can you set the LogLevel to 2 and see what is logged when you try to access the Config page.

To set the LogLevel without access to the Config page you need to edit the SDJ-Health.ini file. This should be in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Homeseer HS3\Config folder. Disable the plug-in first then edit the line:
LogLevel=1 to read LogLevel=2
Save the ini file.

Filter your log to show just SDJ-Health messages from the Type dropdown, start the plug-in wait about 30 seconds and then try and access the Config page. Wait another 20 seconds and then copy the log and post it here.

Thanks,
Steve

A simple restart of the plugin seemed to solve the issue. No problem since.

I can confirm that the plugin works well with RFXCOM devices. For example, one climate sensor reports temp, humidity and battery to three different HS devices. I have grouped these together (using Jon00's grouping plugin) with a root device that I've manually created. I then select the root device under the plugin settings and "Devices Requiring Activity Monitoring". The battery device only reports when it reaches "low" why activity monitoring is required.

This is also a nice way to monitor that the sensor actually reports measurements as expected. I have lowered "MonitorActivity" to 1 hour.

Thank you for a great plugin!!

[SteveMSJ]

A simple restart of the plugin seemed to solve the issue. No problem since.

I can confirm that the plugin works well with RFXCOM devices. For example, one climate sensor reports temp, humidity and battery to three different HS devices. I have grouped these together (using Jon00's grouping plugin) with a root device that I've manually created. I then select the root device under the plugin settings and "Devices Requiring Activity Monitoring". The battery device only reports when it reaches "low" why activity monitoring is required.

This is also a nice way to monitor that the sensor actually reports measurements as expected. I have lowered "MonitorActivity" to 1 hour.

Thank you for a great plugin!!

Thanks, Freddan101 I'm glad you are able to make use of the plugin with RFXCOM devices and that is some useful information you have provided.

If possible I would like to make the plugin work with more technologies without needing too much user intervention. So any further information you can provide is useful.

Are you saying that the individual devices created by the RXFCOM plug-in for a mutisensor are not grouped together, hence you needing to manually group them? Is there anything else about the individual devices that identifies that they all belong to one physical device? At the moment the Activity Checking method in SDJ-Health requires a root device and a battery child plus any additional sensor children, for one physical device. You have created this group manually with Jon00's plug-in. If possible I would like to make SDJ-Health detect that the individual devices represent one physical device without the need for manual grouping.

Steve

[SteveMSJ]

Plugin to monitor Z-Wave battery device Health

Got an alert to tell me that my 'Bathroom Multisensor Battery' was dead. The last battery reading before it died was 39% so I didn't get a low battery alert but I did of course get an alert when SDJ-Health detected it missed waking up.

This is the only Aeon Multisensor 6 I have running on batteries. It does send readings to HS but the levels aren't terribly useful. On the previous run the battery did get down to 'Low Battery' which was set at 20%, this time it only got down to 39%. It stuck on 100% for nearly 4 months, dropped suddenly to 50% then in steps down to 39% over the next week.

15/09/2017 23:07: 39% 28.0% per day
15/09/2017 17:07: 46% 0.5% per day
07/09/2017 17:35: 50% 0.6% per day
10/06/2017 22:57: 100% 0.0% per day
10/06/2017 17:43: 50% 2.2% per day
18/05/2017 21:12: 100% 0.0% per day
18/05/2017 21:12: 100% 0.0% per day
18/05/2017 Batteries last replaced
13/05/2017 07:01: 0% 138.2% per day

4 months on a set of batteries and they aren't cheap batteries. Not great but consistent with previously getting 2 months when it was only running on one battery. Shame I can't get USB power to this one in it's particular location.

Steve

[Daweeze]

Hi Steve,

This is a great Plug-In! Thanks for creating it. I do have a question though...can you add whatever it takes for it to utilize the Plug-In standard format in Device Type that HS has in the Device List?

It would look like:

Type: Plug-In: SDJ-Health

I like to select these as immediate filters in my views at times. This would essentially select the SDJ-Health Child and SDJ-Health Root Devices using only one selection.

Thanks again for all of your effort!

-Travis

[SteveMSJ]

Hi Steve,

This is a great Plug-In! Thanks for creating it. I do have a question though...can you add whatever it takes for it to utilize the Plug-In standard format in Device Type that HS has in the Device List?

It would look like:

Type: Plug-In: SDJ-Health

I like to select these as immediate filters in my views at times. This would essentially select the SDJ-Health Child and SDJ-Health Root Devices using only one selection.

Thanks again for all of your effort!

-Travis

So you mean just set SDJ-Health as the device type rather than differentiating the Root and Children?
That seems a sensible. I will implement it in the next update.

Steve