Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Everspring ST814 temp/humidity sensors

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Everspring ST814 temp/humidity sensors

    I'm thinking of purchasing 6 or 7 Everspring ST814-2 temp/humidity sensors during HS' June sale. For those of you that have these, how have they worked for you. I had been considering going the RFXCOM/Oregon Sci route but would rather not add another interface, don't care for USB-connected devices on my hometroller S2, and could use a few more ZWave devices to reinforce my network (or do batt powered devices not help in reinforcing the network??).

    Anyway, I'd appreciate your thoughts on these devices. Thanks!
    John
    Hardware: i5-6400T w/16GB RAM & SSD w/HS3Pro, Z-Net, Harmony Hub x2, Echo Dot x2, Ocelot
    Plugins: Z-wave, HSTouch, BLBackup, Harmony, GTS CPUXA, UltraMon3, Nest
    HSTouch: Multiple Android Devices; 5 x ToteVision MD-1001 10.1" Win 7 Tablets
    Devices: Cooper RF9501 x4, RF9517 x6, RF9534 x1, RF9540-N x7, RF9542 x1, RF9542-Z x2, RFHDSCG x1, RFWC5 x5; Intermatic HA02 x6; FortrezZ MIMOLite x3; Leviton VRPD3-1LW x4, VRR15-1LZ x6; Nest Tstat & 9x Protects; Dragon PD-100 x3, PA-100 x3

    #2
    Battery devices do not aid in routing as they are sleep most of the time. These units typically work well but can vary a degree or two between units.
    💁‍♂️ Support & Customer Service 🙋‍♂️ Sales Questions 🛒 Shop HomeSeer Products

    Comment


      #3
      I have 3 of the ST814-1 European units. I have them reporting to Homeseer every 10 minutes and they have been very reliable. Batteries last approximately 7 months with the 10 minute reporting interval.

      I do get quite a few of these messages in my HS log relating to these devices.

      Aborting Z-Wave send, taking too long to send command to node 2 waited 2 seconds

      I did contibute to a thread a while back regarding these messages but I can't remember the outcome. I think this must happen when Homeseer acknowledges receipt of a transmission from one of the devices but sometimes it will go days without a single message and another time the log is littered with them.

      I also have 2 RFXCOM transcievers (LAN versions) and a bunch of Oregon devices. These also work perfectly fine as well.

      Paul..

      Comment


        #4
        I have 6 of the ST814's reporting every 24 minutes. About the same battery life as Sooty says and the same bunch of 'aborting Z-Wave send' messages in the log that I totally ignore as the devices are reporting 100% fine for a year plus now - very happy with them.

        Rupp's right, the temp and humid reading vary between units, so I sat all the ST814s side by side and noted temp & humid readings as many times as I could over 2 or 3 days, then picked one ST814 as my 'master' and calculated average offsets per ST814, per temp & per humid readings. I was using Jon00's excelling Graphing Utility and asked him to consider adding an offset feature, which he kindly did, and so when I graphed the 12 readings (6 temp, 6 humid), they were approximately normalized - certainly not to NIST standards, but good enough for me. I used the same offsets when I created Events. (The additional HVAC temp reading is from my TZ43 Thermostat that compares well with the closeby ST814 Lounge data).
        Attached Files
        All Z-Wave, #101 devices, HomeTroller Series2, HomeSeer2 v.2.5.0.81, & 1x Z-Troller

        Comment


          #5
          Has anyone had problems with battery life for the Everspring ST814?

          I bought one of these a while back taking longer than the Homeseer 30 days warranty to put it into service. It works just fine, however the battery life is terrible. After 3 sets of batteries I'm getting approx. 30 days of life per set - not good.

          Basically all I did was unpack, insert batteries, and associated it with Homeseer via my Z-troller. Homeseer is showing updates from the device every 90 minutes or so (possibly less if no temp/humidity change occurs).

          I've read others talking about getting a year or so of battery life. However this is simply not my experience - do I have a lemon or are there configuration options that I should be setting? I'm not even sure how to get support on this. Major bummer.

          Comment


            #6
            Check the programming and make sure they are not reporting too frequently. I have mine set to report with each 1 degree of temp change and once every two hours.

            -BD

            Comment


              #7
              Mine are now set to 24 minutes and provide trend data per my graphs posted above. (I don't see an option in HS for reporting with 1 degree of temp change like BD says, maybe I'm missing something?). I'm using Energizer Ultimate Lithium batteries and all 6 of my ST814's batteries have just reached 1 year and are still showing 100% battery status. I'll change out the batteries in 3 of the units just in case next week as I'm only at the house every 3 months and don't want to suddenly lose temp/humid readings, but I'll leave the other 3 alone and see how long they actually last.
              In the previous 2 years, when I had the time set to 12 minutes, the same batteries would last 7-9 months.

              So, I agree Januszczyk that 30 days seems very wrong if, as BD says, you have them reporting at a reasonably long interval. (Just because you see HS get updated every 90 minutes or so, that does not mean that the ST814 isn't set to wake up every 1 minute, but the temp hasn't changed enough for it to send an update...)

              When you replace the batteries you may want to try lightly sanding the battery spring connectors in the ST814s as well as the battery terminals themselves to ensure that there's good metal-to-metal contact.
              All Z-Wave, #101 devices, HomeTroller Series2, HomeSeer2 v.2.5.0.81, & 1x Z-Troller

              Comment


                #8
                On the the device status, click the device root, then configure. Parameters 6,7,8 set the auto reporting time intervals.

                -BD

                Comment


                  #9
                  What are the defaults?

                  Good information - so since I just installed and used the defaults to get this behavior... it brings up the question: what are the defaults for this device?

                  You would think that the defaults would be setup to have a reasonable compromise between reporting intervals and battery life (i.e., you expect something like a year... the defaults should support that).

                  In any case, if this solves my problem (I really hope so!) then pretty much anyone who buys this to work with Homeseer will need to know this too.

                  Thanks everyone for the quick response!

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Not sure of the defaults. I am thinking once per hour, independent of temp/humidity changes.

                    -BD

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Originally posted by BrunDog View Post
                      On the the device status, click the device root, then configure. Parameters 6,7,8 set the auto reporting time intervals.
                      -BD
                      Excellent, I had not noticed that before, I learn something everyday in this Forum, thank you BD!

                      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                      All Z-Wave, HT S2, HS 2.5.052 & SmartStick
                      Any interest in a Mid-Atlantic meet? Voice your opinion in forum - US Regional MAHUG!
                      All Z-Wave, #101 devices, HomeTroller Series2, HomeSeer2 v.2.5.0.81, & 1x Z-Troller

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Hmmm, how to program

                        Hi Guys,

                        So I've been trying to reprogram the st814 and I have to say it's not easy. My setup is a Z-Troller (latest firmware), a Schlage lock and the st814 - no other beaming capable devices/controllers.

                        I re-read the user's guide for the st814 and could not really find a way to wake it up other than removing/re-inserting the batteries (am I missing something). Once I did this I set the wake up interval to 2 hours. I tried to set param 6=0, 7=1, and 8=5. This is where things get hard to figure out.

                        The wake up interval seems to be set to 2 hours (if I pull the batteries and re-insert them checking the device it shows as 2 hours). However setting the parameters (select param #, set value, click set) don't give any indication that they do anything (I watch the URL execute and after 5 or so seconds it seems to complete). However if I then reselect one of the params to show the current value I either the value currently in the field stays or it changes to the default (i.e., 0, etc). I can't find any deterministic way to tell if the value was changed.

                        What I can say is the log shows the following which doesn't seem correct:

                        9/1/2012 11:33:19 AM Z-Wave Setting wake-up interval for device Root Device 7 to 2 hours and 0 minutes.
                        9/1/2012 11:33:48 AM Device Update Device: Z-Wave Interface Child 7 Relative Humidity Inst 2 value set to 63 (6300/%)
                        9/1/2012 11:33:54 AM Device Update Device: Z-Wave Interface Child 7 Temperature Inst 1 value set to 83.4 (8340/F)
                        9/1/2012 11:33:55 AM Device Update Device: Z-Wave Interface Child 7 Relative Humidity Inst 2 value set to 71 (7100/%)
                        9/1/2012 11:34:02 AM Device Update Device: Z-Wave Interface Child 7 Relative Humidity Inst 2 value set to 76 (7600/%)
                        9/1/2012 11:34:15 AM Device Update Device: Z-Wave Interface Child 7 Temperature Inst 1 value set to 82.9 (8290/F)
                        9/1/2012 11:34:17 AM Device Update Device: Z-Wave Interface Child 7 Relative Humidity Inst 2 value set to 70 (7000/%)
                        9/1/2012 11:35:13 AM Device Update Device: Z-Wave Interface Child 7 Relative Humidity Inst 2 value set to 60 (6000/%)
                        9/1/2012 11:37:51 AM Device Update Device: Z-Wave Interface Child 7 Temperature Inst 1 value set to 82.4 (8240/F)
                        9/1/2012 11:37:52 AM Device Update Device: Z-Wave Interface Child 7 Relative Humidity Inst 2 value set to 58 (5800/%)
                        9/1/2012 11:42:09 AM Device Update Device: Z-Wave Interface Child 7 Temperature Inst 1 value set to 80.7 (8070/F)
                        9/1/2012 11:42:09 AM Device Update Device: Z-Wave Interface Child 7 Relative Humidity Inst 2 value set to 59 (5900/%)
                        9/1/2012 11:47:26 AM Device Update Device: Z-Wave Interface Child 7 Temperature Inst 1 value set to 79.8 (7980/F)
                        9/1/2012 11:51:58 AM Device Update Device: Z-Wave Interface Child 7 Temperature Inst 1 value set to 78.9 (7890/F)
                        This really looks like setting values 6-8 had no effect since I can see humidity changes less than 5% and temp changes less than 1 degree.

                        Those that have done this I'd love to find answers to the following questions:
                        - Is there a way to manually wake the device so that homeseer can reliably communicate with it other than removing the batteries?
                        - When you change the settings in the Configure tab for the root device, what does the UI do to indicate it worked/didn't work? Is absense of feedback indication that it worked or didn't work? Should there be log entries?

                        This is perplexing - I have tons of experience with homeseer, X-10 and especially Insteon - this is my first go with Z-wave and man it has been just a mess. I have to wonder if I have something defective going on here.

                        Any thoughts, suggestions, etc would be greatly appreciated.

                        Thanks,
                        - Jeff

                        Comment


                          #13
                          I have one of these. Looking at what you are trying to do -
                          Get it to report humidity when > 5% change and temp report at each degree.
                          It looks quite odd that a 10% change in humidity occured in a minutes time...

                          9/1/2012 11:34:17 AM Device Update Device: Z-Wave Interface Child 7 Relative Humidity Inst 2 value set to 70 (7000/%)
                          9/1/2012 11:35:13 AM Device Update Device: Z-Wave Interface Child 7 Relative Humidity Inst 2 value set to 60 (6000/%)

                          Perhaps there is something wrong with the sensor - or maybe the humidity drop was true?

                          Also - I do not know any other way to wake it up.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Changed mine to test. There is no indication that the changes "take" - at all. I suppose you simply have to trust and watch to see.

                            Mine sits in a large humidor - if the humidity EVER swings 5% something bad is going on.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Thanks Monk for testing.

                              After a bunch of playing I got the 2 hour wake up interval to stick and each of the settings to show up. Basically I could change one parameter, pull the battery, change another, etc. If I try any other way no go - it seems to hang on the second change attempt.

                              Now Homeseer reports the settings as I wanted them to...

                              It doesn't exactly work like I thought it would though - settings 6 & 7 don't seem to do anything since the 2 hour wake up seems to override them. Perhaps I misunderstood the wake up interval... should this be lower? Currently the unit reports to Homeseer every 2 hours and no sooner regardless of changes. That's probably ok for my usage... but I feel like perhaps the way the settings interact is not yet clicking for me.

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X