Battery Status on Devices

[d.kiran]

Does Almond+ support continuous monitoring of battery status? I notice that every time I add and remove a sensor, the battery percentage gets updated. However, it does not update after that.

Does everyone else see this as well? Securifi, can you confirm if this is reproducible and if you plan to fix this.

[SecureComp]

Which sensor?

Thought Zigbee only reported low battery, not percentage.

[d.kiran]

I only have Z-wave devices. The ones that report battery status (in percentages) are two door locks (Kwikset 910 and 912), two thermostats (CT101). They all report 100% and when I removed and added them again, the percentages changed to different values for different devices.

[SecureComp]

Copy that.

My 912 is on order so I'll be checking into the battery % thing as well.

Would be a nice feature to have, poll the battery % 1x per day would be enough. Probably easy enough to poll it during any event though.

[SecureComp]

Installed a ZWave First Alert Smoke Detector  (ZCOMBO) yesterday, battery reporting 100%.
Will watch to see if it changes over the next couple weeks.

[Fire69]

I thought you couldn't poll battery-powered devices?  You can't communicate with them in two directions, they only send data when an event occurs.

[SecureComp]

I thought you couldn't poll battery-powered devices?  You can't communicate with them in two directions, they only send data when an event occurs.

I believe that's correct but someone else can confirm.
Should not have used the word "poll" but when an event occurs, grab the battery percent if it is sent and report it's updated percentage.

[d.kiran]

So, I am trying to understand how the z-wave devices communicate. Take my thermostat for e.g.. I see the following
is

If the temperature changes, does it just send Current Temp is 75 or does it send the entire information (currentTemp:75, mode:cool, status:cooling, Fan:Running, Battery:100% etc). Essentially, does it just send the delta of changes or does it send everything. If it sends everything, then the battery status might be easier. If it sends the delta, then maybe it is a bit more difficult.

On that note, is it possible to log all the messages that a device sends? I notice that the android app has ability to view logs, but that is only for the events that have been processed. Is there a way to see what data a device is sending and what is getting discarded ? For example, I know this thermostat is sending RH levels, but because Almond+ does not know this, it ignores it. If we can look at a log of all the events, we might see how exactly it is sending RH level and if Almond can support the z-wave command class or not.

[d.kiran]

Bump!! Checking how battery status updates work on the Almond+

[Ohiomedic]

I know my first alert smoke/co went from 98% to 91% after a couple of months.

[Mishakim]

I'll add that my Yale Z-wave deadbolts have never updated their battery status from whatever they were when first paired. One was 5%, I put new batteries in, Almond+ still shows 5%. Another has dropped from 89 to warning me it's low, Almond still says it's 89%.

[mparadis]

My kwikset locks also have this problem. One at 80% one at 40%, neither change when batteries do. I change them when the actual lock starts flashing red.

[d.kiran]

So from what I have been able to dig up. They way to get the battery status from devices is for the Z-wave controller to send a BATTERY_GET command. In turn the z-wave device will send you a BATTERY_REPORT which tells you what the current battery state is.

Maybe this need not be done often not to deplete the battery, but can Almond+ be programmed to send BATTERY_GET say once every 3 days or so ?

[dbuttke]

My kwikset locks also have this problem. One at 80% one at 40%, neither change when batteries do. I change them when the actual lock starts flashing red.

Same for mine.

[SecureComp]

So from what I have been able to dig up. They way to get the battery status from devices is for the Z-wave controller to send a BATTERY_GET command. In turn the z-wave device will send you a BATTERY_REPORT which tells you what the current battery state is.

Maybe this need not be done often not to deplete the battery, but can Almond+ be programmed to send BATTERY_GET say once every 3 days or so ?

The battery report can be updated any time a sensor reports, as such you can write a simple app to check the device and put it in crontab to get the update at whatever period you desire.

Almost sounds like a 1x/week device survey might be useful. Also, not a challenging app, just takes a little time which I don't have at the moment but could work in the next couple months.