Motion Sensor - Battery Run Time

[Teken]

For a very long time I have been tracking when a battery was installed by simply marking the date on the battery cell. Later with the power of the ISY Series Controller and the use of variables I've been able to factually track and know the activity of each sensor.

Today's thread is about the personal experience with respect to battery run time. I have read from time to time people are seeing the need to replace their 9 volt batteries from 4~8 months?!?

In my home there are many 2.X to 2.4 motion sensors that span at least 7 years of production. Almost every one of them offer 12~14 months.

I'm very curious to learn what the settings are and if you track the activity of each motion sensor like I do what the logs show for them.

Below is one sensor for the front entrance. Produced in 39th week 2014, hardware revision 2.4



This battery was installed on November 30, 2016. Which is almost 12 months of service life. This sensor will see no less than 20-30 hits a day!





The system had alerted me of a low voltage condition about a week ago. Based on past experience it would have continued to operate for another month in this state.



At the time of this writing the battery was 6.97 VDC.



The new Duracell battery before install measured at 9.54 VDC.



So this all comes back to the original question as to what brand, model, and settings are in place that many are seeing less than six months of usage??


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[HAMILD15]

Great topic..

 

I have just started tracking details as I have the same motion sensor, same jumper settings, and get only 6-8 months of battery life. I have only recently begun putting MM & DD on the batteries as I thought I was pretty good simply putting the year. I do have one sensor which is activiated maybe once a week, and have replaced that battery twice in 2 years. Similar to yours, I can go approximately 6 months AFTER receiving low battery notifications before total battery loss.

 

Sorry I am not a lot of help, but will begin tracking in more detail report more specifics.

[larryllix]

It may be an added bit of date to record the price we paid for these cells. Duracell has a premium cell (I cannot remember the name) that I believe to be the original CopperTop cell but it costs at least double the cheapie version now.

[Teken]

Great topic..

 

I have just started tracking details as I have the same motion sensor, same jumper settings, and get only 6-8 months of battery life. I have only recently begun putting MM & DD on the batteries as I thought I was pretty good simply putting the year. I do have one sensor which is activiated maybe once a week, and have replaced that battery twice in 2 years. Similar to yours, I can go approximately 6 months AFTER receiving low battery notifications before total battery loss.

 

Sorry I am not a lot of help, but will begin tracking in more detail report more specifics.

 

In the past the following settings and options were enabled to get the longer service life out of the 9 volt battery.

 

- Set the motion sensor to send only a *ON* as this would essentially reduce the amount of activity and energy consumption in half.

- LED: Either turn off or reduce the LED brightness.

- Disable dusk to down where its not applicable.

- FOV: To help focus the IR beam and reduce false activation some have placed tape / cardboard on the sides of the lens.

 

I believe all of the settings and options have value but in my personal environment it hasn't made a lot of difference in terms of operational run time. In the past I used the cheapest 9 volt batteries from the local Dollar Store. They had the pack of two which comes out to be (approx) $0.54 ~ $0.62 cents per battery after tax's. These Panasonic batteries served me quite well for about four years and offered much better value then the Duracell bulk packs.

 

Since then the Dollar Store has gone cheap and now only offer the Panasonic 9 volt cells in singles which now sell for $1.25?!?!

 

What has made a huge difference in extreme temperatures and locations which are elevated past 25 feet are using high output rechargeable lithium 9 volt cells. The average primary cell offers 150 ~ 250 mA per cell whereas the lithium (depends on brand & model) offers 400~700 mA. If we simply go by the lowest primary cell mA of 150 vs 400.

 

That would equate to 9~12 months for a primary cell vs 18~32 months easily seen by a lithium cell.

 

The fact they are rechargeable at some point (depends upon how fast you go through batteries) would be a ROI of 1.50 ~ 2.50 years. This assumes a lower service life of 4~6 months etc. If you were seeing 12~14 months like I am using standard primary cells that ROI would probably be more like 4~6 years before that investment of rechargeable lithium cells paid itself back.

 

Having said that, you stop filling the garbage of all this waste . . .

 

As an aside the OEM (Gold) batteries that come with the device in the box have offered at least 8 months in extreme traffic areas and lower zones of 12 months easily. Lastly, another forum member here way back in the day I believe (KevinNH) something offered a great idea for the re-purpose of those old 9 volt cells. This assumes you like to keep spare parts and tinker with electronics etc.

 

You essentially strip the entire battery shell and keep the top connectors. Duracell uses some of the best connectors on the market and if you had to purchase a similar connector it would cost at least $0.50 ~ $1.00 to buy it from some e-tailer.     

[Dr. Q]

I've been recording battery changes in the info box for each battery device in the Admin Console for a couple years now, no hard data, but I have a Energizer 9V Lithium on the driveway MS, coming up on 2 years, still going strong through 2 Michigan winters. The same brand battery in the same MS in my hallway lasts ~ 6 mo. There's much more traffic in the hallway than the driveway, however. As they say, YMMV 

 

But I've been keeping a general tally of MS triggers in a pair of variables as a form of occupancy sensing, and I like Teken's more granular way of doing that. I'm gonna re-write mine so I could better correlate a 'usage per battery change' ratio.

 

Chuck

[Teken]

I've been recording battery changes in the info box for each battery device in the Admin Console for a couple years now, no hard data, but I have a Energizer 9V Lithium on the driveway MS, coming up on 2 years, still going strong through 2 Michigan winters. The same brand battery in the same MS in my hallway lasts ~ 6 mo. There's much more traffic in the hallway than the driveway, however. As they say, YMMV 

 

But I've been keeping a general tally of MS triggers in a pair of variables as a form of occupancy sensing, and I like Teken's more granular way of doing that. I'm gonna re-write mine so I could better correlate a 'usage per battery change' ratio.

 

Chuck

 

Hey Chuck,

 

Any idea of the amount of traffic seen in the hallway? If you had said these were just regular primary cells like the Duracell I could see 6 months. But would have expected to see the lithium offer at least 12 in the worst case.

[Kentinada]

For a very long time I have been tracking when a battery was installed by simply marking the date on the battery cell. Later with the power of the ISY Series Controller and the use of variables I've been able to factually track and know the activity of each sensor.

 

Today's thread is about the personal experience with respect to battery run time. I have read from time to time people are seeing the need to replace their 9 volt batteries from 4~8 months?!?

 

In my home there are many 2.X to 2.4 motion sensors that span at least 7 years of production. Almost every one of them offer 12~14 months.

 

I'm very curious to learn what the settings are and if you track the activity of each motion sensor like I do what the logs show for them.

 

Below is one sensor for the front entrance. Produced in 39th week 2014, hardware revision 2.4

 

 

This battery was installed on November 30, 2016. Which is almost 12 months of service life. This sensor will see no less than 20-30 hits a day!

 

 

 

The system had alerted me of a low voltage condition about a week ago. Based on past experience it would have continued to operate for another month in this state.

 

 

At the time of this writing the battery was 6.97 VDC.

 

 

The new Duracell battery before install measured at 9.54 VDC.

 

 

So this all comes back to the original question as to what brand, model, and settings are in place that many are seeing less than six months of usage??

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Can you share your programs for your report and low battery notifications?

 

 

 

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[Teken]

Can you share your programs for your report and low battery notifications?

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Sure. here are some working examples now in use in my system.

 

This program monitors for the low battery node to be tripped. Once tripped the system will speak as to which sensor is in a low battery state. This is followed by a custom email which I will detail below. The system has been set up to repeat this low battery state every 12 hours. This was done to ensure the email and voice announcement were heard assuming no one was around or not in range of the email / SMS.

 

Once the low battery node is refreshed this would change the low battery state to blank / off which cancels the 12 hour repeat.

 

  

 

This is the custom email that has been configured for all the different battery operated devices. This just so happens to be the unique message for the secure room in my home.

 

You can get fancy by adding in the time stamp of when this condition was tripped.

 

 

This program is what allows you to keep track of the activity of each sensor(s). All it requires are the proper Integer variables to be created in the ISY Series Controller.

 

 

So depending upon how you set up the above program. If you did absolutely nothing the program above ^ would count forever. That is fine if you want to know the total amount of traffic until such time as the battery dies. I see great value in this because it would allow you to have imperial facts as to how many hits it saw before it died.

 

So let say after 12 months it saw 2500 traffic hits. You could compare that directly to the next battery change with out going back to the daily counter logs as seen below. Of course you would need to manually reset the counters after the new battery change. 

 

I went the daily route because for me it offered more fine grain detail which I can easily insert into a spread sheet to see the very same *Global* traffic count. Except I don't need to manually reset the counters this program listed below does this for me at 11:53 PM.

 

 

As you probably noted early on my system alerts me via SMS, Email, and Voice Announcements. The system is also set up to display the very same on a proof of concept *Reader Board* and there are several mini strobes. In the future I intend to use one of those multi color light bulbs to offer a simple alert system.

 

The only problem is a lay person would have no freaking clue what say the color purple meant. Thus the colored bulb notify will be reserved for simple common sense tasks like energy & environmental temperature monitoring.

 

As of this writing my voice announcement system called Julie U.S. is capable of speaking canned phrases that exceed 750 unique and custom phrases which span: notifications, alert, warnings, danger, conditions, weather, energy, security, force protection, family, seasonal, emergency, daily tasks, infrastructure, and countless other conditions which pertain to my home and lifestyle.

 

In the screen capture below you can see a very small sample of what Julie U.S. is capable of announcing. The primary pane indicates if from 10:00 PM to 4:00 AM if there is movement in the interior of the garage the system will announce such a condition. On the left pane you will see if any Insteon hardware does not report in their heart beat status the system will relay the same. This obviously covers leaks etc and hundreds of other conditions which I feel are important to know.

 

So with the power of Amazon Echo Alexa which offers me real time proactive announcements that cover thousands of conditions in and around my home. Julie U.S. offers that reactive announcements which doesn't require user engagement or initiating.  

 

  

 

Enjoy . . .

[Kentinada]

Wow! Thanks, Teken.  Lots to take in but pretty cool.  Much appreciated. 

[Dr. Q]

Hey Chuck,

 

Any idea of the amount of traffic seen in the hallway? If you had said these were just regular primary cells like the Duracell I could see 6 months. But would have expected to see the lithium offer at least 12 in the worst case.

 

That's what I thought too. I'm still looking at stats for that MS, but my personal theory is my wife and I are wandering back and forth getting what we forgot to grab when we went there in the first place. I think I'm going to put a USB powered Aeotec MS gen 5 in there, I have 2 already and like them.

 

Chuck

[Teken]

That's what I thought too. I'm still looking at stats for that MS, but my personal theory is my wife and I are wandering back and forth getting what we forgot to grab when we went there in the first place. I think I'm going to put a USB powered Aeotec MS gen 5 in there, I have 2 already and like them.

 

Chuck

Chuck,

 

Appreciate the follow up!

 

 

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[larryllix]

Two Ray-O-Vac batteries removed from gen 1 MSes.

 

The February 2017 (bottom) install was in  my mudroom (rm#29) MS and saw motion at least 10 times per day. = 10 months

 

The November 2016 (top) install was in my recreation room (rm#11) MS  an saw motion maybe 1-2 times per week. = 13 months

 

Both gave low battery signals about 4-5 weeks ago and neither failed to function before replacing batteries.

 

They were both from the same package bought at less than $2 Canuck Buck each,  a few years ago.

 

Many Duracell units have come and gone in between times.

 

 

 

[ELA]

I have 8 MS sensors and 4 triggerlincs using Duracells.   I experience around 1 - 2 years for MS (9V) batteries.  The Triggerlincs (AA) last longer but I have not kept records on them.

      About 1/2 of my MS ever report low battery.  I have at least one that gets too low and then repeatedly sends on/off over and over and over.

A sort-of low battery announcement

 

I had measured idle currents in each of these two wireless devices in the past but often wondered what the higher current demand looked like.

I have measured and recorded that data in a data package below for anyone interested.

 

Sorry but I did not have a leak sensor to test.   I would imagine it to be similar to the Triggerlinc with the AA battery.

Using the data collected predictions can then be made on battery life.    The triggerlinc battery could in theory last 9 or so years assuming no self discharge and no activations ( idle/sleep current only).   When the number of activations a day increase the life goes down fast.

[larryllix]

Very seldom usage seeing motion in my shop building. Note date and brand. Got 19 months before reporting LowBat signal.

 

[larryllix]

Got my first low battery alarm in years, from an MS v1, today.

Eveready Lithium battery only lasted about 12 months. Was 6.00 Vdc when I removed it.
Absolutely not worth the 4x price tag at around $8-12 CAD each. A regular Alkaline battery lasts about 8-10 months and costs $1.50 to $3. This is a high usage area and previous alkaline batteries lasted 6-10 months. Won't buy Eveready Lithium batteries for that application again!

On a similar note: I found some Lithium 9v batteries online and bought 10. BEWARE! These batteries come about 11.5 Vdc and never drop their voltage. MS v1 will not function properly at this high voltage. They continuously flash and give lowBatt alarms.

Also. I avoid Duracell coppertop batteries now since they released their $super$-$duper$ breed with new branding batteries and then dropped the quality of the old branded batteries to junk levels, lasting much less time than any other alkaline battery I have found.