Aeotec Multisensor 6 on Batteries (motion sensor issues)

[jmwhite5]

I've had an Aeotec Multisensor 6 for several weeks now.  It was powered over USB until today.  But today I decided to mount it on the ceiling and switch to batteries.  What I have observed is that the motion OFF command is really slow to come in.  I've configured the sensor's "PIR time" to 10 seconds.  The ON event comes in right away, but then the OFF event is not sent for a long time  (still trying to figure out how long).

What I find curious is that temperature changes and luminance changes come in pretty regularly.  I don't get why the motion OFF event isn't sent right away.  

I tried USB power and everything works perfectly.  So I haven't broken anything or messed anything else.  There's just something odd with battery operation.

[Techman]

1 hour ago, jmwhite5 said:

I've had an Aeotec Multisensor 6 for several weeks now.  It was powered over USB until today.  But today I decided to mount it on the ceiling and switch to batteries.  What I have observed is that the motion OFF command is really slow to come in.  I've configured the sensor's "PIR time" to 10 seconds.  The ON event comes in right away, but then the OFF event is not sent for a long time  (still trying to figure out how long).

What I find curious is that temperature changes and luminance changes come in pretty regularly.  I don't get why the motion OFF event isn't sent right away.  

I tried USB power and everything works perfectly.  So I haven't broken anything or messed anything else.  There's just something odd with battery operation.

When the sensor is on batteries the reports are sent hourly to preserve battery life. All the nodes are configurable. Go the Aeotec web site and take a look at the configuration options in the manual. The off time should be adjustable.

When on a/c power the sensor reports in real time or close to it;

[gviliunas]

I have seven MS6 but I use ISY to control the "OFF" so I haven't experienced your problem. I'm not sure if this will help but these helped me when I was installing my MS6...

First, in the Multisensor 6 manual, there is a warning stating that if the MS 6 is included while under USB power and later changed to battery power, then the batteries will drain very quickly. You need to exclude (I would factory reset the MS6 here as well) and then re-include the MS6 while under battery power to ensure that it is included under low-power mode. I am assuming that you did this when you switched to battery mode.

Also, here are two related articles:

https://aeotec.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/6000115071-difference-between-usb-and-battery-power-and-recommendations-multisensor-6-zw100-

https://aeotec.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/6000156713-troubleshoot-multisensor-6-motion-sensor

 

[jmwhite5]

On 12/31/2019 at 4:32 PM, Techman said:

When the sensor is on batteries the reports are sent hourly to preserve battery life. All the nodes are configurable. Go the Aeotec web site and take a look at the configuration options in the manual. The off time should be adjustable.

When on a/c power the sensor reports in real time or close to it;

While that may be true, I find it strange that the temperature and luminance readings were coming in as they were happening (the furnace was running and temperature was fluctuating rapidly in the room and I could see all the mini temperature change reports come in every few minutes or so.).   So I'm still puzzled as to why temp/luminance changes are reported almost immediately , versus motion timeout.  

[jmwhite5]

7 hours ago, gviliunas said:

I have seven MS6 but I use ISY to control the "OFF" so I haven't experienced your problem. I'm not sure if this will help but these helped me when I was installing my MS6...

First, in the Multisensor 6 manual, there is a warning stating that if the MS 6 is included while under USB power and later changed to battery power, then the batteries will drain very quickly. You need to exclude (I would factory reset the MS6 here as well) and then re-include the MS6 while under battery power to ensure that it is included under low-power mode. I am assuming that you did this when you switched to battery mode.

Also, here are two related articles:

https://aeotec.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/6000115071-difference-between-usb-and-battery-power-and-recommendations-multisensor-6-zw100-

https://aeotec.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/6000156713-troubleshoot-multisensor-6-motion-sensor

 

I guess I will try that.  But I'm still not sure how the ISY will signal a state change back to ON if it doesn't know that the state was changed to OFF.  Or are you saying that you are setting the state of the sensor to OFF from the ISY?

[jmwhite5]

Ugh... I just wasted another 2 hours trying to switch back to using batteries.   I think there's an Aeotec firmware bug that prevents the sensor from reporting motion OFF (Base Set value=0x00 instead of 0xFF) when running on batteries.   

 

Aeotec was reporting every 4 minutes Basic Set = 0xFF (motion detected) even tough it was sitting in the room by itself.   As soon as I switched back to USB power, it's working fine (changed nothing else).

 

I'm going to by an Insteon motion sensor.  Those seem to work more reliably.

[jec6613]

Did you exclude and re-include after switching to batteries?  Depending on how it was included, at least on 1.13, depends on how it reports.  It doesn't switch to fully battery mode until it's re-included using batteries.

[jmwhite5]

3 hours ago, jec6613 said:

Did you exclude and re-include after switching to batteries?  Depending on how it was included, at least on 1.13, depends on how it reports.  It doesn't switch to fully battery mode until it's re-included using batteries.

Yes I did that. I removed the sensor from the Z-wave network and re-added it.  Still didn't help.  

But this time (unlike in January), I paid more attention to the logs, and I can tell that the Basic Set was being emitted with the wrong sensor value.  So I'm pretty sure there's a bug in the firmware.