IKEA Parasoll door sensors battery drain problem

Hi,

I also see a massive battery drain with my PARASOLL sensors and the IKEA LADDA AAA rechargables.
The sensors just last for 2 weeks, then they are unavailable in Z2M.

I enabled the “Availability (simple)” option in Z2M. Could this be somehow related?

Thanks for your help,
meiser

• Three Parasoll Sensors
• Zigbee2Mqtt with Sonoff P
• First failure: 4-8 weeks? (most active sensor)
• Reinserting the same battery did not work - new battery worked
• Measured voltage: 0,8V
• Battery type: IKEA AAA Rechargeable

There’s obviously something draining the batteries.

The device which failed had a battery state of 83%. My two others currently have a battery state of 83% and 86%. I’m giving them two more weeks before failing.

Is this an IKEA firmware bug, IKEA hardware bug, or a Zigbee2MQTT thing where it’s somehow polling on and on and destroying the battery life?

EDIT:
I now see that after updating Zigbee2MQTT, the battery life haven’t been updated for a long time. This seems to be another issue. After an update my replaced battery now is 86%, the other two (not replaced yet) are at 69% and 60%

Just fyi: I gave up on these Ikea sensors and will return them. Bought replacement sensors from Aqara and couldn’t be happier, as they have been purring without any issue or hickups for 2 months now

I’m not there quite yet, but found this thread after the second time in a week that one of my Parasoll sensors I have set up in my garage went unavailable. I really want to like these sensors…cheap, easy to install, and relatively easy to replace the batteries (and I already have a bunch of energizer AAA rechargeables), but if I can’t get more than a week or two from the battery life, may have to switch back to the Aqara sensors I was using previously. Main downside of those, IMO, is that they’re smaller, and I’ve found they’re easier to knock loose, and also not quite as sensitive, so if the garage door alignment shifts, I’ll get false open readings.

Not had any issues with incorrect readings from the Parasoll, but the battery life is a major bummer.

Using them on ZHA with a Conbee II, and I have a very solid mesh with the coordinator and several Hue bulbs (IOW router devices) just the other side of a wall from where the sensors are.

EDIT: I should, in fairness, note that it’s possible that the battery that died quickly may have been one I used straight from the package. Although the batteries are supposedly charged when you buy them, it’s possible that they don’t have as full a charge as if you charge them right before using.

Also, for grins I tried removing and replacing the same battery, and the sensor did come back online, and was showing around 28%, so it may be that below a certain voltage it just becomes unreliable.

Did “some” tests:

I was having failing Parasoll sensors too. Replacing the battery would help. But as others mentioned, they quickly become unresponsive.
Bought new rechargeable batteries and made sure they are completely charged. The first sensors are failing after around 1,5 - 2 weeks. Reuseing the same battery doesn’t work, since the battery is completely dead. I tried measuring it, but the isn’t even enough current to power my battery meter.
I tried updating to the latest Z2M and updating to the newest Ember firmware, still the same issue.

My network is really stable with enough hops. I guess I have to return them. I use them for monitoring windows with rain and opening doors for light and burglary. So i need reliable sensors.

Hi,

i bought seven parasoll sensors. All are working so far with my sonoff stick and latest firmware. All are connected directly to the router (sonoff stick). After I relocate one sensor its connection is lost. How can I achieve that the sensor connects via repeater of another working sensor?

Are your sensors reporting the last seen timestamp? All my sensors have no last seen data (shown as N/A).

Hi, have a look at this community guide about zigbee: Zigbee networks: how to guide for avoiding interference + optimize using Zigbee Router devices (repeaters/extenders) to get a stable mesh network with best possible range and coverage

Same issue here. I’m using Deconz to manage my Zigbee network but I have the same problem. After 1 week the battery dies.

Thanks for the tip. At the end all my sensors are working after I add another router.
But what about the “Last seen” status? I didn’t find somehing about it in the linked thread.

Which zigbee integration are you using?

Zigbee2MQTT

In the Z2M webUI → Settings → Availability → Pull down menu Check Availability (simple) / Availability (advanced) → checkbox below → Submit

Hi all,

Has anyone found a fix for this issue ?
I’m experiencing similar behaviour from my Ikea sensors. I recently had an issue that knocked my HA setup offline for the last 2 weeks until I had the time to set everything back. Once my instance was restored I realised all my Ikea Parasoll sensors were unavailable and all the batteries drained. These were less than 2 months old.
This is in stark contrast of an old aqara sensor I had that not only went back online without issues but still has a lot of battery life left.

Hi all,

A small update to inform that I recharged all batteries for my 9 Ikea Parasoll sensors. Batteries are the AAA Ladda batteries and most of them are brand new, bought for these sensors.
All batteries were replaced about 5 days ago.

My Home Assistant is currently based upon an RPI3 that has been causing some issues recently and it became unresponsive once again yesterday.
I am migrating to a NUC so today I am restarting my HA setup from scratch and when I try to pair the Parasoll sensors I find that all sensors are drained dry.

Am I missing something obvious here or do the sensors start massively draining power when they can’t connect to the Zigbee network ?

Thanks in advance for any insights

damn this §$%& (sorry for my language) …
maybe we need to get our hands at the firmware and change that…
also… people who use them with the ikea bridge…to they experience the same issue?

HI I’ve had zero issues with these Ikea sensors

using HA with Skyconnect flashed to Zigbee

using re-chargable batteries in them, they have worked for few months now still same batteries from first install

( my zigbee network has not gone down so not sure if battery drain as mentioned above)

I’ve also suffered from this infuriating problem :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:.

I have a feeling that it has to do with recent crashes of Home Assistant due to massive server CPU usage (unrelated to HA). Seems that when the server is missing, the sensors go nuts and expend battery power trying to reconnect to the unresponsive mother ship.

It’s not the first time that I’ve encountered this issue. The other instances also occured after the server had been down for awhile.

Hopefully this provides a useful hint to somebody with more experience and knowledge than I have. It would be nice not to have to run around the house with my little screwdriver and a bag full of batteries shortly after my system crashes (yeah, yeah, I’m working on that :wink:).

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I think you are right, I had some crashes this week and 4 hours of downtime ate about 50% of the battery capacity.

Same issue here!

Last battery lasted 4 days.

There is something very wrong with the implementation of these sensors in HA.

At my end still running fine! Have installeer the first Parasoll around 6 weeks ago and battery is 86%