It’s only been a week but the battery is still showing 100% and it’s working fine. The Duracell is not rechargeable. Still early days, I guess.
My sensors at the front and back door of the house drain like crazy… Colder temperatures for sure but really, I need to almost do 6 week swaps…
I tried multiple battery brands ranging from premium to budget quality alkaline. No difference. These sensors drain faster than the battery of my electric car!! it’s horrible and a total scam. I love the look, design and elegance of these Ikea sensors but if swapping batteries becomes a monthly routine hobby, then most likely these sensor will go into the garbage… I will just stick to sonoff, you pay a bit more but the battery life on sonoff equipment is just incredibly good! Never disappointed. My Ikea sensors are on Z2M… I don’t notice any improvement.
its been ~1 months since your last message, did those duracell lasted?
No. I had a couple of issues and needed to re-pair the device. Then I changed to a rechargeable battery which, straight from the pack, drained after a few weeks. Put another battery in from the pack and it worked again straight away (ie no re-pairing needed). Will see how long that lasts!
Hi.
I also have batteries not lasting very long, from 3 to 8 weeks. I can live with that. But what I would like to know : On your side, are the battery levels working ? For me they are at 100% until they die. Those using rechargeable batteries, do they show a reliable battery level warning you before failing ?
Thanks
Looks like this has been going on for a year, if its not fixed by now, guess they never will be. They are going in the bin.
Pity, back to the coincell Aqara
Hi Shane, did you read the posts regarding using the right and wrong batteries in this topic?
Hey mate,
Yes? I cant see any where people are saying that made a difference though?
I have the same issue.
For me Alkaline batteries work best in very active sensors (doors). Rechargeable sometimes failed within days (I guess because of drastic voltage drop when opening 10 times in a row)
They seem to keep working for 8-10 weeks.
Rechargeable (IKEA - charged in the IKEA charger) batteries work for 5-6 weeks in less active places. But even the windows that do not open (ever) drain empty…
I have been considering adding a second battery. If that works I could create a 3d-printed version with multiple batteries.
Here’s someone who added a live power feed haha
Still find this thread so weird: I am absolutely having zero issues with the Parasoll running on IKEA Ladda batteries for several months during the winter time. Door to which it is connected is quite active (at least 10 and sometimes 20 actuations per day). This leads me to think the issue is probably more in the rest of the network (something that causes the Parasoll to wake up too frequently or something)
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Apart from the batteries, I’m tempted to think there is also the possibility that the zigbee mesh plays a role in all this.
At least someone is having a good run with these sensors.
I’ve been using panasonic eneloop pro aaa and these sensors eat these batteries in weeks.
The sensor also has a special feature that even when they go flat, they keep draining the battery, if you don’t replace them straight away, I’ve had my rechargables down to 0.8v, which causes issues in charging them. Thought these sensors killed a panasonic eneloop pro! But it recovered.
I’ve also used other brands of rechargeables, no go. We are just entering winter, so been summer weather, so wasn’t cold batteries.
Most likely could be, but I have other Zigbee sensors (door/temp etc) that work for 6+ months on a coin battery.
I got these Ikea sensors as they used rechargeable AAA, I was getting tired of tossing out coin batteries and thought they would be a good replacement.
I’ve also paired them to the Ikea hub for a week to see if there was any firmware updates, there wasn’t. All 3 of my sensors are on the same FW.
Quick read over this thread I assume it could be the firmware of the installed devices that is the issue when they have a battery drain defect.
My suggestion is not just to compare the batteries that you and others have been testing with but to validate if the firmware you have is the same or different for the ones having the issue.
I thought that, which is why I put them on the Ikea hub for a week to see if any updates appeared for them.
Mine are on FW 1.0.19, which I believe is still the latest and has been for like a year.
As indicated: mine is running fine on IKEA Ladda batteries.
Firmware build date
20230516
Firmware version
1.0.19
Software
Zigbee2mqtt
Stick
Sonoff ZBDongle-E
Same FW as me, but mine eat batteries.
The odd thing is they all don’t eat batteries together. I can replace all 3 at once and sometimes only 1 will eat the battery, while the other 2 are fine. Other times they all do.
As the battery level reporting isn’t that great, I generally now change all 3 batteries once one goes flat.
It does feel like a firmware bug where the sensor gets stuck and keeps transmitting/polling or something until it goes flat.
Hi there… my guess, as someone else already mentioned too: the network. If the sensors have a bad connection and they need to re-connect very often, i think that could also drain the batteries pretty quick, no matter if you use rechargeables or not. That said, i have 1 Parasoll running since 1 week now for testing purpose. I use “Energizer Max Plus” alkalines, and i still have no issues so far. I run ZHA and a “ConBee II” stick for my ZigBee devices. The Parasoll is connected with RSSI -74 and LQI 192, in case that is of any interest. It’s firmware is shown as “0x01000019”, not sure if this is correct, yet HA reports this as “up to date”. I use this Parasoll on a roof window, which i open 2-3 times a day for venting.
Andrew, it’s already good to compare FW versions, and I deliberately mentioned only ‘mesh’ in my previous post but I assume you know that this contains the coordinator, zigbee integration, maybe different devices/brands/types and/or used/compared.
What I’m saying, there are so many different parameters that it can be difficult to just compare.
My fist motion sensors were from Sonoff because they were cheap, small and easy to get.
Out of 5, 3 are still used in ‘critical’ places and they work perfect, 1 is used near the cooker hood to switch on the cooker hood lights but with conditions to avoid false positives.
The other 1, I have ditched because of not being reliable.
I have tried a few things but finally I gave up since there are many reports of false positives with these sensors.
Different devices, maybe bought at the same time but from different batches can hold different electronic parts which results in non-similar behavior.
Of course, it can be frustrating that these sensors don’t work as expected, even more if you have automations that control your lights based on those.
Anyhow, I’m just saying that there are so many things that play a role which makes that it can become difficult to compare 1 on 1.
Agreed, but I’ve got other Zigbee door sensors, they use button batteries, last 6+ months without any troubles. Don’t chew through a battery in a week. Those devices are the furthest devices in the ZigBee mesh.
The common thread that brings everyone together here is the IKEA Parasoll door sensors. I’m sure we all have different components/versions in the ZigBee stack.
Read the reviews on Ikea’s website, lots of people complain about the chewing of batteries, even when using the ikea hub. So would seem like a device feature if the Ikea ecosystem has the same issue.
Which is disappointing, as I wanted to move away from single use button batteries.
Sorry, missed that.
My point was just to try to help you by pointing out the ‘complexity’ of this.
When my problems started with those false positives from my motion sensors, I have read, searched a lot and also posted (even contacted Sonoff but got a general reply) here but in the end I gave up.
OTH: it should not be like that when a company sells stuff for which basic functionality doesn’t work, that customers just leave it as is.
At the same time, it can be interesting to understand why things don’t work.