I’ve had this too, resetting/repairing solved it.
I got 2 of these and was happy only for few days. At first it work flawlessly so to say it detects movement instantly compare to wifi sensor (although with quite longer cool down period but it’s fine for me). Then it just stop working randomly, sometimes not detecting people sometimes not clear the detection making my automations haywire. I thought it was because of position not good and tried to reposition to the best spot already but still it’s not reliable as wifi sensor (which is powered by USB). Then today, after many times of resetting and repairing I saw battery already drop to 6%!!! At this rate of battery drain I think I need a rechargeable battery otherwise battery will cost more than the sensor itself.
1 Like
I did disable the tamper detection and battery level detection after having issues with false positives.
I have 2 of them and they work now for about 2,5 months without any problem.
In the near future I will enable those entities again to see if it makes any difference.
Updated.
I did some tweaks to the battery connector following this suggestion, I guess it’s same as some other folks here adding paper between battery and cover. After that my sensors are working fine so far (finger-crossed).
On the other hand, battery now reported as 88%, dont know what happened with 6% but it is still quite a drain from fresh battery just for 3 days. The other sensors which got battery on same day still reporting as 100%.
This 88% sensor is placed in the kitchen where we might have prolonged motion (like cooking), will it contributed to battery drain so quickly? Can I setup some schedule to disable it while I dont need it to report to HA?
I did that too, bending the contacts and putting some cardboard between battery & lid but that didn’t take away the problem.
Strangely enough now they are working fine without the cardboard and I’m under the impression that this is just because of resetting/repairing, but I might be wrong.
This problem seems to be so vague…
When they work, they are a VERY good value for money, if not: useless.
1 Like
Yes, it’s very good value when they work but I’m so frustrated when they didn’t. Especially when I used them to control my light, it may keep the light on for hours!
Today when I checked the logbook I found in early morning while I was sleeping, they keep motion on for few hours then somehow cleared by themselves.
I really want to dump them TT_TT
1 Like
I’m also using to control lights, so I know the feeling.
Maybe try this with 1 that gives these false positives:
- make sure the contacts touch the battery well
- don’t know which integration you use (I’m using deCONZ), but try to make sure the name of device/entity stays the same and reset/repair.
- disable the tamper control & battery level entities
It’s a mystery to my why but I did the resetting/repairing a few times before it was right and I’m on the verge of ordering some more of this type.
I had problems as well with the SNZB-03 using zigbee2mqtt. I solved this by buying the Sonoff zigbee Bridge and it’s been solid for about a year now with quick response times. The only downside is it relies on having Internet access (and ewelink servers being up) even using the SonoffLAN integration
I’ve got a pair of SNZB-03 sensors that both used to work fine, but I recently upgraded to a conbee II and deconz as I was adding a few new sensors and now both of these SNZB-03 units are toggling evey 60 seconds between occupied and not. I’m going to put the old zigbee stick in and repair them to that and see what happens
I use a SNZB-03 as a hallway sensor, using a Tasmota flashed Sonoff Zigbee-Wifi gateway and ZHA integration linked via automation to a zigbee bulb. I use the Sonoff Zigbee-Gateway as my server is hidden away and a USB co-ordinator doesn’t reach well. Using the Gateway hub I have it plugged in upstairs.
As a rule this setup works very well, lovely and quick automations, been in place nearly two years.
Can anyone tell me the cool down and re-trigger time for this sensor?
I’m struggling to work it out. I’d like to have an automation that when triggered turns a light on for a minute and then fadeout, but extend that minute if presence is re-detected, but I think it’s the cool down thats messing me up, When testing this, the sensor seems to be acting a bit odd and sporadic.
Reading the thread, it seems the Hue sensor may resolve the issue as has a fast cool down and re-activate?
I had a similar issue, I bought a sonoff ZB motion sensor and had issue with my automations. I first thought it was my sonoff dongle (knowed for pairing issues when the firmware was not up to date) so i flashed the firmware but the same problem occured. I tried on ZHA and on Z2M, it both cases, it did not work great. When i was using Z2M, i saw that the battery level was set to low even though i bought the device less than 2 weeks ago. I use a voltmeter to check the battery and saw that the battery was full. I then saw your solution and gave it a shot ! It finally works. Huge thanks dude, i was just about to send it back and order more expensive ones that would have drained my bank account !
As you said, i curved a little bit more the pin used for connecting the + terminal and the plus side of the battery and added a piece of paper between the plus side of the battery and the plastic cover in order to force the connexion between the battery and the contactor.
@lmelltsi: good for you that you got it working!
I’m not 100% sure that it has to do with any of these (pins or back cover) unless it’s obvious that the battery doesn’t touch the pins.
I wonder if re-paring after fiddling with them is the reason why they suddenly work.
1 Like
It was not really obvious, from where i was standing, the contact between the battery and pins was normal but i still gave it a shot and it worked ^^
it might be the reason indeed, but i had to fiddled with it first because before that, i re-paired it dozens of times and it still didn’t worked properly
To be clear: I’m not saying it’s not because of bending the pins/adding cardboard but it seems so random.
I also repaired them multiple times before they worked flawless and I’m really curious what the cause is of not working correctly.
I will order a few more soon.
I have SNZB-03 sensors that keep becoming unresponsive randomly and I have tried switching zha to zigbee2mqtt, HUSBZB to Sonoff stick etc and nothing has helped. I know temperature is not an issue because they are all indoors. I have finally just wired one of them to AA batteries and so far so good (a couple of hours). I will monitor over next few weeks and post results here,
So I have left three zigbee devices right next to each other
- SNZB03 sensor with fresh Litium battery
- SNZB03 sensor powered with AA battery
- Linkind motion sensor
Device # 2 and # 3 still work (get motion notification and clear notification as expected)
#1 sends motion notification but fails to send clear motion for hours and shows as ‘unavailable’
When looking at zigbee2mqtt map and device info, the #3 device shows available and shows up properly in map. Both SNZB03 devices show up as orphans in the map - but #2 (SNZB03 AA bettery) shows as available in zigbee2mqtt device list whereas #1 (SNZB03 Lithium Battery) shows as unavailable (for last two days).
Interestingly, zigbee2mqtt devices page show motion notification for both SNZB03 sensors as soon as I step in front of them (even though sensors show orphaned and one of them shows up as unavailable). The one with Lithum battery many times fails to clear notification sometimes for hours
I have 3 SNZB-03’s, all with the original battery.
2 run perfectly without false positives, 1 keeps giving me headaches.
I swapped the batteries to see if it was related to the power level - 69 vs 100% - but that didn’t make any difference.
Same problem here, but i have 5 SNZB-03. 3 of those work for 1 week or so then stop. The other 2 dont even work properly for a day and get unavailable (stuck).
Wow, that’s really bad…
At least the 3 that I mentioned above still work without a problem.
I tried once more to get that other one to work properly but still no luck.
Do you have other zigbee devices and do those work fine?
I have a few of these as well and has lots of troubles with them. To diagnose if battery level is causing the issues, I connected two AA batteries instead of small button batteries and for a couple of days, it felt like things got better. But then same issues appeared again and continues to persist. I am retiring these to the DO NOT USE gadget box.