Hello! I have over 25 of the Philips Hue Motion Sensor (model: SML003), and I’ve been using them only with Home Assistant Zigbee with ZHA for about a year now.
About a month ago, they all started dying one by one. I bought most of them around the same time, so it makes sense that they’d all start dying around the same time. But after replacing the batteries with brand new batteries (I’ve tried both Energizer from multiple stores and Kirkland Signature from Costco), the batteries die within a few weeks.
The battery life has always shown 100%, so there’s no way to know what’s going on. They just pop offline suddenly, and I only know because a room won’t turn on or off, and I find a bunch of them outta battery.
I’m currently using the ZBT-1, but I have a ZBT-2 coming. I have plenty of devices, so I don’t think it’s a signaling issue. Anything red are devices that aren’t connected:
I know that the original OEM batteries are Philips-branded. I would totally buy more of those (even though I shouldn’t have to), but they don’t sell them on their website anymore; at least, not in the US.
So at this point, I’m not sure what to do. I’m wondering if it’s a recent Home Assistant change that caused the problem. I haven’t touched the settings on these devices, so it’s something else going on.
Hi,
I can’t offer any solutions either but can say that of my 3 active Hue motion sensors (also SML003) one has recently been chewing through batteries quite quickly compared to a couple of years back. More frustratingly though, that same energy hungry sensor now won’t detect motion but still reports temp & humidity.
Sadly, one of mine (I replaced the batteries yesterday) went offline again tonight. But this time, I was able to get it back on by holding the button on the back and starting the “Add Zigbee device” in Home Assistant.
Another went offline just now. It was showing red when I held the button. I removed and re-inserted the batteries. It’s working now again. We’ll see for how long.
I own 30 of these Philips Hue sensors, and there are a group of 7 that keep going offline since changing the batteries from OEM. They’re at opposite ends of the house, and my Zigbee mesh is very crowded, but it has a ton of routers.
I bought a ZBT-2 to replace my ZBT-1, but I’ve yet to get it in the mail. It hasn’t even shipped yet.
I have a total of 15 Hue Motion running - but I use the Hue Bridge!
I use them mostly as Motion and Temperature Sensors for the last 5 years or so.
In the areas, where they get less work out - because movement is happening with low frequency - I get at least 3 years out of a set of batteries (the cheapest I can find in the supermarket ).
In my hallway (most movement) - they usually last a good 2 years.
I also have the problem that my Hue outdoor motion sensors (SML002) have recently started to regularly disconnect from the network. I recently changed the batteries in all of them; some still had the original batteries, while others had already been replaced.
I bought all five at the end of 2020 and they have been working without any problems since then. Until the trouble began a few weeks ago…
I can reconnect the motion detectors, although the process is relatively tedious. It often takes several attempts, and twice during this process Home Assistant froze completely (requiring a power cycle)!
The batteries in mine are definitely not empty after disconnecting (I measured them).
What has changed in the network recently:
I switched from ConBee II coordinator to ZBT-1 (ZBT-2 became available a few days later… ).
I have added a number of USB Zigbee routers.
Of course, ZHA has also undergone updates.
A ZBT-2 is on its way. When it arrives, I will have to reconnect many Aqara devices anyway. I will remove the USB routers beforehand and observe the whole thing.
The ZBT-2 arrived today. I removed the USB routers and started the migration. Then I reconnected all Hue motion sensors.
I measured the batteries again: without load all are between 1.53 and 1.59V; with a load of 80mA all are between 1.49V and 1.54V. It couldn’t be better.
I am curious to see how the motion sensors will behave now.
I bought my ZBT-2 from Everything Smart Home early December, and they haven’t shipped yet, so I’m still dealing whatever bug they introduced in the ZBT-1.
I pay $30 for another set of AAA batteries each week. This is getting ridiculous. I don’t like spending time repeatedly changing batteries nor do I like paying for them. What’s going on? Why is this still happening?
The recent purchase or Duracell (over Energizer and Kirkland Signature (Costco brand) still show “Good” on my battery meter.
That means this time, it’s not battery life, but Zigbee signaling. I haven’t taken out any routers or anything, I’ve only added them (Christmas tree plugs).
Was there a recent firmware update? And why only these 9? Some of the others work fine.
Since I switched to the ZBT-2 last Thursday and removed the USB routers, there have been no more connection problems with the Hue motion sensors.
I’ll wait until Thursday this week and add the USB routers again. I’m curious to see what happens. I hope the problems came from the ZBT-1, not from the USB routers, because they showed exceptionally good connectivity.
Even my countless first-generation Aqara sensors, which were always said to be non-standard compliant in that they only communicate with the device they were originally paired with. I can confirm this behavior in that these sensors no longer had a connection when the respective router (lamp) was out of power. With these pure USB routers, the Aqara sensors all reconnected on their own to these routers, and overall there was very strong networking between devices and the various routers.
Contrary to my plans, I waited another week before reactivating the USB routers.
Last night, one of the motion sensors completely lost its connection again. These are definitely fewer connection problems than in the weeks before, but it’s still annoying when I consider that these five Hue motion sensors worked for five years without a single failure.
Yeah, I’m still having issues. I had another just go offline even with Philips batteries. This has to have been caused by a recent firmware update to the ZBT-1 or Home Assistant.
Something’s breaking it because I even moved my Pi outta the basement and into my office where it has open-air access to everything else.
I’m tired of continually swapping out batteries too.
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