Philips Hue SML004 outdoor motion sensor issue

Hardware
1

Hi,

I have a Philips Hue outdoor motion sensor (SML004 / 9290030674). It has been working okay for me for over a year. (I had some connection issues with it initially, was able to solve that by bringing a router device closer, the sensor was really far away from the nearest router before that.)

Recently, the sensor stopped working. That is, in my Zigbee2MQTT interface, I can see that it does send some info occasionally, because the “last seen” timestamp gets updated every now and then. However, the measurement values (occupancy, illuminance and temperature) don’t get updated at all. That renders the sensor useless. I’ve tried to following:

  • re-pairing: push the button for a couple of seconds until a LED starts blinking orange.
  • issue an “inverview” via the Zigbee2MQTT UI.

Is there anything else I can do? Or is this a hardware failure? If so, would that be an outlier, or do people have experience that these sensors do not live for long. That would be a pity, since there aren’t that many good outdoor Zigbee motion sensors…

2

This may be the problem again. Conditions change over time (has your neighbour got a new wi-fi provider?). Add another router or two?

I’ve had one of these sensors running for a couple of years with no issues - it seems very robust.

3

I tried one more thing today: instead of re-pair it by pushing the button on the sensor device, I re-paired it by removing it from Zigbee2MQTT. I removed the device from Z2M, the sensor then automatically entered pairing mode, indicated by an orange blinking LED. When I put Z2M in pairing mode, in almost instantly was added again. Of course the friendly name was lost in the process, but by renaming it to the exact same name it had before, I made sure my automations will keep working. The result of this exercise is that the sensor seems to be working correctly again. I see it report varying values for temperature, luminance and –most importantly– occupancy.

4

I seem to have the exact same issue all of a sudden. I have 4 of the Hue Outdoor Sensor (SML004), and one of them just went unavailable… Strange thing.