I have a wireless door sensor that uses the Tuya integration.
I want to have a way to check if the “sensor” is still alive and connected – as perhaps the only thing worse than having no alarm sensor on your door is having an alarm sensor that is not working.
Previously, when I had an older battery in the sensor, I would check for updates to the battery strength which were updated every 8 hours and almost always changed since the battery strength would vary from measurement to measurement. Thus by checking for updates to the battery strength, I was able to confirm that the sensor was connected and working.
However, ever since I installed a new battery, it has not updated with the last update showing a battery value of 100% from 2 weeks ago – I am hoping that this is just because the battery is truly still measuring an unchanged 100% but I have no way of knowing if perhaps the sensor is no longer connected.
Neither last_updated_ts nor last_reported_ts have updated in about 2 weeks.
(Note that if I restart HA, I do get an immediate new database entry with battery=100% but I am not sure when this reading was taken – i.e. is it current or is it just retrieving a stale reading from 2 weeks ago).
So, is there any way to force an update (at least of last_reported_ts) even if the battery value is unchanged so that I can at least check if the sensor is sending a signal every 8 hours that it is alive?
Or does the fact that last_reported_ts hasn’t updated suggest that the sensor is no longer connected?