Two out of three Multisensors updating only once an hour

Configuration
1

I have three Aeotec Multisensor 6 devices; sensors A, B and C. All three work on USB power so battery mode wakeup timer shouldn’t be an issue.
Through editing zwcfg_blabla.xml, I have manually set the following values for all three sensors:

  • Temperature reporting threshold: 5 (default was 20; 2.0C)
  • Group 1 Reports: 32 (Temperature)
  • Group 2 Reports: 64 (Humidity)
  • Group 1 Interval: 60 (every minute)
  • Group 2 Interval: 600 (every 10 minutes)

Looking at History (and home-assistant_v2.db), however:

  • Sensor A temperature logging interval varies between 1 to 40 minutes
  • Sensors B & C only log temperature once an hour (almost exactly)

For sensor A, roughly half of the logged 50 values were at a 1 minute interval. 7 were at 2 minute interval, 3 at 3 min, and the rest stretch from 5 to 40 minutes. Each time, the change in logged temperature has been 0.1 C, even at 1 minute interval.
Why does it not stick to 1 minute? I might increase it to 10 minutes anyway, but I’m curious why the interval sometimes goes so far over the set interval?

Sensors B and C are the main issue here though; despite the settings I’m getting a temperature logged exactly every 1 hour.

I then took all three nodes from the xml file to Excel and performed a row-to-row comparison, and the only differing rows are either the Node row (with id, name etc), SensorMap (where type is unique for each), or some of the Value rows (luminance, temperature, etc current values).
The only significant difference appears to be this:
Sensor A: Protocol Version: 4.54, Application Version: 1.11
Sensor B: Protocol Version: 4.05, Application Version: 1.08
Sensor C: Protocol Version: 4.05, Application Version: 1.08

I did indeed update the firmware on sensor A, while it was being used in an earlier setup before sensors B and C arrived. Do you think this could be the cause?
I read that FW 1.11 introduced these changes, of which number two could be relevant? I did check that the config lines for parameter 41 were identical in all the three sensors before I made changes…

Unfortunately, the firmware update requires a Windows PC (Z-Stick), so it’s impossible to do remotely. As the system is about 125km (78 miles or so) from me, I’d rather not drive there unless out of options.

Any ideas on what to look for next?

2

This is most definitely a configuration/hardware issue. Look to the manuals and start by updating all 3 to the same firmware.

3

Also, as an FYI, pushing configuration changes to these devices require the devices to be awake. The only way to wake them is to press the button. So you need to press the button, push the changes within 10 seconds. This could be different when on USB power, I only run mine on battery.

4

Thanks, the mention of pushing configuration changes got me thinking. It appears editing the config file directly did not result in the changes being pushed to the sensor. While viewing the values through the Z-Wave control panel did indeed show the parameters from the config file, I now got it to work by simply setting the already-shown parameters again through there. I’m now getting reports more frequently, though the interval is still pretty inconsistent, ranging from the currently-set 300s/5min to 20min or rarely even an hour. All three sensors behave like this now.

5

Editing the config file doesn’t do anything other that change what you see in the configuration file. The devices themselves need to hold the data. that zwave.cfg file is created after reading all the nodes usually. I’m not sure how the interaction works in HA.

1 Like
6

Alright, thanks for the confirmation!

I now get what my problem is with the inconsistent intervals when viewing the database; only temperature changes are logged. OZW_Log does indeed contain temperature reports every 5 minutes for each sensor, just as configured, but Recorder appears to add them to the database only when the value has changed from the last report.

So far so good, then.

7

That makes sense because Home assistant only cares about state changes and if the state doesn’t change… why report that it got a communcation. It most likely only updates attributes like ‘last_triggered’ with a new time.