Ecolink Garage Door Tilt Sensor

Other Devices & Integrations Door Locks & Sensors
81

[quote=“tccmn, post:80, topic:178848”]I apologize for the length of this post in advance…

I wanted to post my experiences with this Ecolink Garage Door Tilt Sensor. I installed it in my home in Florida and it worked flawlessly for about 3 months, then I started getting quite a few false triggers. I had setup Vera to text me each time the garage door opened because we were not at the home all summer. After about three months I began receiving texts that the door had opened, but I knew they were false because I had also setup a camera in the garage so I could confirm whether the garage door was actually open or closed. I figured the unit was defective so I replaced it with a new one. That was four months ago and yesterday it started acting up again. Twelve texts were sent out indicating the door had opened twelve times. Two texts in the early AM hours and ten during the afternoon. The door hadn’t opened any of those times except when my wife left in the morning which it reported correctly.

The main purpose for the sensor when we’re home is as follows: When Vera gets a trigger that the garage door is open it checks if the time is after sunset but before sunrise. If outside those times it simply exits. If within those times it immediately turns on the inside garage lights, driveway lights, front door lights, and living area lights at 50%. Two minutes after the garage door closes Vera turns off the inside garage lights, driveway lights, and front door lights, but leaves the lights in the living area on. My wife loves this setup when she comes home alone after dark.

When the tilt sensor acted up at 4:00am and sent a false trigger, of course the scene turned on all of the lights as if the garage door had opened. I was out of town when this occurred and of course this woke up the wife. I don’t want that happening too often.

The batteries are supposed to last a long time (like years). I set the wakeup interval for once every 24 hours so it wouldn’t use much battery life. The door does go open several times a day. The battery indicator has always shown 100% so I’m suspicious that it doesn’t actually report that information correctly.

Like others in this string, I also want to check whether the garage door is open around bedtime and send a text notification if it’s open. Even though it shows up as a motion device I’ve successfully checked whether the door is open or closed by automatically starting a scene at a specified time (i.e 10pm) and running the following luup code:

–Check garage door sensor
–If not open then exit, otherwise run scene
local GdoorStatus = luup.variable_get(“urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:SecuritySensor1”,“Tripped”,XX)
if (tonumber(GdoorStatus) == 0) then return false
end

The “XX” is the sensor ID number. The problem is that there isn’t any way that I can send a text notification from a scene for this device.

Does anyone have any advice about setting up text notification?[/quote]

Sounds like your battery to me. I have several of this device out in the field and here for almost a year and do not have any of the problems you are reporting.
I suggest getting a Telguard GDC1 and eliminating the battery completely.

82

[quote=“tccmn, post:80, topic:178848”]I apologize for the length of this post in advance…

I wanted to post my experiences with this Ecolink Garage Door Tilt Sensor. I installed it in my home in Florida and it worked flawlessly for about 3 months, then I started getting quite a few false triggers. I had setup Vera to text me each time the garage door opened because we were not at the home all summer. After about three months I began receiving texts that the door had opened, but I knew they were false because I had also setup a camera in the garage so I could confirm whether the garage door was actually open or closed. I figured the unit was defective so I replaced it with a new one. That was four months ago and yesterday it started acting up again. Twelve texts were sent out indicating the door had opened twelve times. Two texts in the early AM hours and ten during the afternoon. The door hadn’t opened any of those times except when my wife left in the morning which it reported correctly.

The main purpose for the sensor when we’re home is as follows: When Vera gets a trigger that the garage door is open it checks if the time is after sunset but before sunrise. If outside those times it simply exits. If within those times it immediately turns on the inside garage lights, driveway lights, front door lights, and living area lights at 50%. Two minutes after the garage door closes Vera turns off the inside garage lights, driveway lights, and front door lights, but leaves the lights in the living area on. My wife loves this setup when she comes home alone after dark.

When the tilt sensor acted up at 4:00am and sent a false trigger, of course the scene turned on all of the lights as if the garage door had opened. I was out of town when this occurred and of course this woke up the wife. I don’t want that happening too often.

The batteries are supposed to last a long time (like years). I set the wakeup interval for once every 24 hours so it wouldn’t use much battery life. The door does go open several times a day. The battery indicator has always shown 100% so I’m suspicious that it doesn’t actually report that information correctly.

Like others in this string, I also want to check whether the garage door is open around bedtime and send a text notification if it’s open. Even though it shows up as a motion device I’ve successfully checked whether the door is open or closed by automatically starting a scene at a specified time (i.e 10pm) and running the following luup code:

–Check garage door sensor
–If not open then exit, otherwise run scene
local GdoorStatus = luup.variable_get(“urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:SecuritySensor1”,“Tripped”,XX)
if (tonumber(GdoorStatus) == 0) then return false
end

The “XX” is the sensor ID number. The problem is that there isn’t any way that I can send a text notification from a scene for this device.

Does anyone have any advice about setting up text notification?[/quote]

I have had similar issues with false triggers which come in bunches but then go away so I do not suspect it to be battery related or if it is there could be other factors (temperature?) I seem to have found that when the weather gets windy, the false triggers occur more often. I don’t think it is because it physically moves but rather because there could be a draft of air flowing around the sensor and lowering the temperature. I now have it combined with a Linear GD opener which also has a battery operated sensor which I put at a different pane of the door so I can sense when the door is fully or partially open. Since the weather has warmed up, it seems like I have stopped having any such problem.

83

We are at 6000 feet elevation have lots of wind storms and regular temps of below freezing in the winter and have almost none of those issues. I say almost none because there are instances of the sensor does not report its proper status after a change like the garage door opening or closing. I assume it is a signal issue as wireless is never perfect.
They for us, are rock solid when they have a fresh battery.
We do have Ecolink sensors that do not show proper status when the battery shows below 70% This is normal as I assume the battery reporting not to be that accurate. This goes for most devices though.

84

My wife reported that it was a little stormy the night of the issue, but the daytime weather was good when it reported 10 false triggers. There were no problems in the last 24 hours so I’ll just keep an eye on it for now. If I experience another issue I’ll probably replace the battery just to see what happens. Another alternative I’m thinking about is mounting the first one I had replaced onto the garage door as well for redundancy, and confirm that both sensors are tripped before allowing the scene to execute.

Anyone have ideas on how to send a text from a scene for this sensor?

85

I’ll just add my 2 cents - similar experiences with my tilt sensor as well. I have the monoprice one but I think it’s the same as the Ecolink? Anyway, it was working fine for a month or so and started firing open/closed events wildly. I had to turn scenes off because it’s so unreliable. Will definitely be looking forward to a resolution…

86

not sure if this will help… and i’m going a bit on memory here. But i was having mis reads… not wild, but lots of times it was reporting back inaccurately. The vendor told me to open up the sensor and bend the small tube a bit to ensure it was closer to a 45 dg. angle, ensuring the little ball inside moved when the sensor tilted.

I did this on both of mine, and have never had a problem sense.

One way that i diagnosed that this was likely it as when it was reporting incorrectly, i could go rap on it with my fingers, and sure enough it would report accurately at that point.

87

well, it’s been almost two weeks since the false trigger episode and I haven’t experienced an issue since. Probably not a battery problem but it’s still a mystery. When I get back home I’ll take the cover off and check the angle of the tube. If there is a ball in a tube I can see how a non vertical tube may allow the ball to stick or not seat correctly.

88

I also have had a few instances of false door open alerts. I will be interested in what you find when you open the sensor case.

Did you ever get an answer to sending texts? I solved it by running LUA code that sends an email message, but using the email to SMS email address to convert the message to a text message.

VeraAlerts is another possibility.

89

I didn’t get a response about sending a text. Could you share how you used the email to SMS email address to convert the message to a text message? Thanks

90

There is a super secret email address that your wireless provider supplies that you can utilize to send an email as a text message. The address varies depending on your wireless provider, but will be in the format of the 10 digit cell phone number, followed by the vender specific address.

For example, AT&T (US) uses the address: 8005551212@txt.att.net

I have the addresses for the four major US wireless providers. For the rest, you would need to contact your wireless provider to find out what their super secret address is.

91

That got me on the right track. I use Verizon, and found what I needed. It’s a wonder how the answer can be so easy sometimes.

Thanks aa6vh

92
Ok I think I figured out how to make the Exiling Garage Door Tilt sensor act as a door sensor and not as a motion sensor in UI7:

Advanced/params
Change subcategory_num from 3 to 1
Change device_file to D_DoorSensor1.xml
Change device_json to D_DoorSensor1.json

This should change the icon and classification of the sensor.
After doing this the sensors does react upon open and closing of the door like a door sensor but is not able to trigger scenes.

I had to do the following under the Variables Tab:
Change NodeInfo by adding “20” so it should look like this: 20,30,70,71,72,80,84,85,86,
This fixes the scene trigger
To change to the polling state Vs change state capabilities need to be changed to
83,156,0,4,32,1,R,B,RS,|32,48:1,112,113:2,114,128,132:2,133,134,
Basically adding the 32 after the column.

Anhman, I made these changes (UI7) but the notification choices are still based on the motion sensor “detecting motion”. Do I need to wait for the devices to wakeup to see the change and/or restart my controller?

93

I just deleted and readied my tilt sensor this week because of an upgrade from the vera lite to the vera edge. I followed this exact same procedure and my notifications show up as “Garage Door open” and “Garage Door Closed”. You may want to restart the Luup engine. This should not require reconfiguring the device.

94

I’m sure I reloaded the engine before and it didn’t work, but now it did. Maybe the devices have to wake up first, then the engine reloaded?

Thanks!

95

[quote=“anhman, post:79, topic:178848”]Ok I think I figured out how to make the Exiling Garage Door Tilt sensor act as a door sensor and not as a motion sensor in UI7:

Advanced/params
Change subcategory_num from 3 to 1
Change device_file to D_DoorSensor1.xml
Change device_json to D_DoorSensor1.json

This should change the icon and classification of the sensor.
After doing this the sensors does react upon open and closing of the door like a door sensor but is not able to trigger scenes.

I had to do the following under the Variables Tab:
Change NodeInfo by adding “20” so it should look like this: 20,30,70,71,72,80,84,85,86,
This fixes the scene trigger
To change to the polling state Vs change state capabilities need to be changed to
83,156,0,4,32,1,R,B,RS,|32,48:1,112,113:2,114,128,132:2,133,134,
Basically adding the 32 after the column.

Hope this helps![/quote]

Hi there, I’ve followed your steps and it looks like it worked. However, the events are backwards of what they should be. It sends me a notification when the garage door is closed telling me that it’s open, and vice versa. Did you have any issues with that? Or have any advice on config changes that would fix this issue?

96

No I didn’t have any such problem. This is strange. Are you sure your notifications were setup correctly?
When the garage door is open, does the device on the UI show as opened?
It could be that your sensor status is not setup right.

97

[quote=“anhman, post:96, topic:178848”]No I didn’t have any such problem. This is strange. Are you sure your notifications were setup correctly?
When the garage door is open, does the device on the UI show as opened?
It could be that your sensor status is not setup right.[/quote]

That’s entirely possible, but I’m not sure how to check that (I’m still new to z-wave and the vera). My UI doesn’t show a status at all, it just gives me the options of Arm or Disarm, which I thought was odd, considering it should be acting as a door sensor, after I input the same changes that you listed here. I’ve also restarted the LUUP engine just in case.

What should it show on my dashboard? A status? (Open/closed).

The notifications I set up were:

Armed and Open
Armed and Closed

I’m pretty sure I installed the sensor right-side up, as the label was upright and the bracket more than likely wouldn’t hold it the other way.

I’m kind of stumped.

98

Mind didn’t work right away. I came back a couple of hours later and it was all good. Don’t know if the devices had to wake up for things to finish or what.

99

[quote=“Coolsaber57, post:97, topic:178848”][quote=“anhman, post:96, topic:178848”]No I didn’t have any such problem. This is strange. Are you sure your notifications were setup correctly?
When the garage door is open, does the device on the UI show as opened?
It could be that your sensor status is not setup right.[/quote]

That’s entirely possible, but I’m not sure how to check that (I’m still new to z-wave and the vera). My UI doesn’t show a status at all, it just gives me the options of Arm or Disarm, which I thought was odd, considering it should be acting as a door sensor, after I input the same changes that you listed here. I’ve also restarted the LUUP engine just in case.

What should it show on my dashboard? A status? (Open/closed).

The notifications I set up were:

Armed and Open
Armed and Closed

I’m pretty sure I installed the sensor right-side up, as the label was upright and the bracket more than likely wouldn’t hold it the other way.

I’m kind of stumped.[/quote]

The open and close should be marked by the icon. You do not have the option of opening or closing obviously since it is a sensor. You can only arm and disarm it.
The sensor can be in two states: Tripped or Untripped. This is shown by the variable “tripped” under advanced/variables but should also changed the icon depending on its state.
The notification is basically a scene triggered by a state change of this variable.

If you can verify that the device is actually responding then we can look at the notifications.

100

[quote=“anhman, post:99, topic:178848”][quote=“Coolsaber57, post:97, topic:178848”][quote=“anhman, post:96, topic:178848”]No I didn’t have any such problem. This is strange. Are you sure your notifications were setup correctly?
When the garage door is open, does the device on the UI show as opened?
It could be that your sensor status is not setup right.[/quote]

That’s entirely possible, but I’m not sure how to check that (I’m still new to z-wave and the vera). My UI doesn’t show a status at all, it just gives me the options of Arm or Disarm, which I thought was odd, considering it should be acting as a door sensor, after I input the same changes that you listed here. I’ve also restarted the LUUP engine just in case.

What should it show on my dashboard? A status? (Open/closed).

The notifications I set up were:

Armed and Open
Armed and Closed

I’m pretty sure I installed the sensor right-side up, as the label was upright and the bracket more than likely wouldn’t hold it the other way.

I’m kind of stumped.[/quote]

The open and close should be marked by the icon. You do not have the option of opening or closing obviously since it is a sensor. You can only arm and disarm it.
The sensor can be in two states: Tripped or Untripped. This is shown by the variable “tripped” under advanced/variables but should also changed the icon depending on its state.
The notification is basically a scene triggered by a state change of this variable.

If you can verify that the device is actually responding then we can look at the notifications.[/quote]

Ok, I took a look at the sensor icon, but I can’t really tell if it’s “tripped” or not, but I did see that Vera couldn’t connect to the device. I think that it was in “sleep mode”, because as soon as I open and then close the door, I get notifications via email. (two, actually, that tell me that it’s Open). Is this expected behavior for this sensor? Or should the Vera be able to always ping it to get status?

I looked at the Variable page and the variable for “Tripped” is 1. However, I’m not sure it was reporting correctly, given the above mentioned warning that the vera couldn’t connect to the device. I

Is it possible that it’s mounted upside down, even though the label is upright?

I feel like this is way more complicated than I would expect for a simple tilt sensor, haha.