Kwikset lock now eating batteries every 2 weeks

Other Devices & Integrations Door Locks & Sensors
1

In the past 3 months, my kwikset door lock eats batteries. I am using Vera edge, and firmware 1.7.1181.

Funny thing is, when I had PLEG on vera lite, same lock, I had no battery issues, and the 1st few months on Vera Edge was also ok. It seems more recent, that batteries of different makes are just dying every 2 weeks…

I do use Pleg and Vera alerts to tell me when a door has been unlocked, AND also left open evey 15 minutes, but does that cause extra polling?

Any thoughts on lock device settings or polling I might check?

Thanks!

2

Constant polling will exhaust your battery in no time.

There is a bug in Vera where it will set the polling interval for battery powered locks to every two minutes, which is way to short.

Suggest checking the polling interval for your lock, and either turn it off (set it to zero), or set it to three hours or more.

Polling is not all that necessary for locks, since they are supposed to send a message to Vera when the door locks or unlocks. Polling only catches the situation where that message is lost.

Also verify that the lock is not binding somehow.

3

aa6vh, thanks for the info. I did confirm that polling was set to 0, but I changed it to 14440. I lost 30 % battery in 3 days. The lock does not bind, it moves easily.

I will report my results over the weekend. I tried updating the firmware, based on the statements that the new firmware better handles battery operated devices…however, I had too many devices disappearing, so I reverted.

I will resume a 4+ month wait and see on firmware updates, based on community feedback.

Thanks again.

4

[quote=“MrAutomate, post:3, topic:188686”]aa6vh, thanks for the info. I did confirm that polling was set to 0, but I changed it to 14440. I lost 30 % battery in 3 days. The lock does not bind, it moves easily.

I will report my results over the weekend. I tried updating the firmware, based on the statements that the new firmware better handles battery operated devices…however, I had too many devices disappearing, so I reverted.

I will resume a 4+ month wait and see on firmware updates, based on community feedback.

Thanks again.[/quote]

You shouldn’t need a firmware update to fix this. As I have never ate threw batteries in 2 weeks even with ui5 up to 7.09 firmware. So your issue must be specific to your device or your settings as that’s normal for the rest of us. I did have a battery drain problem a year ago where my lock wasn’t locking fully as the dead bolt hole was to shallow.

5

thanks for the heads up. I am not a Vera user as I use Qolsys but nonetheless the same decisions you all take I will have to as well when it comes to devices. I will be adding a zwave door lock in the near future and been shying away from using Kwikset locks vs Schlage or Yale.

Have you resolved your issue?

6

Quick update on this issue in case others see it over time. This issues was a defect in the actual lock. I replaced it and have not changed batteries in 5 months now.