Deeper log study got me to the bottom of issues with these devices.
2 issues:
The failure to include in secure mode at the secure class key exchange on a large network.
This is caused by the zwave network being too busy and can be remedied by:
a. eliminating nightly heal coming soon on 7.30
b. eliminating wakeup heal (wakeup neighbor node update) coming soon on fw 7.30
c. eliminating wakeup poll for these devices which do not need them (this sensor doesn’t)
this is not available on the vera and causes the vera to send a polling frame when you poke the wake button which interferes with its own configuration process. This is not available and not tested yet but my reading of the logs indicate that it can still be occasionally a problem. The current workaround is to make the network less busy by extending the wakeup interval. I have set mine to 3 hours. Vera’s default is 30mins.
Ghost tripping: I got to the bottom of this as well. It is caused by failed wakeup polling processes again caused by unnecessary wakeup polling which somehow the vera interprets sometimes as a trip alarm. This device updates its child devices’ status without polling and will require elimination of wakeup polls to fully eliminate. The current workaround I have is the same as 1… reduce busyness of the zwave network.
I have this device in my master bathroom. It worked great until Saturday night, when ghost trips kept turning on the bath fan, after the 1 minute time out would go back off. Repeat in about 7 minutes. After hearing that about 4 times, I disabled the PLEG device that controlled that room until morning.
Sunday morning, I noticed the battery was now at 1% - it was 100% for the last 5 months. Replaced the battery and all is well last night.
I do not know if the battery reporting is a device issue, a Vera issue, or a combination of the 2. I am on a Vera 3, latest firmware.
failed wakeup polling occur more frequently when your batteries are low… so I am not too surprised. Yet it is the polling which opens the possibility of tripping. This device does not need polling… The vera just polls every time the device wakes up. You could extend the interval between wakeup as a short term workaround but… again and again… it should just not be polling and draining the batteries prematurely.
I ended up setting the polling of all of my battery devices to 0 (never poll). Hopefully I see improved life, but proper battery reporting would be nice.
It won’t help. That’s because the vera runs a wakeup polling function every time the device wakes up regardless of what you do to it. It is embedded in the firmware.
Update on your question for 0 wakeup interval… It works just fine. In reality this device updates its 4 sensors whenever they change and make the zwave dongle send a CAN frame practically whenever they do. The vera doesn’t seem to handle it well. The wakeup really isn’t necessary for this device since it updates all of its status without polling or waking up so setting the interval to 0 works perfectly fine once it is setup and you don’t have network changes.
When you have a network topology change, you may however need to wake it up manually do run a neighbor node update if you decide to not allow it to wake up. My recommendation would be to set the wakeup interval to one day since it really updates nothing additional that is useful when it does and causes chattiness on the network.
Thanks for the update. I have a Vera Plus and all of my battery devices are set to 0 wakeup. Except for a piece of junk Everspring motion detector that has sat on 80% battery for 2 years, I have not seen much of an effect either.