Hi all,
I believe I have discovered more about when it blinks 5 times, you are just plain bricked, with very little hope of recovery…
I was very intrigued by Home Assistant, and specifically, the local support for the Wyze Bridge and Sensors, because the Sensors have become so delayed over the past few weeks/months. So I wanted to set it up, and try it out.
I have a few sensors that I have allowed to run completely out of batteries and just now have a bunch of fresh batteries, and a few others that still have juice, and are working fine with the Bridge.
It just happened that I tried the sensor that I let run out of juice for awhile. I popped a fresh battery in, and then followed the guide to get it brought into HA.
The sensor blinks 5 times, rather than the usual 3, when you insert the pin into the hole on the unit. In the past, on the Cams, I know this usually means that they are dead/gone/bricked, and need to be RMAed with Wyze.
But just for kicks, I tried it anyway.
The bridge does see it, and gets info from it… However, it has lost its MAC:
2020-06-14 00:39:18 DEBUG (SyncWorker_2) [custom_components.wyzesense.wyzesense_custom] Sensor found: mac=, type=1, version=16
However, on a unit that blinks just 3 times during the pairing process, the Wyze sensor does properly send its MAC:
2020-06-14 00:25:34 DEBUG (SyncWorker_19) [custom_components.wyzesense.wyzesense_custom] Sensor found: mac=[7785D8F9], type=1, version=16
Following this theory further, I have tried the bad ones (ie, the ones that blink 5 times instead of 3 times), and they all have not sent their MAC addresses.
On the other hand, all my other sensors that I have brought into HA that blink just 3 times, every one has properly sent a MAC.
The main difference between the 3 blink units and 5 blink units, are the 5 blink units I have allowed to completely run out of batteries for awhile.
So I suspect this explains a number of mystifying things about those dead units some of us are seeing…
Somehow, by allowing the batteries to completely drain, the MAC address is getting lost on the unit.
(Which is weird, you would expect the value to be stored in flash, which doesn’t require power…)
The unit actually knows there is a problem, which is why it blinks 5 times instead of 3, and also explains why we can’t get them linked onto the bridge anymore.
They can’t talk with it either, because there is no MAC to talk to.
The most troubling thing is, I have allowed quite a number of sensors to run out of batteries for awhile, and nearly all of them are now bricked/blinking 5 times when new batteries are used.
Since I don’t believe the sensors can be flashed/updated with new firmware, we are all on ticking time bombs of failure, unless you are on top of keeping the batteries fresh…