Wow. Which Z-wave sensor…the Sensative? I’ve wondered about those.
from a website
Battery
These devices need to conserve battery power and they do this by spending most of their time sleeping, similar to a computer being in hibernation mode. Battery powered devices do not repeat Z-Wave communications because it would take too much battery power. Typical battery powered devices are window/door sensors, motion sensors, and water sensors. (Door locks and thermostats are a different subset of battery powered devices that we will further discuss in our next section). The typical schedule for one of these sensors listed above is to wake up and check in with your Z-Wave hub every 60 minutes and then return to a state of sleep. When the device checks in, it tells the hub that it is communicating properly, while also checking if the hub has any updates for associations and parameters. All battery powered devices have a way to manually wake up/ become active by opening the battery lid or setting off the tamper sensor. Each manufacture is different and will post wake up methods within instructions. During initial setup you will want to make sure the battery powered device is awake transmitting new data to your Z-Wave hub. If you do not allow the device to transmit fully during initial pair you will witness intermitted functionality.
The problem do the Wyze sensor go in to sleep mode? I don’t know.
I am at a cross road is go with a smarthub or stay with wyze
I have had battery problems as well. I had to replace the battery on the contact sensor on my OHD in an unheated garage thrice. Twice on the motion sensor. The cold -30c (-22f) knocks the stuffing out of these little batteries. I finally decided to replace the stock battery with two AAA batteries in series (3v) and I also replaced a damaged reed switch with an external reed switch.
Works great now! Much bigger package though
An odd thing I noticed.
When the contact sensor determines that the battery is low, it flashes the LED every couple of seconds. Which is sure to kill the battery even faster. . . But I guess that it figures that you have been notified and should just change the battery!
It’s not beautiful, but it works. Was -15c last night.

Can you post a picture of what you did? My batteries in the garage switches died quickly too…no problem with name brand batteries so far. I like the idea of providing a more robust power source.
I’d like to see this too. Great idea!
Photos added
Thank you!
Awesome and thanx!
No Worries!
Have you seen the Wyze hacks on Youtube?
There are people using contact sensors to alert them to water leaks and it would be simple to create a low or high temp sensor with a simple $20 thermostat. So you know that your house isn’t freezing while you are on vacation. If you don’t have a smart t-stat.
With the z wave sensor they doing the same.
The Honeywell wifi thermostat is working good for a friend for $70.
https://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-Programmable-Thermostat-RTH6580WF-Requires/dp/B00Y6M2OUC/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1BTT36Q6UXKSF&keywords=honeywell+thermostat&qid=1582217891&sprefix=honeywell+%2Caps%2C222&sr=8-3
+1 for endless problems with contact sensor battery life. My problems are not limited to outdoor sensors. I have had 5 contact sensors in light use over the past two months - only one is “outdoors” (in an unheated garage). I have gone through 10 batteries in that time (all Wyze batteries) - an average of about one battery every three weeks on the outdoor sensor and one per month on the indoor sensors.
Every single customer support representative responds to my queries as if they’ve never heard of anyone having battery issues. Very frustrating, especially considering the Wyze product page advertises 1 year as the battery life. If the product page stated “1 month” as the battery life, I never would have purchased these sensors.
To make matters worse, as has been noted, once the sensor decides that the battery is “low”, it flashes the LED a couple of times every 10 seconds or so. The sensor is normally able to communicate with the bridge for a day or so after the flashing starts, but the constant flashing fully kills the battery in short order. After a couple of days, the sensor can no longer communicate with the bridge and you’re no longer protected (and if you’re away, there’s nothing you can do about it). This low battery flashing should either be removed from the firmware or have an on/off setting in the app. When I’m away, I want the sensor to work properly with the low battery (report open/closed changes) until I get back home.
That’s the same model we have. We have two and have been happy with them. You can even get them into HomeKit quite easily with Homebridge (especially with HOOBS) and the Tcc plugin v 0.1.7. Just have to get a bit of info from the TCC url for the config.
Yeah! TaylorTech I think? He has great videos. We already have the Samsung. Leaks were my biggest concern so we invested early before seeing that hack. Very clever! Thanks for the reminder and the photos of yours. I’d have never thought of that. Brilliant.
They taking the ecolink z wave sensor and doing the same thing. It has the studs ! already
I’ve only had problems with sensors in my unheated garage.?!
The sensors in my house haven’t been a problem.
Did you see the remarks from shayfunk ?
I agree with you about that ‘low battery flash’ kinda counterproductive.
Our house gets down to 50F for several hours just about every day. It’s winter here, and the thermostat is set for 50F while we’re at work, so I suppose that could have some sort of impact. But that temp swing is not out of the ordinary for households up north during the winter, and the batteries should be able to handle it (and last more than a month). I’m curious how Energizer CR1632 batteries would last compared to the “Henli Max” batteries which Wyze supplies, but I’m on the fence about wanting to spend more money to find out. I’m pretty tempted to put the sensors back in the box and call them a poor investment - since $60 per year on batteries ($1 per battery per month x 12 months per year x 5 sensors) is just ridiculous.
I’ve got the Energizer batteries in mine as the Wyze batteries run out. I use my sensors exclusively indoors, and have just had the problem with one so far that died in 3 months after receiving. It’s on a basement window and had been opened and closed exactly once, to test that it functioned properly.
It’s going strong with the replacement Energizer in it now though!
There are good and bad batteries out there. Energizer are usually “good”, but only if you buy the ones in the blue/white packaging. The ones in the black/white packaging are designed for industrial use and do not last as long as the consumer-units (blue/white package). I try to avoid the no-name Chinese junk batteries, but I’m sure there are a few Chinese brands which will provide at least a year of service?
Basically, when replacing button-cell batteries in all my electronics and watches, I try to stick with better brands from Renata, Maxell, Sony, Energizer, etc… I have found a German company that also produces a pretty good battery, and they are cheap from Amazon… LiCB… made in Berlin, and so far, they are going strong in my outdoor sensors all winter (temps down to 0-deg F). A ten-pack was under $6, delivered. So, even if they only last 6-months, a ten-pack will keep your five sensors running for a year… for less than six bucks, not sixty!
I was not aware of the difference between Energizer blue/white and black/white packaging batteries. Normally, the industrial versions of Energizer/Duracell batteries are just packaged for higher volumes but the internals of the batteries themselves are pretty much the same. I have read that there are either counterfeit and/or local market versions of batteries which look similar to their broad market counterparts yet perform poorly - but I can’t confirm that information.
I looked up LiCB. If this is the same company you’re referring to:
then they are from China:
“Guangzhou city lichengbei battery Technology Co., Ltd. was founded in 2016,… We are located in Guangzhou, CN.
Cooperating with Third parties : EBAY, ALIEXPRESS, WISH , AMAZON”
But if they’re good batteries from a consistent manufacturing process, then origin doesn’t really matter.