Can I poll temperature on an Aeotec MultiSensor 6?

I just bought an Aeotec MultiSensor 6 to replace a DSB05 that died. I mostly care about using it as an outdoor temperature sensor. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that when it runs on batteries it only reports the temperature once an hour. Does anyone know if there's a way to poll it for temperature more than once an hour?

[jay (support)]

It should report temp changes immediately when the temperature changes. Are you sure it's only doing it hourly? If so, exclude it then include it again.

If it's like the Fibaro's, it will have two parameters.

One for how often to send a scheduled report, and one for 'send update whenever temperature changes by more than ... degrees'.

If it's sending hourly, that's because (in Fibaro) the temperature is the same as it was before so no need to send any more frequently. Therefore polling more frequently isn't necessary. (It wouldn't work anyway because you can't poll battery devices more frequently than their wakeup timer anyway)


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Here's what it looks like. The Aeotec is the outdoor sensor with the larger temperature swings. The other three are Nest thermostats.

temperatureHistory copy.png (44.41 KiB) Viewed 4172 times

It's definitely not reporting every 1° temperature change.

The engineering specification (https://aeotec.freshdesk.com/helpdesk/attachments/6009584695) comment for parameter 111 says

If battery power, the minimum interval time is 60 minutes by default, for example, if the value is set to be more than 5 and less than 3600, the interval time is 60 minutes, if the value is set to be more than 3600 and less than 7200, the interval time is 120 minutes. You can also change the minimum interval time to 4 minutes via setting the interval value(3 bytes) to 240 in Wake Up Interval Set CC.

I'm assuming what they're calling "Wake Up Interval" is the "Wake Interval" in the device configuration dialog. That's a drop-down with discreet values, the shortest of which is 5 minutes, so I can't set that to 240 seconds.

But looking at the parameters I see that parameter 41 is "Threshold change in temperature to induce an automatic report." I haven't experimented in Indigo with setting a devices's specific parameters. Is that possible?

Right, param 41 is what you want then.

Interfaces > Zwave > Modify configuration parameter

Pick device, param index 41, param size likely 1 byte.

Press read current value to check it first (need to wake up device to read/write anything)

Then type new value in and hit Save new value.


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[jay (support)]

The wake interval, as you've noticed, is separate from the threshold report. You can set the wake interval in the device's config dialog.

It could be that the temp threshold parameter somehow got munged such that it's never reporting temp changes except during a wake interval. Try setting that as howartp suggests and see if that makes any difference. If it doesn't then I'd next try excluding/including (as close to a factory reset as you can get) and if that doesn't work I'd exchange it.

Interval reporting (parameter 40) was disabled by default. I enabled interval reporting and set the temperature interval to 1°. We'll see what happens today. Thanks to you and howartp for your help.

Jay, worth changing the defaults for this module definition during indigo inclusion?


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The manual for the ZW100 says parameter 41 is 3 bytes long (the right-most column in the image). The Modify Configuration Parameter dialog only allows lengths of 1, 2, and 4 bytes. Will it work if I select 4 bytes and leave the MSB at 0?

Screen Shot 2017-07-08 at 9.28.57 AM.png (97.81 KiB) Viewed 4065 times

To follow up on what happened with the attempt to change the parameters, nothing changed. It's still reporting hourly instead of at temperature change intervals. Now I'm trying to figure out if I'm actually setting the parameters successfully.

The little spike in the temperature is from when I was manually waking the ZW100.

temperatureHistory copy.png (60.24 KiB) Viewed 4065 times

[jay (support)]

Have you excluded/included it as I suggested earlier?

Mmm, I'm having the same issue - battery powered MultiSensor6 devices only update readings when they wake. I have excluded/included them all this afternoon. I seem to recall them behaving as expected when I first bought them, though. (Indigo6 time?)

I haven't been able to exclude/include because the action button stopped working. There's a little leg inside the battery compartment that the back cover pushes but the leg is out of position. I'm not sure if I can get it to go back where it's supposed to be or if I have to remove the back cover every time I want to press the button.

I'm not going to have any time to work on it this week. I'm playing in a musical that opens Thursday so I have rehearsals and performances every night after work.

Did you have any joy with this?
I've got a dozen battery powered multisensors all reporting temperature hourly, on device wake up. I'd love to have them reporting as the USB one's do.

[matt (support)]

I'm going to look into this in more detail with my Aeotec MultiSensor in a bit. I'm not sure if it is a limitation/bug of the module or if there is something Indigo can do, but I'll look into it.