This will be an area where we’ll discuss improvement opportunities and/or found bugs for our 4-1 Sensor in terms of hardware and firmware.
Feel free to list anything from examples you’d like to see implemented (ie: I want to be able to change the dim level based on certain times of day), hardware features you’d like to see upgraded (ie: 700 Series Z-Wave) or firmware features you’d like to see added (ie: disable LED).
Looking forward to improving the sensor!
Suggestions & Bugs
This will be an area where suggestions and/or bugs are captured and commented on. Thank you all for the ideas and we’ll do our best to implement them!
Caveats
This is a white-label product so it may be difficult to make a lot of modifications from a hardware standpoint, but we will try our best and if we need to, funding permitting, develop a new product. If the change cannot be done on this model, I will move the comment to a new post for a new product.
Here’s a feature I would like to see. Instead of a plain red LED that blinks when motion is detected, have an RGB LED that blinks when motion is detected and its color indicates the temperature of the room.
There is another product that I have that blinks every 30-60 seconds (non-motion activated) or so based on the temperature. But I have turned this feature off as this doesn’t work well in bedrooms.
Create the driver, such that, the LED could be turned on/off or color for temperatures via the hub, backward compatible with existing LEDs on your switches.
When device wakes up due to motion, have the device also send a report with temperature/brightness/humidity level
When device is powered by USB, have an option for continuous sensor checking (constantly check temperature/brightness/humidity, but only report to hub if threshold it met)
When device is powered by USB, keep it awake at all times (may make it easier to configure and update firmware)
Option for motion sensor to trigger associated device only if brightness level is less than a desired value (prevent motion sensor from triggering a light during the daytime)
Add an option to trigger associated devices only during certain timeframes (using Clock command class to set day/time on device). Not sure if this would work with the current hardware.
Outdoor rated (although I have been using a few of mine outdoors without any issues). May need the 700 series chipset for the increased range.
config option for Celsius vs Fahrenheit (not sure if this is more on an Openzwave issue or a general issue, but device seems to revert back to Celsius for a while after manually waking device)
Current bugs:
I am not sure if the current sensor is accurately reporting battery life. Mine are still reporting 100%, but I have been using them for over 9 months now on the original battery. I tried the beta firmware, but it did not seem to fix the issue.
With that being said. I originally thought I was using the Inovelli driver. It was reporting 85%. When I checked on it in the last month (it’s in the shed), I noticed it was using Hubitat driver. I switched to the Inovelli driver. I just noticed mine now indicates 100% too.
Hey guys, sorry, I updated the listing to reflect this – I should’ve been more clear. This is actually a white-label product (ie: we take the production ready product straight from the manufacturer and put our name on it) so there’s not a ton we can do from a hardware standpoint.
However, I’m definitely not discouraging ideas as we can (funding permitting) always develop a new sensor based on this feedback.
Firmware can probably be changed – however, I think the problem we run into is that Z-Wave will require us to have the latest technology (ie: 700 Series) and this will require a new product completely. We’ll see though.
NET: This page is probably better suited for catching bugs and/or firmware enhancements on the existing sensor. I’ll create a separate page for hardware and feature requests for a new sensor.
Another vote for sending luminance (in particular) at the same time as a motion alert.
One (or maybe even the) reference use case for this device is turning on a light when motion is detected - unless there’s already a light on. However, basing this decision on whether there was a light on 5 minutes ago isn’t all that useful.
There are workarounds, look at sunrise/sunset & all the other switch states, but the device seems like it has the sensors to do this “properly” - with this little(?) firmware tweak.
i need a bunch of these. Would love to see this released. Nothing to add on the functionality but that update on motion sounds like a desireable feature.
Let me know either way! I would prefer newer… But, IMHO, the current one is a better bang for the $ than most of the stuff out there. So I have two I’d like to replace and a couple I’d like to eventually add.
I can’t say i’ve found any bugs or areas of improvement with mine. Set it up in February, changed the motion and humidity sensitivity to the most sensitive and it’s just been doing its thing. Battery is at 62% which i’d consider to be reasonable given the sensitive settings.
is there a “recessor” available for this, so that you could mount this flush in wall/ceiling? aeotec makes a recessor for their sensor. since this is white label, maybe there is an existing recessor from manufacturer? i think all smart home automation should be unobtrusive and out of sight when possible.
There isn’t one currently available, but this has been requested in the past. There are some attempts to design a 3D printable one, but no results thus far.
I’m just reading this thread for the first time … I’ve got a design that would work pretty well for this. Let me modify it for use in a recessed setting…
I’m not sure if this thread is still active, but in case it is…
700-series Zwave would presumably yield better battery life and range, so that’d be neat.
The ability for the device to act as a router while USB powered would be awesome. I’ve seen some other Zwave devices that can either work in battery-powered mode or wall-powered mode based on how they were powered when included into the network.
Report any or all measurements immediately when some condition is met. For example, maybe I want a humidity report immediately when humidity goes above some percentage so I can turn on a fan or dehumidifier. Or, perhaps I want to see light levels immediately when they change so I can adjust lights to stay within a certain brightness range.
jtronicus touched on all of those, but I thought I’d second/third/whatever those ideas and expand on them.
