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Sunday, May 18, 2014

Fibaro (3 in 1) door sensor

This evening was spent with Fibaro's Z-wave enabled (3 in 1) Door / Window sensor.
Fibaro makes the a lot of very usefull things to the z-wave world but this door sensor left me wonder if I did the right decission to spend my own money here...
I start with the good things.
The sensor is very small, but the casing feels very fragile and you wonder several times if it will break before it's mounted on the door frame.
It has some ER14250 battery, but you better remember which ways it goes in since it's not visible in the manual or in the device itself. Good thing is that the battery should last for years and are not much more expensive than other, if you can find it.
Edit. The battery did not last for years. I needed a new one after only some month, but that was probably due to the issue with leaving the device not attached to the magnet, so it was basicly triggered the whole time. I have seen this with other magnetic door sensor also so it might be a z-wave thing. Battery costed me 9.99€ from Clas Ohlson Art Nr. 36-5215 (SAFT LS-14250 3.6V)
Inclusion... Was somewhat confusing but not worse then other devices. Issue seemed for me that if you include two door sensors with tmp sensors attached you must re-name the temp sensor before you include the sencond one. Or else it's overwritten somehow.

It's pretty neat that you can add the DS18B20 tmp sensor, but if you do that you must reset the device before including it.

How to reset it:
  • Take of cover,
  • Remove battery
  • Make sure Tampere button is intact
  • Touch sensor with magnet
  • Insert battery
  • Remove magnet
  • Remove battery
  • Re-install battery
  • Reset will be confirmed with super short double blink.
Here comes the super tricky thing. It sems like it's almost impossible to mount this on the door frame wihtout resetting it by misstake. So the trick is to first mount it on a mounting plate, then include it, then mount the mounting plate on the door frame where the door sensor already is screwed to. And to be extra sure keep the door open so the magnets is not close when you screw it on. It's a bit confusing and actually render the tamper switch useless, since somebody can just unscrew the mounting plate.
My idea was to use the tmp sensor and a momentary switch but it turns out that it's either the magnetic switch or the momentary switch. So this device is more like (3 in 1, but not more than 2 at a time) http://www.vesternet.com/resources/application-notes/apnt-38#.UvkzX7SFnm2

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