April 09, 2017 7 Comments
It’s easy to be wary of claims of long-lasting battery life, as so many products out there promise reliable and worry-free battery power and then fail to deliver. So when the Sensative Strips Door/Window Sensor arrived to the market – a sensor thinner than two credit cards stacked together, and featuring a brand-new kind of battery that lasts for 10 years – some of us were skeptical.
Sensative recently turned to Sony to put their product’s power consumption to the test with the help of Otii – a new energy-optimization tool that measures and analyzes the power consumption behaviors of battery-powered devices. Of its many useful features, it allows the user to pinpoint the cause of a draining battery by syncing the software’s debug output with its power readings. Otii’s findings confirmed that the battery in Strips can last much longer than 10 years with optimal configuration and network conditions.
Key Facts:
1. The 3mm thick custom-built battery has a capacity of 480 mAh.
2. A strong coating and reliable build make Strips weatherproof and efficient in changing temperatures.
3. In a small house with a single-hop setup (no range extenders), more than 50% of the battery’s capacity remains after 10 years.
4. In a normal-sized house with a dual-hop setup (one range extender), more than 33% of the battery’s capacity remains after 10 years.
5. Strips is equipped with a battery booster that engages battery voltage in very low temperatures and towards the end of battery life.
Take a look at the infographic below and let us know if you’re still having second thoughts!
February 05, 2020
Mine lasted 14 months in a zero-hop configuration (communicating directly with the hub). I had the LED turned off, wet/dry reporting turned off, reduced frequency of wake-up, … I did everything in terms of configuration that is recommended to maximize battery life, and the sensor never indicated that it was needing to re-transmit any messages. The battery went from >90% one day to exactly 1% the next day and was then dead within a week. So I got 11.7% of the advertised 10 years.
May 31, 2019
If the sensor goes from 100% to 10% rapidly it may be a sign of communication issues where the battery is not being reported correctly. We recommend getting in touch with Sensative’s support team so they can help you troubleshoot the problem. This is definitely not normal behavior for these.
May 29, 2019
One of my Comfort Strips suddenly reported a battery at 10% down from 100% the Day before. The strip has been operative for about 4 Months (!). 10 years compared to 4 Months…
May 01, 2018
Hi Jeff,
Sorry to hear that! It’s possible that the battery is not reporting correctly or that the sensor has malfunctioned due to environmental factors. The device is covered by warranty so if you get in touch with us, we’ll be happy to send a replacement if needed!
April 29, 2018
Well mine lasted only 1 year on a dualhop….
April 25, 2017
A 10 year battery life is huge!
Set it and forget it. Most people don’t want to think about replacing the batteries in their smart home devices. This should go over pretty well.
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March 22, 2023
Let’s take a closer look at the first Z-Wave focused hub for US and Canada. We will uncover its primary benefits, UI features, how to use the Z-Box mobile app, and what sets the system apart from other hubs available today.
As we often tell our customers, there isn’t one perfect smart home platform to solve it all. The Z-Box Hub is no exception. What makes it unique is its focus on easy access to advanced automation functionality while keeping the key data and processes off-cloud.
May 05, 2022 2 Comments
Insteon just became another smart home company to shut down their services. Overnight, the platform’s servers were disconnected, leaving their customers without a functional smart home. SmartLabs, Insteon’s mother company, claims to have sold over 5 million connected devices; that’s a lot of sensors, switches, and controllers that became orphaned. Does it mean that all of this hardware is now completely useless?
It turns out that there are ways to salvage your Insteon products and continue using them, at least to some extent, on other platforms who stepped up and provided integration for this protocol. However, these workarounds are less than user-friendly and will require more time and possible frustration around a system that’s no longer backed by any official support. What’s the alternative and is it even worth it to have a connected house these days?
August 06, 2020
If you already have Amazon Echo set up, you know how convenient it can be. There’s nothing like walking out the front door with full hands and telling Alexa to turn off your lights last minute. But these smart lights and plugs can be slow to react as you keep adding more smart home devices and clogging your network.
Alexa only “speaks” WiFi (and ZigBee if you have the EchoPlus). It currently doesn’t support Z-Wave, the protocol of choice for home automation thanks to its high speed and low interference with other connected devices in your home. That means you can’t have a Z-Wave switch or plug speak directly to your Echo. BUT you can use a smart home hub as a bridge between your Z-Wave devices and Amazon Alexa. Now that’s a whole other level of functionality to unlock!
And if you already have a Z-Wave hub but no smart speaker, you might be thinking how cool it would be to have voice control for your automations and smart home devices. It’s a step towards a more integrated, easy-to-use smart home with improved security, comfort, and convenience.
wim L
February 01, 2023
real world test: 3 strips, placed in an appartment on doors and windows:
strip 1 (9/2018) just hit 25%. (so 5 years = 75%)
strip 2+3 (03/2020) have been @ 75% for around a year now
Real life expectancy appears to be betweeen 6-8 years, in a good, single hop network setup.