For now, I can't use the P100 the way I want!

Developer Hub
, ,
1

I added the P100 as a Thread device to the Aqara Hub M3 and to Apple Home.
As a test I attached the P100 to the living room door and it worked flawlessly.

But it wasn’t the door I wanted to use it on, it was ment for my garden door.

Today I attached it to the garden door, calibrated the P100, opened and closed the door and it worked.

It was a sunny day today in Holland so I opened the door completely.
When I closed the door after a couple of hours, nothing happened, the status of the device stayed open.

I calibrated the P100 and the opening and closing worked again.

I opened the door completely again, closed the door after about an hour and the P100 stopped working.

Time to figure out why.

IMG_0935
IMG_09351920×1440 213 KB

In the picture above you’l see the situation. Keep in mind that the door opens to the outside and the walls are made of stone.

I calibrated the P100 and opened the door about 10 centimeter.
After about 5 minutes I closed the door and the P100 worked.

I then opened the door completely.
After about 5 minutes I closed the door and the P100 stopped working.

I calibrated the P100, tested if it worked and opened the door in a way that the P100 could just see the Aqara bulb T2 (which probably is the thread router the P100 is connected to).
I waited 5 minutes, closed the door and the P100 worked.

For now it looks like the P100 looses the connection to the Thread router when the door is completely open, probably due to the thick stone wall between the P100 and the router (see picture).

Sorry for the long post but can the Aqara team or somebody else confirm, or deny, that loosing the connection to the Thread router could be what is happening?
If true, can it be solved with a software update?

6 Likes
2

Hi @JRS54 I also thought about a bad network connection…
I always had a better experience with zigbee!
Why don’t give it a try and bind it to zigbee and test again?

6 Likes
3

@DEChrisE I already thought of that and luckily it is easy to do.

But I first want to have some more confirmation, maybe from the Aqara team, that network connection is most likely the problem here.
I don’t think a software update can solve that, but you never know.

Anyway, thanks for your reaction.

4 Likes
4

Hello! Considering the issues you’ve encountered, aside from network problems, changes in the geomagnetic field or external ferromagnetic materials may also cause this problem. You can try setting the sensitivity to the lowest level and see if it helps.(This may cause a slightly ajar state to be recognized as closed, but it might be more useful compared to the door being recognized as open even when it’s close.) Sorry for the bad experiences. :cry:

5 Likes
5

Hi, just to confirm, could you please check is it the latest firmware are you using?

And please try to use low sensitivity if it is the latest version already.

4 Likes
6

@ziqi_wei_a2197 What I forgot to mention is that the door and the doorpost are made of some kind of plastic and both have metal frames in them.
If you look closely at the picture you will see a plastic disk with the letters KPN on it. That is a Wifi extender.
Removing that disk gave me some mixed result and I need to do some more testing. I will report later.
Don’t be sorry for the bad experiences. Aqara asked us to test the device and that is what I am doing. For me it is fun to do and a learning experience.

@MakerMing The device and the hub M3 both have the latest firmware.
For now I think the P100 is loosing its connection to the Thread network and I want to know why.
I’m not done testing and don’t want to do several things at once, in the end the problem may be solved but you may not know wat caused it.
If needed I wil test that later on.

Pffff, testing the P100 is fun but explaining in English (Dutch is my native language) and finding the wright words for what is going wrong, is difficult for me. So if you don’t understand what I try to tell you, just ask.

4 Likes
7

For swing doors, the main method of determining whether the door is open or closed relies on the difference between the current geomagnetic reading and the geomagnetic reading at the time of calibration. Although there are some mechanisms to cope with slow changes in geomagnetism, if there are rapid and significant changes, it may indeed cause the device to fail to correctly detect the door closing.
Nearby ferromagnetic objects can affect the geomagnetic readings, but as long as their positions are fixed each time the door is closed, theoretically, they should not have a significant impact on the results (each time the door is closed, they would have a similar effect on the geomagnetic readings, leading to similar results).
According to previous tests, common iron objects or even ordinary magnets at a distance of half a meter already have a minimal impact on the device, but the geomagnetic readings captured by the device do indeed exhibit some degree of variation, and we are unable to sufficiently test or assess different environments (especially at different latitudes). The sensitivity settings mainly configure the allowed error between the current and calibrated geomagnetic readings to adapt as much as possible to different environments.
Additionally, if actions like opening the door are often not recognized as open, it’s basically certain that it’s a network issue.
I’m also not good at English and basically rely on translation software. :joy: If anything is unclear, we can discuss it further at any time.

5 Likes
8

Thank you for your confirmation. We will continue to pay attention to the stability of the Thread network connection. Because this is related to the third-party equipment of Matter, we may need some time to locate the problem and work together with Matter. If you have more detailed information, you are welcome to provide it at any time. Thank you for your information!

5 Likes
9

I placed the P100 on an open/close door that has the soft close feature (meaning you can’t slam the door shut). When the door opens the P100 is fast and accurate to recognize the door is open.

When playing around with the closing or closed notification if I quickly force close the door it does not always read the door had closed. If I allow the soft close feature to work and close normal it’s very accurate.

The P100 does not seem to like it when the door is quickly closed.

4 Likes
10

@srl77411 Maybe playing with the sensitivity will help.

What I also discovered is that the Open notification (P100 as a Thread device) in Homekit has a delay of about a second (indeed fast enough and accurate) but the Close notification has a delay of about 3 to 4 seconds.

4 Likes
11

Yes, I forgot to mention that I increased the sensitivity to 7 (5 is default). I will let it ride a few more days and consider adjusting it again.

5 Likes