Alright, sharing some hard-earned lessons here after dealing with too many low battery alerts on my Aqara motion and door sensors.
I’m a bit of an automation geek, and I’ve probably pushed these little guys way more than most would. That said, I finally figured out how to make the batteries last way longer without sacrificing performance.
First thing—don’t go trigger-happy with your automations. I used to have motion sensors firing off routines every time someone passed by, even during the day. Overkill. Now I’ve limited triggers to when they’re really needed (like only during certain hours or when away mode is on), and the battery drain dropped massively.
Second, placement matters. I had one door sensor near a heat vent (bad call) and it kept chewing through batteries. Moved it a foot over, problem solved. Same with distance from the hub—keep ’em close-ish when possible. That weak signal thing? Real.
Also, beware of using incompatible or cheap CR2032 cells. Sounds obvious, but I learned the hard way—you’ll be replacing them monthly. Now I only use decent brands and they last crazy long.
Anyone else have little hacks for boosting battery life on these? I’m still testing some tweaks in Zigbee2MQTT for sleep intervals—curious if anyone’s done that with good results.