Hi, I’ve purchased two smoke detectors and have them set up with the E1 Hub. In each smoke alarm setting I’ve connected them to the other so they are grouped.
I then tested them with smoke, one at a time.
As each alarm was tested with smoke it alerted me with a siren and notification as expected. However for each test there was a delay of approx 30-40 seconds for the grouped alarm to also sound.
Such a time gap is very worrying and unexpected given the connection strength is excellent. With ZigBee I would have expected the other alarm goes off much sooner.
Is there a setting to adjust this or is such a long delay expected? I’ve had interconnected alarms before and never had such a long delay.
If this is normal for the alarm unfortunately I shall be returning them. Many thanks
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Hi, welcome to the forum.
Hi, @cocolino_26, help with this question, you’ve researched it, thank you.
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Well from my tests I also got some seconds till the alarm sound but I think is because different type of smoke in my case was from vamping but when an real fire starts that smoke is more dense and gets faster into the smoke detector what I do not know is how fast the sensor analyze the smoke to sound the alarm.and regarding the alarms when one smoke detector start the alarm the other takes a few seconds to sound because the zigbee signal goes from the first smoke detecto to the hub and then the hub send the signal to the second smoke detector to sound also the alarm.now in my case is pretty fast from my tests because I am using the M3 hub witch doesn’t use aqara cloud to communicate witch my smoke detectors but in your case the E1 do use the aqara cloud and my guess is that makes your 30/40 sec delay that you experiment.
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I personally recommend you to buy an M3 hub if you can and make sure to have a few zigbee devices as bridge around the home and using M3 hub you will have an faster connection and will be local this should give you around 10 sec more or less in response then you have now.
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Many thanks for the reply and testing it yourself. I must admit I’m confused!
Aqara markets the E1 as a Zigbee 3.0 hub and says its connected devices communicate using Zigbee. So how is this causing the delay as I’m not sure what the aqara cloud’s function is between the communication from smoke alarm a and b?
It’s been a bumpy start and I don’t have or intend to get too many other aqara devices. Maybe none if I can’t get this basic feature to work.
Let’s say I got the m200 would that likely solve it?
Many thanks
Sometimes is hard to understand how this devices communicate and because the communication on your case goes tru Aqara iCloud is how the hub runs automations and communications with child devices many times could lead to delays more to make all running better you also need an great internet connection so the E1 comunícate much faster with the Aqara cloud.if your speed is slower then also the communication gets slower and with delays.i hope I could explain a bit how this works.i am not an expert as I still learning on the way.also from what I know zigbee is like the 2.4Ghz from your WiFi or using same frequency and if there are interference that also could lead on delays.yes the M200 is also an good choice but I didn’t ask you if you have also set the Automation 2.0 to ON from the Aqara app?
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Hi, thanks again for the reply. Yes, automation 2.0 is activated in the app.
Even the self test feature has nowstopped working. I’m wondering if there is a cloud issue.
Ive got Gigabyte fibre and WiFi 6 mesh across the house and I set up a dedicated 2.4 GHz network just for smart devices (only 3 devices on it).
I’ve emailed support and I’ll reset the devices tomorrow and start afresh.
After that, the final option is bit a m200 hub from Amazon that will be easy to return!
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Good choice ether way do not reset them now ether way if you will buy the M200 you will need to reset them then.but as I sad make sure that bit detectors hav an excellent signal as if one have an low signal then will have delay also the hub make sure to not place it behind an tv or furniture to minimize the interferences that could apear.same with the M200 since that is also an IR blaster
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Update: Aqara support got in touch…Everything they suggested I’d already done but I reset the devices and again I got very conflicting response times on activation of one alarm for it to trigger the other.
In addition this time a new issue. One alarm refused to self test. The other when activated never cleared itself from that state in the app. Despite refreshes and no smoke, it just stayed in alert state.
After many hours invested and being confident this wasn’t something to do with settings or my own network I have requested a refund and will look for a more reliable system. I certainly wouldn’t trust the setup with the E1 Hub which is I suspect the cause of these issues. I don’t see why a further investment say in the M3 or m200 should be needed to make a basic function work! Thanks for all the replies!
It’s an disappointment when something doesn’t work as it should.i forgot to ask what server do you use on Aqara app?as E1 hub there is an china version too witch only works in china server