Sensative Strips 1102012/1 Comfort Temperature and Light Sensor, Z-Wave Plus

I bought 2 of these, one for outside and one for inside. Both connected to a Vera gateway. The outside one now seems to have died after 6 months. A bit of prolonged cold and it is done. Specification says: "built to withstand rain, dust and temperatures as low as -4°F and as high as 140°F." This unit had been below freezing (32F) before in Colorado's crazy weather, but it now it seems to stop working at ever higher temps, specifically 42F this time. I have since brought it into the house to warm up and still nothing. Tried the manual wake up and reset sequences and it seems dead. At this point I cannot recommend these for anywhere it gets cold outside. .

OK. I have both the this and several of the 'drip strips'. Since there is no difference between the two EXCEPT for the moisture sensing attachment strip, this review is for both types. I've also run both on Samsung SmartThings v3 and Habitat Elevation C-5 US-lower 48 (the newest as of this writing).First - these are z-wave network strips. For those of you who don't know what this means - YOU MUST HAVE A ***COMPATIBLE*** Z-WAVE HUB TO WIRELESS ATTACH THESE TO TO USE THEM! i.e. Hubitat, SmartThings, Wink, whatever. If you have no idea what this means, then you need to back way up and educate yourself on home automation, IoT, z-wave, z-wave plus, zigbee, cloud, and all the software, applications and drivers that makes this stuff work. If you're completely tech-illiterate, you shouldn't be looking at HA IoT at all. None of this is remotely mature technology so the entire industry is rife with bugs, barely functional tech, zero documentation, undocumented incompatibilities, fly-by-night 'tech' companies, etc. None of it is completely stable - devices or hubs - so even if you get what you want working-ish, expect to spend a lot of time maintaining it. Absolutely none of this stuff is stable enough for a 'install and forget' environment. If you think you'll get this set up and it'll all just work like your microwave or refrigerator - YOU ARE DEAD WRONG! How can I say this? 35 years in the tech industry and a lot of personal experience. :(On to the product. I originally installed a couple drip strips on a SmartThings v3 hub then later moved them from there to a Hubitat Elevation C-5 hub because Samsung SmartThings is unreliable cloud based garbage. AFTER they are paired to a hub, functionality and behavior on either hub was identical. All the strips function as advertised.Note I say AFTER they are paired. These are the most poorly documented and the most awkward administrative design I've ever seen with hardware. And I'm a pretty good judge after after spending 35 years deciphering reams of documentation written by pseudo-literate Indian/East European/Chinese. The documentation is minimal at best and definitely doesn't adequately explain their incredibly awkward pairing method. Nor does it adequately explain how to change any of the default settings.Be prepared to spend possibly several hours or more learning how to pair, reset, etc. one of these devices. Make ABSOLUTELY SURE you factory reset and exclude the device upon un-boxing BEFORE attempting to pair! Do not hesitate if pairing fails, to repeat the reset & exclude before trying again.Good news and bad news - the good news is that once you've figure out the use of their magic magnet, the device pairs first time on SmartThings. The bad new is it took several weeks of on-off-on again messing around with both this and a drip strip to get them to pair to the Hubitat. Multiple reboots, resets, excludes and pairing attempts until they just magically paired. The second drip strip paired first try. Go figure. :rolleyes:Changing the default settings. I over two weeks I spent 10-15 hours trying to change the default settings while paired to SmartThings. Never happened. I guess on the positive side I got REAL, REAL good at resetting, excluding and re-pairing the devices. I even found a SmartThings device handler FROM the company that makes the strips and IT didn't even work. Nothing I did ever got it to accept the new settings no matter how many times I manually woke up the device. I DID manage to change the settings while paired to the Hubitat hub. It requires two people or one lucky, really coordinated, fast person. :( The device has to be woken up and the split second that light flashes, the configure button has to be pressed on the Hubitat device page. Not after and not before. EXACTLY. Basically it takes at least three hands.I have close to 100 other z-wave & half a dozen zigbee devices and NOTHING even comes close to this kind of insanity. On a scale of 1 to 10 for difficulty of installation and configuration, these are like a -11.What I REALLY hate about these is that once past all this, they are the ONLY sensor like it on the market and THEY WORK. There are/have been dozens of water sensors, temp, luminance, etc. sensors, but they're - relatively - big and clumsy. These are virtually unnoticeable - and this strip and the contact sensor strip are even paintable.Will I buy one again if I need something ultra low profile? Yes. They are a giant PITA but they do exactly what they're supposed to.Battery. They are advertised to last years. Obviously there's no way to test that because by the time the period is up we'll all be on to the next shiny POS. All of my strips (6 months) are still at 100%. HOWEVER ...Tips. After reading reams of documentation, complaints from forums, tech papers, etc., here is some useful advice for newb's - If you want your batteries to last MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A GOOD, WELL KNIT NETWORK! Don't stick the strip 60ft out in the driveway from your hub and expect it to last. The more time the device spends screwing around, the more battery it sucks. This isn't just applicable to battery life, it applies to basic functionality and stability as well. Its just interesting, though, that EVERY person I read about complaining about short life span had a barely functional z-wave network and were trying to place the device half way down the block. Just say'n ....A note: these are disposable. You can not replace the battery. Be careful what you stick the strip to. The glue is wicked strong and whatever you stuck it to is gonna give up before the strip glue does.Overall, a PITA, but it fills a niche and works. Overpriced. Just like 99% of all IoT HA junk.

The sensor works, though you need to protect it from direct sun. Overall it only lasted 1.5 years then the battery was dead and no way to recharge it. After only 1.5 years it's now a useless piece of plastic. Won't buy again.

This worked great for a while, and I was really happy I purchased this even though it was a little difficult to set up. However, after about 10 months, the temperature reading stopped and when yo look at the battery reading on my Smart Things app, you can see it says 1%, but it is actually zero.

The 10-year battery died the first time the temperature dropped. It hasn't gotten nearly as cold as the -4 degrees F that the Comfort Strip is rated for. The battery died on Christmas Eve (and didn't turn my lights on) at about 16 degrees.I submitted a warranty request to the manufacturer a week ago and haven't received so much as an email to acknowledge my request. I submitted another one tonight and will report back if the situation improves, Judging from the other complaints about the battery, I'm not hopeful.UPDATE:I was getting nowhere with the warranty requests so I opened a support ticket. Right away, I got a response that Sensative would replace the sensor and they provided the link (same one) to the warranty claim page. This time, I had a ticket number which seems to have made a difference.But not a big difference.After two weeks of not hearing anything more, I asked for an update, but the request went unanswered. Finally, after another week, I got an email saying that the replacement was being shipped and a tracking number was provided.When the replacement arrived, it was the wrong sensor, being a door/window sensor instead.A business card was included with the replacement, so I used it to contact the CMO (chief marketing officer?). The same day, I had a reply that a new Comfort Strip was being sent and I had a tracking number. I was also told to keep the incorrect sensor since they made the mistake. A working Comfort Strip soon arrived, shipped via UPS 3-day.I don't know when or if I'll see sub-20 degree weather anymore this season. If it gets cold enough to matter, I'll update this again.I added one star on my rating since Sensative did correct the problem, albeit very clumsily.UPDATE #2:We've gotten through the worst of winter here and the battery on the new sensor is still at 100%. Since temperatures have been down to a single digit a few times, I have to assume better batteries are now being used.I gave the sensor another star (up to 3 now). It might deserve more but how do you know which battery you'll get?

Bought this in 2020 and with less than 4 years use, the battery failed well before their 10 year claim.