# Zigbee Sensor Battery Monitoring ## Problem Three Aqara Zigbee temperature sensors report `battery: 0` in their MQTT payload, making the `hass_sensor_battery_percent` Prometheus metric useless for battery monitoring on these devices. Affected sensors: - **Temp Living Room** (`0x54ef441000a54d3c`) — WSDCGQ12LM - **Temp Office** (`0x54ef441000a547bd`) — WSDCGQ12LM - **temp_server** (`0x54ef441000a564b6`) — WSDCGQ12LM The **Temp Bedroom** sensor (`0x00124b0025495463`) is a SONOFF SNZB-02 and reports battery correctly. ## Findings - All three sensors are actively reporting temperature, humidity, and pressure data — they are not dead. - The Zigbee2MQTT payload includes a `voltage` field (e.g., `2707` = 2.707V), which indicates healthy battery levels (~40-60% for a CR2032 coin cell). - CR2032 voltage reference: ~3.0V fresh, ~2.7V mid-life, ~2.1V dead. - The `voltage` field is not exposed as a Prometheus metric — it exists only in the MQTT payload. - This is a known firmware quirk with some Aqara WSDCGQ12LM sensors that always report 0% battery. ## Implementation ### Solution 1: Calculate battery from voltage in Zigbee2MQTT (Implemented) Override the Home Assistant battery entity's `value_template` in Zigbee2MQTT device configuration to calculate battery percentage from voltage. **Formula:** `(voltage - 2100) / 9` (maps 2100-3000mV to 0-100%) **Changes in `services/home-assistant/default.nix`:** - Device configuration moved from external `devices.yaml` to inline NixOS config - Three affected sensors have `homeassistant.sensor_battery.value_template` override **Expected battery values based on current voltages:** | Sensor | Voltage | Expected Battery | |--------|---------|------------------| | Temp Living Room | 2710 mV | ~68% | | Temp Office | 2658 mV | ~62% | | temp_server | 2765 mV | ~74% | ### Solution 2: Alert on sensor staleness (Implemented) Added Prometheus alert `zigbee_sensor_stale` in `services/monitoring/rules.yml` that fires when a Zigbee temperature sensor hasn't updated in over 1 hour. This provides defense-in-depth for detecting dead sensors regardless of battery reporting accuracy. **Alert details:** - Expression: `(time() - hass_last_updated_time_seconds{entity=~"sensor\\.(0x[0-9a-f]+|temp_server)_temperature"}) > 3600` - Severity: warning - For: 5m ## Post-Deployment Steps After deploying to ha1: 1. Restart zigbee2mqtt service (automatic on NixOS rebuild) 2. In Home Assistant, the battery entities may need to be re-discovered: - Go to Settings → Devices & Services → MQTT - The new `value_template` should take effect after entity re-discovery - If not, try disabling and re-enabling the battery entities ## Notes - Device configuration is now declarative in NixOS. Future device additions via Zigbee2MQTT frontend will need to be added to the NixOS config to persist. - The `devices.yaml` file on ha1 will be overwritten on service start but can be removed after confirming the new config works.