For the past week, my IQ Mini Door/Window Sensor on my door leading out to our garage is not registering the door as being closed. It is a metal door so it is different than the other two doors that we have IQ Mini Door/Window Sensors on (front door is wood, back door is fiberglass). However, this has just started happening. I have the bigger part of the sensor on the door jamb, and the smaller part of the sensor on the door itself. I have tried moving the sensor to a different part of the door, but this keeps happening. The only way that it will get the door to register as closed is if I push down on the smaller part of the sensor that is on the door. Do you know why this is happening? I feel like this is not great for when I turn on my alarm at night since it is now bypassing that door and I don’t feel as safe. Any help is much appreciated! (side note, I used to have a Frontpoint system for over 3 years and this never had happened with the sensor that was on that door).
Metal doors are more likely to experience this sort of thing, as the metal affects the magnetic field, but it may not just be the fact that it is metal.
Can you please post a photo of that sensor and magnet as they are installed with the door closed?
Sure! I did paint the smaller sensor so it blends in with my dark brown door. Again, it was working for months then this just started happening.
smaller sensor
Just for clarity, that’s the magnet, not a sensor.
The larger portion houses the sensor, the reed switch that is closed by the magnet.
In that photo it looks like the magnet and sensor may be installed near the edge of the normal magnetic gap, and when the door is metal, the magnetic field is affected and the gap is affected.
The first thing I would do here, to rule out that issue, is to try to reduce that gap. The sensor may need to overhang the trim slightly. You can just do this temporarily as a test, and see if it reliably closes.
So I just moved the sensor down to close the gap between it and the magnet. So far so good. Hopefully this will continue to work. Thank you for your help and quick responses!