I had a malfunctioning window sensor a few days ago that I replaced. The new sensor appears to be working fine, I get the open / close signal right away and the panel does not give me any alarms (e.g. low battery, loss of supervision…). When I log on to the app or on alarm.com I still see a message that the sensor is malfunctioning - can’t figure out what exactly is malfunctioning though. Any idea on how to clear the malfunction message on alarm.com or how to determine what/if there is really a malfunction.
Well, I do see the malfunction you are referring to, but to clarify, I see recent evidence of tampering with a different (similarly named) sensor.
It looks like a sensor named Garage Window is showing an “Offline” malfunction, which is a loss of sensor supervision. Supervision is the timed heartbeat signal from the sensor letting the panel know the sensor is still communicating. Loss of supervision is often due to one of or a combination of the following issues:
Low Battery level
Distance from panel
Environmental interference, usually from nearby metal
I usually recommend replacing the battery first in this scenario, especially if the sensor has been installed for a while.
To verify, you completely replaced the sensor with a new sensor of the same model? Did the new sensor come from a different location in the home or was it purchased new?
We’ve requested an updated status but the offline status is still showing. Can you try tampering that sensor to see if we get a restoral?
Yes, I replaced the sensor with a completely new one, new battery. I went into the existing sensor settings and learned the new sensor. The old sensor had a loss of supervision alarm prior to replacement and the panel wasn’t responding to open/closing the sensor, therefore I replaced it. I never got a loss of supervision alarm after the replacement and the panel responds immediately to opening / closing it. This is why I was confused.
The similar sensor that you saw with the tamper going off is unrelated, it was a new motion sensor install.
I’ll try replacing the battery for now. I don’t think the distance to the panel should be an issue, it’s only about 20 ft. from the panel with 1 wall in between and the previous sensor worked fine there for about 10 months.
If you replaced with a brand new sensor and new battery and do not see Loss of Supervision reported locally, it is probably not a battery issue. That description and list of causes is for the general condition of loss of supervision.
If you do not see any loss of supervision locally, we can try a couple things to determine what is stuck. In this case the restoral status simply did not reach ADC I believe.
Try tampering the sensor and then resolving the tamper. Does this remove the malfunction in ADC?
If not, let us know, I’d like to then send a hard reboot command.
I removed the sensor completely from the system and added it under a different wireless zone as a new sensor with a new name. Everything seems to be working correctly for now. The sensor malfunction error message on ADC is gone as well.
That works as well, as the error was likely a missed status for the deleted zone which would no longer apply. Let us know if you see additional issues.