Does anyone else have a Yale touchscreen deadbolt that eats batteries? The one on my front door went from 100% to 45% in three weeks. At this rate I’ll be replacing the batteries just about every month and that seems excessive since the advertised battery life is a year.
Conversely, the one on my back door is at 85% after the same three weeks.
With any motorized battery powered deadbolt lock, if it’s burning through batteries quickly that usually means one of two things:
Thanks for the reply. Hope you enjoyed your holiday weekend 
The bolt turns with the lightest pressure from my pinky. Both of them do so they’re lined up well. The lock in question probably gets 5 or 6 powered cycles a day and easily twice that in manual activations.
Both the locks are a max of 25 feet from, and line of sight to, the panel. In addition, each has a powered z-wave light switch less than a foot away so there shouldn’t be signal issues either.
I did read something online about Yale swapping out the z-wave module and that fixing the problem for others. This is factory set of batteries so maybe they’re past their prime already. I’ll let them run down and swap in a fresh set with a 2020 expiration in the front door and see what happens then.
Typically the issue is mechanical in nature, but I have seen a couple that were unnecessary battery hogs. Let us know how new batteries last. Interesting that a Zwave module swap would solve the issue for some, like the module was excessively transmitting.
Definitely not mechanical.
Here’s where I read the info about the module: http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=156438&page=4
New batts installed this morning; showing 100% in the panel. The back door still shows (a reasonable) 80% so we’ll see.
I can vouch for this issue, one of my locks which I use about 12x/daily lasts about a year without needing battery changes. Another lock which I use like 1x/week only lasts about a month. Hasn’t been worth the effort to troubleshoot
Speculation, but could be that the Zwave module is not able to properly enter power save mode. Signalling would be great but you would eat batteries fast. I will follow up with Yale. From my experience Yale is very good about standing behind their product.
Any update on the battery levels for the OP?
Looks like the front door is still eating batteries much faster than the back door. The back door still has the original batteries it came with and they’re now under 50% which isn’t great but the front door has lost more than 22% since the fresh batteries were installed eight days ago. That puts it in the one month replacement cycle again.
Not sure why my image isn’t showing up…
Can you provide the version numbers for both of the Zwave modules in your locks?
These will be printed on stickers on the module. They can be found by opening the battery replacement cover, at the top above the batteries.
Also, what is the distance between the locks and the panel?
The distance between the locks and the nearest repeating node?
Both locks have the same version number: US2.0 CP2-5-3
Distance from the panel is 25 feet for one, 15 feet for the other. Both are unobstructed (open floor plan).
Distance to a repeater is 1 foot for each as I have z-wave light switches next to each door.
Today’s battery update:
Usage patterns are steady…and at 3% a day for the front door you can see where it won’t take more than 30 days total for it to die completely. Again.
The back door gave me an audible low battery warning this morning when I locked it. If usage isn’t linear at the bottom of the scale, my experience with alkalines anyway, then it won’t be long until that one is dead too, so call it 6-7 weeks tops. Not acceptable for a stated one year life with what I would consider to be average use (not more than 10 automated uses a day and really more like five or six with the rest being manual activations).
That is the latest firmware for the Zwave modules. Yale did say that it may be on certain Zwave controllers the full handshake during the learning process could take longer than others. This may cause problems with power save and status signals.
Can you remove and re-add the two locks within just a few feet of the panel and allow them to rest near the panel for about five minutes? Then replace them in their permanent locations and run a network rediscovery.
I can attempt that, sure, but it won’t be until the weekend when I have time to remove the lock unit from the door and try again along with reprogramming all my rules, users and alerts. Then I guess I need to replace both sets of batteries as well so it starts clean with the level reporting.
This brings up an interesting point. This “extended” handshake procedure sounds like a red herring to be honest but I’m also having issues apparently getting my z-wave ADC thermostats to report in on AC power after a reinstall of those as well.
Are we seeing the makings of a z-wave controller issue with the Qolsys panel?
I myself am a bit dubious on the 5 minute mark, but if it was suggested by the manufacturer, you should give it a shot.
It is absolutely true that any Zwave door lock on any system will require more time for pairing than other devices (and next come thermostats). You want to make sure the entire data transfer takes effect within very close proximity.
As an update, from what we can tell by testing and discussing with Qolsys and ADC, the battery vs AC reporting issue appears to be just that, an issue with reporting and with no operational effect on the thermostats (we see the same with other models of thermostat too). If you learned in the thermostat on AC power, it should otherwise function as expected.
Thanks for the follow up Jason. I’m going to reply in the thermostat thread as I still see a lot of weirdness in the notifications and sensor left open rules (as Rive has had as well with his 2Gig panel).
I will try the lock reparing procedure of course, just need the time to remove the locks and bring them by the panel to play with.
Of course, and yes, please do update us with anything you are noticing. Alarm.com is very responsive to bugs/errors and the whole thermostat page was revamped recently so it is important to catch these.
Out of curiosity, are you otherwise noticing strange behavior from the locks? Missed signals, incorrect or delayed status? If statuses are being transmitted multiple times because of poor signal it could chew through batteries, but I would expect to see indication of other signalling issues.
No, the locks have been flawless from day one. Only seen the occasional error in the app but I attribute that to the transition from WiFi to cell when leaving and vice versa. The only area that I see consistent errors or delays are the thermostats.