Aqara E1 battery draining fast

[auanasgheps]

Hi people,
I have been using Aqara E1 with Better Thermostat and is working great, but the batteries are draining super fast. They last about two months.
I have other TVR, the infamous TS0601, and their batteries last 6+ months. Has anyone noticed this?

[veniplex]

Hi @auanasgheps. I experience the exact same issue. I thought it may be related to the many adjustments BT sends to the thermostat. It might also be related to frequent changes of your external thermostat (if you use one). I am still in the works to fix it. Let me know if you have found a way.

[veniplex]

Yes, but the reported battery levels from z2m are useless. E.g. it reports for the exact same thermostat first 85% battery and 4 hours later 95%. Next day 70%. Then 80%...

[makcorner]

Can it be due to voltage drop while operating a valve?

EDIT: To be honest if low voltage is presented more or less reliably, particularly the final % is in some consistent range - say 10-20% - it will do the job.

[veniplex]

I know, voltage is the key here. But this seems also not reliable. For the same batteries I get different results per E1 device. And z2m uses hardcoded values to determine the percentage. I already did a lot of investigation on this topic and there are a lot of people reporting the same issues with these devices.

[makcorner]

I ordered one, should arrive tomorrow. Will do some testing…

[auanasgheps]

Here in one week the heating systems will be turned on so I'll be able to report some data.

This is the E1 battery history. Please note that when I changed batteries (20th March) the thermostat has basically sat unused.