Sensative Strip battery replacement

[Weirdo]

It finally happened!
Everyone that buys a Sensative Strip knows that at some point in the future the baettry of the sensor will run out.

I bought 3 strips and the battery ran out for one of them. I did notice that when I took the sensor away from its location and moved it closer to the gateway it did work sometimes.

So I had 2 options:

• Buy a new one and throw the old one away
• Do some experimenting on the old one and buy another one when it fails

Buying a new one cost about €40. This is not very expensive compared to other sensors, but if I can somehow not spend that money it would be great.
I have chose to experiment with the sensor as its fun anyways to see the insides.

What I found after opening up the sensor is that it contains a custom LiMnO2 battery cell that has the capacity of 480mAh and works on 3.0V.
I am not a specialist on battaries, so making my own 3V battery is out of the question.

I decided to connect 2 AA 1.5V batteries to the sensor just to check if that would do the trick. Some soldering and taping later the result is this:


After some testing the sensor works as intended.

I was so happy that it was just a battery problem and nothing else and decided to just keep using those AA batteries.
Yes it does not fit in the sensor. The sensor is used for the door of my shed. No one cares that it does not look as nice.

The result after putting the sensor back in its place,



It is possible that the AA batteries will start to leak/oxidize. The shed tend to be warm in the summer and cold in the winter.
Replacing those batteries isn't difficult.

This whole project only took me 30 - 45 minutes.

[Digittt]

Hi there...I went a little further than you but tried much the same.

As background I've had probably 10 - 15 of these over the years. None of the batteries ever lasted...possibly the longest one lasted was 1.5 years. This was with good Z-wave signal...so we have to get real...the marketing on the battery life is just BS. With all the strips I had, I had many in perfect locations within the home and many in sheds and external doors. All of them had poor battery life. Which is painful as the product itself is brilliant apart from that.

What did I do? I ordered some replacement batteries through Alibaba that fit in the case...ie Li ion batteries if memory serves of the same size, spec etc. They fit in the case and otherwise functioned normally. The issue...the battery life was even shorter (I sourced the batteries under the guise of prototyping samples being needed)...given it was even shorter, I didn't pursue. I may though take a leaf out of your book and keep the battery external....how long did the AA batteries last as you had them?

Cheers,

Digittt

[FlorinV]

Hi my battery ran out and I intend to replace it with external battery and from your picture I can see that I don't need to open the whole thing which side of the strip are the old battery connections ? thanks

[ShaoToshi]

Hello Digitt,

Which replacement battery did you find on AliExpress? I can’t find any. Many thanks.

[Dave21w]

I've never seen one of these "sensitive strips" as you call them, what do thay actually do, are they a vibration sensor or a proximity (very close) sensor to detect say someones hand on the door handle. Either way 2 akaline AA batteries should give you 4 x the operating life as most alkaline AA's are at least 2000mAh. Your other option would be to use a CR123A battery, these are a 3V lithium (not rechargeable) cell most of which are about 1400mAh so at least 3 x the life expectancy. They will take up less room than 2 x AA's but i would use a battery holder as you shouldn't solder directly to a lithium cell unless it already has solder tags spot welded on. Something like this would do it
https://products.interstatebatteries.co ... il/LIT0362