Why Does My Battery-Powered Z-Wave Device Quickly Drain Batteries?

Your battery-powered Z-Wave device quickly drains batteries most likely because there is excessive communication between the device and the Z-Wave hub. The battery for your Z-Wave device will slowly drain every time the device has to wirelessly communicate with the Z-Wave controller.

Typically, Z-Wave devices work to conserve batteries as much as possible. But there have been some irregularities where certain Z-Wave controllers (often older models) cause issues that result in Z-Wave devices communicating excessively with the main hub. On the surface, everything looks fine. The Z-Wave device is working, and the hub is able to successfully control it. But in reality, invisible signals are constantly being sent from the device to the hub, and it is causing the device batteries to drain too quickly. Checking the diagnostics within advanced Z-Wave programming may help you identify this issue.

One such case where this issue occurred was with the old version of the Honeywell L5100-ZWAVE. Resideo (then known as Honeywell) released this device in 2012 to give automation capabilities to their wireless LYNX Touch Security Systems. The original model was known as Version 045401, which can be seen in the picture above. While this older model usually works quite well, it has been known to cause a beaming issue with Z-Wave locks and other battery powered Z-Wave devices. This issue caused the L5100-ZWAVE to send out multiple "generic" beaming signals, which in turn caused battery powered devices such as locks to constantly "wake up", thereby draining the batteries. The issue was addressed when Honeywell released Version 045500 of the Honeywell L5100-ZWAVE.

If you have a Honeywell LYNX Touch System with a Honeywell L5100-ZWAVE that is supporting one or more Z-Wave locks or other battery powered Z-Wave devices, and you find that the batteries are draining quickly, then it is a good bet that you have an older version of the Honeywell L5100-ZWAVE. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to fix this, other than simply replacing the module. You can certainly buy a new L5100-ZWAVE module from us and use it to replace your old one. Any Honeywell L5100-ZWAVE purchased on our website will be the newer 045500 Version. The other option is to continue to replace batteries in devices as they go low. Over time, the cheaper option is to replace the Z-Wave module. If you aren't sure which version of the L5100-ZWAVE you have, you can check the sticker, as shown in the picture above, or check the product's packaging. Remember, 045401 identifies the old model (2012), while 045500 identifies the new model (2018).

Aside from draining the batteries quickly in battery powered Z-Wave devices, having the original version of the L5100-ZWAVE may cause other types of issues with Z-Wave automation devices. These issues can include devices that work fine for a while then stop, of devices that seemingly work fine, but then stop working when a new device is added to the Z-Wave network. Bottom line, if you have an L5100-ZWAVE that was installed prior to 2018, and you have seemingly inexplicable Z-Wave issues, then there is a good chance that an update to the Z-Wave module is in order.