YRL220ZW619 Battery Life/Using Multiple Controllers

Hi Folks,

I have five Yale YRL220ZW619 lever locks on my VeraPlus, the batteries keep dying in as little as 30 days and on average 60-75 days. Polling is set to 10800 seconds. I’ve tried both lithium and alkaline, doesn’t make a difference.

I also need a reliable key fob remote to signal the Yales to lock/unlock, there simply are NO good zWave keyfobs out there (the Aeotec ZW088-A being the “best” was horrible, it’s battery would die in less than 30 days, even with polling turned off).

These are the two problems I need to solve. In another property I use the Yale YRL220ZW619 with a Honeywell Lynx Touch 5100, the batteries last forever (at least a year with daily use) and the batteries in the key fob (Honeywell 5834-4, 345Mhz?) last 3-5 YEARS (I’ve been using mine for over 5 years now and the battery still doesn’t need to be replaced). I’ve read on other forums (I think it was the SmartThings forum) that short battery life in the Yale locks is usually the result of the controller (all other things being equal, that makes sense - the VeraPlus must be doing SOMETHING that the Lynx doesn’t). What I’m thinking of doing is installing a Lynx system here, putting the Yale locks on it and let the Lynx control these locks. That would also solve the problem with having a reliable key fob with good battery life (and add security at the same time). If I do this, can the VeraEdge “know” about the devices controlled by the Lynx but NOT poll them or manage them the way it does with them presently?

I basically ONLY want the VeraEdge to “talk” to the Yale devices through the Lynx, and let the Lynx “manage” the devices. So Vera would get status and send lock/unlock signals (and NOTHING ELSE) to the Lynx who would relay them to the Yale locks. Can I do this? Sorry, I’ve never done multiple zWave controllers before - I know you can associate them but I have no experience doing so and want to make sure I’m not just “moving the problem” if Vera is still going to do WHATEVER it is doing under the covers with these Yale locks and killing their batteries.

-MC

Hi HC,

This type of issue should be analyzed by the Customer Care Department. I have opened a ticket about this, please answer to us via email.

Well Vera Support found nothing wrong. Can someone give me a response to my questions about using a VeraPlus alongside a Honeywell Lynx Touch (probably current model which I think is 7200, but it uses the same zWave card as the 5100 I’m presently using in two locations)? What I’d like is for the Vera to continue to own lighting, thermostats, motion detectors and various other devices and the Honeywell to own the Yale locks. BUT, I’d like the Vera to be able to send lock/unlock commands through the Honeywell to the locks (and nothing else, I don’t want the Vera configuring the locks, polling them, etc.) - is that doable?

-MC

It’s been a year and I’m still constantly replacing batteries at my home with VeraPlus (and never at my other home with the Lynx 5100). I’m curious if maybe the battery drain is due to constant (i.e. at least daily during heal processing) reconfiguring of the Yale locks? Under Settings->Automatically Configure the devices are all set to “use default behavior”. What would happen if I changed this to “No”, I mean the devices are already fully configured - what would the effect be if I set this to NO? The VeraEdge would still talk to the locks, the locks would still report status - would anything stop working? As a reminder polling is already set high (10800) so it’s not due to excessive polling.

I explained the reason for the battery drain in this thread:

Thank you rafale77!!! I’ve suspected all along that the Vera was FAR too “chatty” with these battery operated locks, your testing confirms that! How stable is the 7.30 firmware? It looks like it’s been out for nearly a month now and several people are using it.

-MC

As I shared in that attached thread, I have been testing various builds of 7.30 with mostly great success. Most of the problems still being observed by other beta testers are related to the use of the remote access/mios servers which I disabled on my setup because I am fundamentally opposed to the concept and also has been a great source of instability for the vera platform in particular. There is still room for further improvement on the zwave network handling by disabling unnecessary polls to battery operated devices whenever they wakeup but I would say that the improvement is ~90%. It is now chatty with 7.30 and all these spamming bloatware functions disabled, before this, it was completely saturated and unreliable once you have more that ~12 battery operated devices. I am still hoping that this last spam function I am seeing gets an option to be disabled soon as it still is draining batteries across the network along with generating errors and failures.

Reviving this old discussion, I’ve been living with the batteries in my YRL220ZW619 units (all 5 of them) dying every 30-60 days. To recap, whether the cylinder is rotated (which is what MIGHT draw some energy) or not, the batteries just keep dying in these units. Of my 5 units only one ever has the cylinder rotated 2X per day, the other 4 are never even used - and yet the batteries die in 30-60 days.

Yale has a newer version, the YRL226-ZW2-619 - which uses a zWave Plus radio module. Has anybody here used this specific model with Vera controllers (mine is a Vera Plus), and can you comment on how long the batteries last? I’m considering buying 5 of these directly from Yale since they claim the batteries last 1 year, and if they don’t I will return them to Yale under warranty - but it’d be helpful to hear from others if these are performing well with Vera before spending over a thousand dollars to replace the existing units.

https://shopyalehome.com/collections/z-wave-systems/products/yale-assure-lever-touchscreen?variant=30253083328644

Hi There,

—YRL220ZW619

We have accepted your request for device integration, ordering it and waiting for it to be sent.

Please understand and allow us some time to get the device in our development facility.

Thank you,
Ezlo Integration Team.

Hi There,

----YRL226-ZW2-619

We have accepted your request for device integration and we have already finished working on it.

Please install the latest version of the app and check your devices working.

If you need any help, please contact us.

Thank you,
Ezlo Integration Team.

Greetings,

I just checked my VeraPlus firmware to pick up the update you just created to support the YRL226-ZW2-619 and it says I’m already at current levels:

Checking if there is a newer firmware version available

You are running the latest version 1.7.5186 (7.31)

How do I pick up this update? I have a YRL226-ZW2-619 ready to install and test once I’m sure I have the support for it in my VeraPlus.

-MC

It’s been more than two weeks since I asked how to pick up this update. I’m ready to install a YRL226-ZW2-619 today, but when I choose Add Device → Door Locks there is only one Yale Lever Lock model to select, the older YRL220-ZW-605 (the last 3 digits don’t matter, they just indicate the finish e.g. nickel, bronze or brass). If I choose the YRL220-ZW-605 (which is not a Zwave Plus model) will my YRL226-ZW2-619 (Zwave Plus) configure properly?

I added the YRL226-ZW2-619 by selecting YRL220-ZW-619 from the list, I received this message but the device seems to be working properly:

image

When I check the Advanced settings it got the Manufacturer correct but Model is blank:

Checking Variables I see data for Plusinfo was populated, does this mean it is working as a zWave Plus device?

FYI it has been 3 months since I replaced my five YRL220ZW619s with YRL226ZW2619s - what a difference in battery life! The batteries in the old units would die every 30-60 days (even if the unit was completely unused otherwise). The batteries in the new units (which use zWave Plus) have been in use for 3 months and are down only 5%, including a door which is electronically locked/unlocked a minimum of twice daily.

The YRL226ZW2619 units behave perfectly except for one minor complaint, often when I lock the door by rotating the interior lock control on the handle it triggers an alert to my cell phone saying the device “failed to operate”, but meanwhile it logs what ACTUALLY happened as a “Device changed” alert locally:

The “Lock” button was pressed on “Kitchen Door” in room “Locks” at 2022-02-22 17:19:57. Reported by (redacted). Alert #41628800932

I wish it wouldn’t send the “failed to operate” texts!