0.26.8, Fewer False Alarms and a Simple or Advanced Dashboard Choice

Nine releases since 0.25.6. A device that is plugged in and simply quiet stops being called frozen, a device your network has lost is reported within minutes, and the alarms you muted stay muted. The dashboard opens in Simple, shows what is broken and what to do about it, and gives each falling battery a time left drawn from its own history. Tim Plas tested Z-Wave and Matter on his house and reviewed each release, and Christopher Robert asked for Lutron Caséta in issue #14. Frenck asked in his review of the HACS listing for the three Enable buttons to be made admin only.

Breaking Changes

• The Enable Signals, Enable Last Seen and Enable Battery buttons are gone. An automation or script that pressed one stops working: remove that step, and turn sensors on one device at a time from the Recommendations tab or the device's page.
• The Status sensor no longer carries the awaiting-enable counts. A card or automation that read them finds them missing.
• You can't go back below 0.26.2. Older releases read only the daily file and would lose any history older than 30 days. Make a full backup before you update.
• A freeze mute no longer covers unavailable. Freeze mutes set by label or by device carry over as unavailable mutes. An integration muted for freeze reports its devices going unavailable: to keep it quiet, mute it for unavailable too.
• Music Assistant and your television integrations are excluded when you update. If you watch one on purpose, take it off the exclusion list; one you take off stays off.
• A muted Lutron hub mutes the devices it controls. Unmute the hub unless you want its devices muted too.
• A label mute applies to devices only. If you muted a label on an entity, move the label to the device.

Integration Status

Area	Status	Notes
Dashboard	Working	To display everything Device Sentinel knows about your system, it's integrations, and devices. Simple shows what is broken and what to do about it; Advanced adds the trends, charts and setup. Administrators only.
Freeze Detection	Stable	Catches frozen, unavailable and flapping devices, each on its own rhythm. Devices with four or more weeks of history get a steadier rhythm that a few bad days can't stretch. An ESPHome device is judged by its connection. Freeze and unavailable mute apart.
Battery	Stable	Warns on low batteries and on batteries falling or speeding up, with the time left as a range drawn from each cell's own history. Records the day a battery was replaced and asks you to confirm it.
Storage	Stable	Survives power cuts and restores itself from a backup. Long histories live in a file of their own.
Zigbee2MQTT	Working	A bridge outage is one alert, and your re-pairs are never mistaken for faults.
MQTT	Working	A broker outage is one alert, not one per device.
ZHA	Working	A coordinator outage is one alert, and your re-pairs are recognized.
Signal	Experimental	Weak links shown on the dashboard; stuck readings alert.
WiFi	Experimental	A Wi-Fi outage is one alert. Needs a wireless adapter on your server or a supported router.
Z-Wave	Working	A node Z-Wave JS reports dead makes its device unavailable, and an integration outage is one alert.
Lutron Caséta	Experimental	Devices are judged by their hub: a hub that goes down is one alert.
Matter	Working	A device that loses power is reported unavailable within minutes, and one with no battery is never called frozen while Matter says it is available. Next: battery devices on Thread.

Phase 1: Quiet Devices Stop Raising False Alarms

A device that reports only when used is learned that way. When a slow device comes back on its own after a freeze alert, the whole quiet spell is learned, so the next one does not alarm.

Touching a frozen device clears its alert and teaches nothing. Switch it, toggle it or trigger it from an automation, and the alert clears without the quiet spell being learned as its rhythm.

Slow Reporting Devices are recommended to be freeze mute. It lists the devices that can go more than 36 hours between reports, each with "Mute freeze". They are still reported when they go unavailable or their battery runs low.

An ESPHome device is judged by its connection. One that Home Assistant is connected to is never called frozen, and one that drops off the network is reported unavailable within a few minutes.

A Matter light or plug with no battery is not reported frozen while its integration says it is available. Tim unplugged a lamp and a plug: each was reported unavailable within about five minutes, and back the second it was plugged in. A Matter device with a battery, or behind a Matter bridge, is judged by its rhythm as before, and the device page says which way it is judged.

A ZHA device keeps its verdict through a ZHA restart. Device Sentinel reads ZHA's last-seen time, so a frozen device stays frozen when ZHA reloads.

Outages and restarts teach nothing. A long silence caused by an outage, a restart, or a renamed or removed entity is not learned as the device's rhythm. The Daily Brief and the recovered event give the full time a device was down.

Phase 2: Devices Your Network Has Lost

A Z-Wave device that Z-Wave marks dead is reported unavailable. Before, a device that lost power kept showing its last state. When Z-Wave hears it again, it is reported back with how long it was gone. Asleep and awake are left alone, since battery devices switch between them all day. Each Z-Wave device's page shows its status: alive, asleep, awake, dead or not known yet.

A Lutron Caséta hub that goes down is one alert. Lutron lights, switches and Pico remotes are judged by their hub, so a light nobody uses is not a fault, and a Pico press counts as the remote reporting. The hub's page shows whether it is online, the devices it controls and its outages over the last 14 days. Lutron support is experimental.

Phase 3: Better Mutes

Unavailable mute is taken out of Freeze. A freeze mute silences frozen and never reported. The unavailable mute, by label or by device, silences unavailable and dropping out. Set either under Settings, Devices and Services, Device Sentinel, Configure, Freeze and Unavailable Detection, or on a device's page.

The Daily Brief leaves out what you muted. Last 24 Hours and Repeat Offenders skip a device's rows of the kind you muted it for, even for what happened before you muted it, and the Brief tab does the same.

Mute a whole label from a device's page. In Advanced, the Muted row offers "Mute by label", and tells you how many devices carry the label before you save.

Phase 4: A Simple Dashboard

A new install opens the dashboard in Simple mode. Simple shows six tabs and asks you for nothing; Advanced adds the trends, charts and setup. Someone updating defaults to the Advanced dashboard. Change the default in Settings, Devices and Services, Device Sentinel, Configure, Advanced, "Dashboard: Simple or Advanced", or use the switch at the top of the dashboard to temporarily see the other.

Tick a recommendation when you do not want to follow it. Each row and each written recommendation has an "Acknowledged" checkbox. "Active Recommendations (N)" at the top opens the Recommendations tab, and a card stays open while you work down it.

Turn on a switched-off Enable sensor one device at a time. Cards list the devices whose Battery, Signal, Last Seen or Z-Wave status sensor is switched off, each with a button to turn it on.

Find a device by name, area or label. The Devices tab searches and filters, and "Show excluded devices" lists the devices you excluded, with one click to change your mind. An integration's page excludes or takes back the whole integration.

Fewer repair cards. Four repair cards are gone, and a damaged clocks file is reported in the Daily Brief.

Phase 5: Better Battery Time Remaining

A battery's time left is a range drawn from its own history. A steady cell gets a narrow range and a jumpy one a wider range, and the near end decides when it joins your Problem List.

The battery chart shows the expected fail date. The history runs to today, and the expected fall is two bold red lines with the range shaded between them. Each line ends where it reaches empty, and the day it does is written under the chart. The sentence above it agrees: "Falling faster each week, about 2.8 points a week today."

Confirm the day a battery was replaced. The device page shows Battery Last Replaced, or Battery Last Charged for a rechargeable. When a new battery is spotted, the Confirm Battery Replacement card asks you to confirm it, give the right day or cancel it.

Phase 6: Fewer False Alarms From Media Devices

Music Assistant and your television integrations are excluded for you. Music Assistant adds a second copy of each speaker it plays on, and a television reads unavailable each time you switch it off. Each of these that your house has is added to your exclusion list once, when you update or within a minute of adding it later: Music Assistant, LG webOS, Android TV, Android TV Remote, Samsung TV, Apple TV and DLNA Digital Media Renderer. One you already muted, or whose devices you muted or excluded, is left as you set it. Your Daily Brief names each one added, and one you take off the list stays off.

More device types. Appliance, IR Remote, Router, NAS, UPS and Vacuum join the list, and appliances from GE, Bosch, Siemens and Miele and robot vacuums are recognized on their own. A type you typed under Other that matches one on the list, such as "ZHA Coordinator", reads as the list's name.

Phase 7: A Lighter Storage File

The file written through the day includes only the last 30 days. Older history lives in its own file, which changes about once a day, so the daily file is about 40% smaller for a house with three months of history. Each file keeps a matching last-good backup, and a damaged file is restored from the pair at the next start.

Phase 8: Extended Diagnostics for Hue and SmartThings

Turn on Hue or SmartThings under Extended Diagnostics to help build support for them. Hue lines show each bridge's connection, firmware and last contact, and each device's link, battery and state. SmartThings lines show each device's availability and how it reaches the cloud. Nothing is sent to a bridge or to Samsung's cloud, and nothing changes in what Device Sentinel reports.

Known Limits

• Z-Wave notices a lost device only when something tries to reach it.
• A Lutron device that loses power while its hub stays up can't be seen. Picos and Lutron lights report no battery or signal.
• Matter battery devices on Thread, such as buttons, are judged by their rhythm; a button rarely pressed should be muted.
• For Zigbee2MQTT and Z-Wave, keep each device's Last Seen sensor on, or an integration restart can read as a recovery.
• Pressing a frozen device's button in Home Assistant clears the alert whether or not the device responds.
• A device removed and added back after more than 30 days starts learning again. Before 30 days and it picks up where it left off.

Upgrading

Update and restart. Your learned rhythms, battery history and signal history are safe. A few things to check:

• You can't downgrade below 0.26.2. Older releases read only the daily file and you would lose history greater than 30-days. Make a full backup before you update.
• An integration you muted for freeze reports its devices going unavailable. Freeze mutes set by label or by device carry over as unavailable mutes; to keep a whole integration quiet, mute it for unavailable too.
• Music Assistant and your television integrations are excluded when you update. If you watch one on purpose, manually remove it from the list.
• If an automation pressed Enable Signals, Enable Last Seen or Enable Battery, remove that step: the buttons are gone.
• If you muted your Lutron hub, unmute it unless you want its devices muted too.
• If you muted a label on an entity, move it to the device.

Co-authored by Tim Plas (@tplas)