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Rowsdower's profile

Thursday, November 10th, 2022 9:09 AM

Glassbreak false alarm (caused by low battery?)

I — and likely several of my neighbors — was just awoken by one of my glassbreak sensors (located in the daylight basement) activating a full alarm. I surveyed the house, saw nothing, disarmed the alarm — and continued to find nothing. No window, bulb, glass, anything.

Then I took a closer look at my SS app's "Notification" pane. At the exact same minute — 11:41pm — that this sensor tripped its false alarm, its immediately-preceding event was broadcasting that it had a low battery.

I've read enough of these posts to see that the answer to "hey, could a low battery trip a false alarm?" is, constantly, "no, that's impossible." But in this case, I can't fathom what else could have happened. And, if that's how these sensors work, then am I due for another false alarm the next time one of these runs low?

Community Admin

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5.7K Messages

2 years ago

Hi @Rowsdower,

 

This is definitely a bit of a mystery. But yes, low batteries in general shouldn't be able to cause false alarms. It should be the opposite - when the battery gets very close to dying, the sensor's range might deteriorate, resulting in the sensor not triggering at all. That's why it's important to change the battery as soon as you see that warning.

 

How long has it been since you last changed the battery? If you're past the 3-year mark, then it might actually be time to change. And coincidentally, there might have been an environmental trigger (for Glassbreak, other that actual broken windows, that could be the barking of some dogs, lightning, sound effects from a TV, etc.).

When the Glassbreak was activated, it would have also sent an update of its current battery state, which is how it showed up on the app.

 

One more thing: When was the last time you updated your Base Station's firmware? If the system is behaving strangely, it would be a good idea to update to make sure that it's not an issue with the programming. You can find instructions for updating here.

1 Message

6 months ago

I just experienced this exact issue. I scoured the house for any sign of broken glass, something that had fallen onto the floor, anything and found nothing out of place. I have a security camera on the windows exterior and nothing was outside at the time of the alarm. I have been receiving alerts that the battery for the glassbreak sensor was low for a few nights now and a low battery was the only possible explanation I could find for the false positive. 

We have cats but again, nothing out of place, nothing knocked to the ground, nothing that fell off a shelf in a closet or in a cupboard. I have no idea how the alarm was triggered.

1 Message

6 months ago

This just happened to me. It was 1:30 AM. I’m getting rid of this crap because that’s completely unacceptable.

1 Message

4 months ago

This is the worst. I've been having this issue repeatedly since we got the system in 2021.

The rep the next day always blames it on this or that. And it's consistently still happening. I've had the happen with all sorts of alarms. This most recent one was because of a fully charged glass breaking sensor. A couple weeks ago was a motion sensor.

(Still in the "2 months free monitoring" they gave me when I complained about the last one.)

Trash.

3 Messages

I faced the same, notification show low battery for glass break sensor and then next notification is Delay Entry triggered by same sensor. I have been on full monitoring and this is second time I woke up at 1.35 AM, with no concrete answer from simplisafe. 

Strange is that I replaced new battery just 15 hrs ago for the same sensor. Wondering if am not wasting money for a faulty system.

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