If you did not move your sensor, but it is now patchy, follow these troubleshooting ideas.
There are various reasons why a sensor that used to have a good connection can suddenly get worse for no apparent reason.
- Batteries running out is one of them.
- Another reason is that even though your equipment itself may not move with respect to each other (sensors <--> gateways), if other furniture or metal doors move in between them, this will cause changes and "obstacles" in the radio signals.
- Another reason is noise in the space. If other equipment on similar radio frequencies gets on, it will cause more noise and interfere with reading transmission. This could include things like other LoRaWAN equipment being installed in the general vicinity by the city, etc. For e.g. Bluetooth signals sometimes work on the same frequency as microwaves, so they get disrupted when microwaves turn on.
- If you recently upgraded your equipment to the latest SCS-3 Conserv sensors and are having trouble getting a reliable signal where your old sensors used to have no issues, this could be due to the firmware in your new devices. Old Conserv sensors used to always have their signal strength at the highest possible setting. This meant that if your gateway was not that far, your sensors were overdoing it and using more battery power than they really needed to connect to your gateway. Newer Conserv sensors have been designed to modulate the strength of their signal to avoid this and maximize battery efficiency. However, this means that if your sensor is on the edge of your gateway range, we may need to help you update your firmware to the latest version so that your new sensor does not go offline before it finds that ideal signal strength. Please open a support ticket and mention you think this might be the issue.