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Sorry I don’t have any solution, but this is what I’ve learned.
It’s an interesting question. The devices do not know the remaining capacity of the battery, they can only measure the voltage. Rechargeable NiMH batteries which are 1.2V, will only display as about 70% to 80% when fully charged. Some rechargeable batteries like the LiOn which are available in a regulated 1.5V, will run at 1.5V until they suddenly die. Or, some better tech rechargeable batteries intentionally drop the voltage when teh capacity is low so that electronics devices can tell when they’re about to die and display a low battery warning to the user. (Note, no devices can measure the battery capacity, only the battery voltage). Disposable batteries are generally going to show a low voltage until they die, but some of the new lithium disposable batteries I think will push out 1.5V all the way until the very end until they suddenly die. So, for the bhyve to display a low battery warning prior to dying, they have to have batteries in which the voltage will slowly decay before dying. Note that the bhyve faucets work even for 1.1 to 1.2V. I assume that there’s a particular voltage state in which the bhyve sends out a low battery warning, but that there is not a particular voltage in which it prevents them from turning on, or, if there is, it is very close to the voltage in which the device can’t close or turn them off again. This is sloppy engineering for sure, and it’s bitten me twice. Before I go away on holiday, I will be changing all batteries over. I don’t rely on the % indicators at all, I just currently have NiMh rechargeables which every 2 months I remove them all, and charge them all up. (Actually, I have plenty spare, so I can remove-replace-charge in batches until they’re all replaced). But if going away on holiday for a month or so, you’ll probably want to grab some new 1.5V disposables to be sure that they last.
For what it’s worth, proper irrigation solenoids work by *requiring* power to stay on, but, for a battery powered device, this would be quite draining to require power to hold a solenoid open. With those, a loss of power results in them closing. You can also use irrigation main electric master solenoid valves, which open only when using the sub-circuit valves. This adds redundancy just in case a sub-circuit solenoid fails, particularly useful if you do go away for long periods of time I suppose.
Unfortunately for me, I have not worked out an easy way (yet) of converting to such a superior system, and hence why I have a whole bunch of these temperamental tap faucet valves. It is just sad that bhyve have never implemented the feature they promised that they would when the devices first came out, which was for them to work as a cohesive system working one at a time. But alas, they deleted the old user forum to cover that up, and here we are, still not smartly detecting the type of battery and cutting out at an appropriate voltage to prevent damage to things from leaving a zone on for days at a time until a good neighbor notices.