Just curious what everyone else has experienced as far as range goes with their HSM100? I was just testing mine in tester mode and it seemed to stop at 18 feet directly out front of it. I went across its range of motion as they recommend. It claims it detects motion up to 30 feet but I am not getting anywhere near that. I have mine mounted outside about 9’ high.
there are a few issues affecting range of motion detection, some are
- sensitivity setting which is changeable, the defualt setting is fairly high but not the highest, of course setting max sensitivity may increase possibility of false alarms.
- then there is aim, the “vision” of the motion sensor is aimed downward at an angle so if it was mounted flat on a wall it will “see” at a downward angle, so the height of the optimal motion detection will change as you get farther from the sensor, generally they are made to be mounted at head height or higher but to hit a specific spot one may need to adjust the angle, a friend of mine who is artistic bent some wire hangers into neat adjustable mounting brackets so I can adjust angles for specific locations
- mass of the object being detected (and amount of movement), not suprisingly it will detect an object with greater mass (a person) at greater range than it will one with less (a mouse) I can tell you from annoying experience that it will detect a mouse happily at 5-15 feet and mine will get a person (if properly aimed) out to about 25 feet
Yeah, I haven’t changed my sensitivity from the default of 200. That isn’t a bad idea although I had hoped it wouldn’t pick up rabbits and other rodents that come into view. From your experience, that doesn’t seem to be the case though. 
I read about the natural downward angle so I placed mine about 9’ high and screwed flush to the wall. The manual recommends 6-8’ high so that may be the issue for the difference in range from mine to yours.
I plan on installing a few more of these around the house and some would be even higher than 9’ so I’m going to have to reconsider how they will perform at those heights.
[quote=“SunnysGlimpse, post:3, topic:168618”]Yeah, I haven’t changed my sensitivity from the default of 200. That isn’t a bad idea although I had hoped it wouldn’t pick up rabbits and other rodents that come into view. From your experience, that doesn’t seem to be the case though.
I read about the natural downward angle so I placed mine about 9’ high and screwed flush to the wall. The manual recommends 6-8’ high so that may be the issue for the difference in range from mine to yours.
I plan on installing a few more of these around the house and some would be even higher than 9’ so I’m going to have to reconsider how they will perform at those heights.[/quote]
All things being equal greater height should equal greater range, most of mine are at 8 ft and some have the bottom tilted away from the wall to raise the “sensing” area higher, of course this may create a blind spot right under the sensor but my locations allow for that