I’ve been experimenting with ecolink PIR motion sensors at the front of my house and i get an awful lot of false alarms. It’s frustrating. I’ve tried a multitude of positions and lowering the sensitivity with the jumper but i think the problem is that there is simply too much motion out at the sidewalk/street level (see attached photo to see just how close they are). Currently i have one pointing across the driveway from the front porch railing (you may be able to see it in the photo) and one about where the camera is pointing towards the front door. Around 75% of the alerts i get are not interesting.
Minimally i’d like a photo/notification when someone walks down my driveway far enough or comes up the stairs to the front door. Even better if i could get the same if they literally step off the sidewalk onto the property but i’m not holding my breath on that one.
PIR’s pick up heat differences. The reason they are not used outside is due to changes in air temps with a breeze. It is known that using PIR’s (which are labeled for indoor use) don’t work so well outside. If you look into alarm systems (because they are reliable and required to not have false detection’s due to police showing up when alarm goes off) and outdoor motions they use microwaves and beams vs PIR.
So if you continue you use PIR all you can do is expect it and try and adjust it.
It looks like your property is kind of recessed with maybe walls on both sides. You can use photo beam all the way across so if anyone walks up the driveway or lawn (dirt) they will break the beam and send an alert. Even if the beam you choose is not z-wave you can use the 2 wires that would normally go to an alarm panel and wire them into a z-wave door contact to make that beam into a z-wave beam.
I use BLUEIRIS with my cameras and have motion setup in the cameras and sidewalk blocked out. But even then you can have flase alerts from headlights or such. The beam would be the best. They come in different distances. If you going across your whole front yard you need meausre but probley a 90ft to 150ft beam is what you need.
Hmm thanks for the response. Seems like a great solution and I certainly can have a pair of these shooting across the front of the property from wall to wall. But running cables out to them (power) seems like a challenge particularly with one side being on the other side of the driveway. I was hoping they were battery powered :D.
I guess i’ll have to think about how badly I want this functionality and if i’m willing to dig trenches (incl under the driveway) and run conduit and to try to get that back to the house.
how do you power this thing exactly? does the 2 wires going to the door contact power it?
whats a good door contact to pair with it?
[quote=“gwichman, post:3, topic:189661”]Hmm thanks for the response. Seems like a great solution and I certainly can have a pair of these shooting across the front of the property from wall to wall. But running cables out to them (power) seems like a challenge particularly with one side being on the other side of the driveway. I was hoping they were battery powered :D.
I guess i’ll have to think about how badly I want this functionality and if i’m willing to dig trenches (incl under the driveway) and run conduit and to try to get that back to the house.
how do you power this thing exactly? does the 2 wires going to the door contact power it?
whats a good door contact to pair with it?[/quote]
Yes no full battery powered sensors besides the PIR that I have seen. There is some of these photobeam sensors are are powered only on one side and battery on the other. Something like this, but this is only 50ft range. You would need to shop around, but this would cut down some wiring. http://www.emxinc.com/battery_powered_photoeye_sensor_bpe-50.html
Power is 12v or 24v DC and can be done with a wall wart like a sprinkler controller or an alarm panel wall wort or anything like that of your choice. It’s low voltage so even like Malibu or landscape lighting wire can be used and be direct buried. Picture of what I have in mind below but it can be any 12v or 24v transformer.
You would have 2 wires to one for power only and the other would have 2 power wires and 2 open closed wires that can be wired into a z-wave door window/switch. So you could get away with only 2 wires running back to the power source from each end of the beam sensors really.