My property has three buildings located separately from the main house. I wish to install motion sensors on the outbuildings and install flood lights on the outbuildings and the house. When someone drives in, it will trigger the motion sensor, which will light up the whole path from the farthest outbuilding to the front door of the house.
So, my question is:
To connect remotely located outbuildings (garage - 200’ - barn - 75’ - house - 75’ - boat house) should I use Z-Wave or Insteon? Also, I hope to find a whole solution that does not include batteries.
I’m headed over to SmartHome.com as a first research place. I’ll also spend more effort searching this forum.
I would have to suggest alarm system and integrate. ZWave limited to about 30 metres between node. I think this would be a more flexible, reliable and cost effective option in the long run
How will an alarm system solve the issue? The buildings are not wired together with anything other than mains wiring. After a bit more research, perhaps Insteon will work for the distance.
I was hoping there was a Z-Wave bridge or range extender somehow available. Another creative solution would be to include a battery powered motion sensor midway between the two buildings. That would bridge the gap and not require mains power. Maintaining battery powered devices isn’t the best solution, though.
Any other ideas how to connect an outbuilding to Z-Wave without another Vera?
Insteon might do what you need. However, be aware that the native Insteon support in the Vera probably won’t do what you need. It sounds like you want to have the motion sensor trigger various lights to turn on. The native Insteon support in the Vera only picks up state changes when it polls. So, you won’t get the behavior you want. However, because of how Insteon works, you wouldn’t technically need a Vera unless you wanted to do something a bit more fancy than just turn the lights on and off. You could cross link all of the switches to the motion detector, and then set the motion detector to only trigger when it is dark.
Depending on how noisy your power lines are, you may see some problems with the distance when dealing with Insteon. I’d suggest starting small with maybe a light switch and a PLM to see if you can control something across that distance.
If you need the Vera to react more quickly to events, you can look at my Altsteon plugin. But, it is very much under development and only works with the Vera 3 at the moment.
Among the things I’ve been amazed about, within the sphere of DIY home automation, is how few readily available options there are for exterior motion detection/flood lighting. Only a couple come to mind, the INSTEON products (ex 2494MSWH) and the X-10 Floodcam (VT38A - sends rf) and Floodlight (PR511 - sends Powerline).
From your post, it seems like you’d be most interested in the INSTEON product. It probably stands a better chance of fulfilling your requirements than the X10 products. No batteries will be required. No motion detector (battery device)->Access point->light switch setup required. I’ve read that others have set these devices up to be both transmitter and receiver for each other. In essence, one goes on, they all go on. Of course, that also means that when one goes off, they all go off, see (http://www.smarthome.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=9126). Such a setup wouldn’t necessitate a controller, although several folks mention that having Houselinc makes setting up and managing all this a lot easier.
This all presupposes that INSTEON signals will make it through all the necessary powerlines. Access points to bridge the separate phases will probably be needed and some filterlincs may be needed, too. The detective work required to solve powerline interference led me to abandon INSTEON for our own home, so I don’t have first hand experience with these INSTEON-enabled floodlamps. I gave up and put the whole thing on hold.
The point raised by @Brientim about integrating with an alarm system may be referring to the greater wireless reception range possible for many alarm systems. I was just looking at the wireless board to add to a GE NetworX panel. It claims up to 1000’ range. That would be plenty for your application. There are outdoor rated motion detectors for the GE system . They tend to be pricey (Brinks Home) and battery operated. Such an alarm system when integrated with Vera would be able to sense traffic. But then, there would need to be an additional setup to act upon that information. Somehow signal would need to be transmitted back to the outbuildings to control your lighting and there still need to be automation devices to do that deed.
I’m quite new to all this. It’s probable there are other possibilites I’m not aware of. But with what I’ve got to work with, it seems like the least expensive option that avoids battery powered devices would be the INSTEON floodlights, a few access points to bridge phases (if necessary) and maybe a Powerlinc Modem (with or without Houselinc) that could be used to manage the lamps using Vera (altsteon) and/or Houselinc. It’s a theoretical solution. As I mentioned, it didn’t work for me (at least not within time/effort/expense I wanted to put into it). Depends upon the floodlamps being acceptable and INSTEON signals trafficing everywhere they need to. But maybe it’s a start. If you come up with a better solution, please share. I’m finding this exterior motion/lighting stuff to be a challenge.
Thanks for the great replies. Although integrating fba’s Altsteon might be pushing my current Vera capabilitiy, I will be buying some Insteon sensors and lights. This sounds like the most straightforward. Bridging the phases is pretty easy and finding some interference shouldn’t be too tough either.
Be sure to check out the specs on those units before plunking down your cash. The featured aspect of that unit is the in-linelinc (2475S2) which goes for about $50@ The Floodlight kit is on sale for about $58 - which tells you something about the fixture, itself. Construction is plastic. The motion detection angle is only 110-degrees and the range is 60’. Smarthome’s promotional text claims it features a night-only mode, yet customer complaints include a lack of such a feature. Things to consider.
Still, for an extra $8-9@, it could make a great starter kit to help further define your actual needs.
I know this is an old topic Wichita is still a good question regarding the avait ?lots of " Out building - motion sensor and flood lighting compatible with Z-Wave "
I have searched in this forum and google but did not found any informations.
May be somebody has succ?de to identify such zwave equipment ?
High quality outdoor motion sensing is going to require commercial sensors attached to a alarm panel that interfaces with Vera. This is one of several reason why doing most sensing through an alarm system usually is the best approach for home automation.
Otherwise, install an inexpensive zwave motion sensor that has a splash rating. Under cover and out of the sun it may last awhile. I do remember a discussion of how to let vera know when a conventional motion flood light sensing device has been turned on. The conventional (one piece) non-zwave motion flood lights usually don’t have a long life either.
Best Home Automation shopping experience. Shop at Ezlo!