Setting up Vera with motions sensors, in 10000 sq yard area

Community Playground Getting Started & Initial Setup
1

I want to to set up motion sensors to the meeting rooms in my office, so that, at any time I could ping the sensors and know which rooms are occupied.

There are 50 rooms, on 4 floors, some with adjacent walls and some 100 feet from the nearest one. Rooms’ size varies from 100 sq ft to 1000 sq ft. I may need to use some Z-Wave repeaters.

From what I see, I should use Z-wave/Zigbee enabled sensors, a hub(VeraEdge or Vera3?), which could in turn be accessed by another controller in my office network.

I do not want to get the data through internet, rather the hub should be able to communicate to a PC on the network itself.

Can VeraEdge with Vera-motion-sensors(product code ECO-PIR-US) be setup for such large area? Will Vera be able to gather information from multiple (up to 20-25) sensors in real-time (<1 second)?

I see a product “PIRZWAVE2-ECO” at amazon, is it same as ECO-PIR-US? Seems cheaper in bulk buying at Amazon.

[Edit] : Will I be able to identify the individual sensors which sent the response?

2

Your requirements exceed the capabilities of Z-Wave PIR sensors. I suspect that they exceed the capabilities of most PIR sensors.

I think your best bet is to contact an alarm company for consultation.

3

Thanks Z-Waver. So, what are the constraints, you would say?

Can I schedule the sensors to be armed every 3-5 minutes, read any events generated and then disarmed them, again to be armed 3-5 minutes later?

I could spread the arming/disarming schedule across the 3-5 minute interval, if getting events from all 40-50 sensors at a time is no possible.

P.S. I am doing this more as a personal initiative, so need to keep the final setup under $2-3K. Bringing an consultant into picture would easily cross that.

4

Distance is the first and biggest issue. Most PIR sensors will have a reliable range of about 20 feet, at best.

On demand polling of the sensors isn’t how Z-Wave PIR sensors work. The sensors report their state changes(immediately) tripped/untripped. Polling intervals are hours long.

Can I schedule the sensors to be armed every 3-5 minutes, read any events generated and then disarmed them, again to be armed 3-5 minutes later?
Sure, you could, but it would be completely pointless. The Z-Wave sensors will report their state changes(tripped/untripped). You'd then configure the controller(Vera) to (not)take action based on that and possibly other criteria/logic. Armed/Disarmed is a logical state, it doesn't turn the devices On/Off or physically affect them in anyway.
I could spread the arming/disarming schedule across the 3-5 minute interval, if getting events from all 40-50 sensors at a time is no possible.
It would not be possible to poll battery operated sensors with any reliability, if that is your goal. Battery operated devices sleep and do not respond to polling for hours at a time. Vera can handle the reception of 50 trip events within a couple of seconds. You won't likely get 50 simultaneously because the Z-Wave network would introduce some latency, but Vera would be able to receive and handle them all within a few seconds.
P.S. I am doing this more as a personal initiative, so need to keep the final setup under $2-3K. Bringing an consultant into picture would easily cross that.
I meant alarm company sales consultants. They're unlikely to charge you, as IT consultants would. But, project cost would likely be MUCH higher than you want to go, especially since most alarm companies make their money from monitoring, which you won't want.

Assuming Z-Wave sensors, which again are not suited for your requirements, you’ll need far more than one sensor per room and numerous sensors for large rooms. You’ll also definitely need repeaters(wired devices), as battery operated sensors do not participate in Z-Wave mesh routing.
4(sensors)50(rooms)$35(per sensor)=$7,000 and rooms as large as you describe would require perhaps a half dozen sensors or more.

Frankly, I think that the meeting room in use scenario is much better addressed by company policy and groupware(Microsoft Exchange?) resource mailboxes to schedule and reserve rooms.

If I absolutely had to use alarm technology for presence detection, I’d suspect that laser grid/plane would be the better option for your situation, but that’ll probably exceed the budget as well. Your max budget of $60 per room won’t get you much more than a mailbox license.

5

Depending on privacy requirements ip cameras with motion detection might work better than PIRs?