Outdoor motion sensors

[chewie]

So I started a thread yesterday on cameras and DVRs and ended up hijacking it myself, so I am starting this one to separate the conversations.

Has anyone used the Dakota systems? How do they interface with HS?

Any other thoughts on using wired motion sensors or similar devices without having to wire them into your alarm system?

[rmasonjr]

I'm interested in the Dakota systems myself.

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[kkkk]

So I started a thread yesterday on cameras and DVRs and ended up hijacking it myself, so I am starting this one to separate the conversations.

Has anyone used the Dakota systems? How do they interface with HS?

Any other thoughts on using wired motion sensors or similar devices without having to wire them into your alarm system?

I have a Dakota sensor in my driveway. Works pretty well. For the Homeseer integration I use an Everspring door/window contact wired to the Dakota receiver. But you could probably use any contact sensor or even a MIMOlite for that. Sometimes the sensor gets triggered by a raccoon but it is rare. I don't have many false alarms and it reliably detects all pedestrians walking into my driveway. Occasionally I can sneak by with my black car at night if I enter the driveway speedy (which I sometimes do ). The sensor is fully exposed to the weather, except for some shade from a tree nearby, and now running for more than a year on the first batteries without any problems.

[DrZWave]

I had a dakota wireless driveway sensor as well which is completely hokey in how you have to wire it to HS.
Their white box that plugs in in the house is connected to an everspring door/window sensor. That gets me to ZWave so I know the driveway has had a car pass thru it.
It was still annoying that the box BING-BONGed every time someone passes thru the sensor but I had the white box in a spare room so it didn't matter much.

The #1 problem I have with it is that it only trigger 95% of the time. So often I could see a car driving up the driveway but it didn't trigger. But when I went to test it and figure out what the problem is the thing would trigger 100% of the time. Very frustrating. The sensors are about 70 yards in direct line of sight thru 1 exterior 4" wall. I tried different orientations of the white recevier but that made no difference (well, one orientation was much worse).

The thing does false-trigger in really heavy snow or rain. And since I can't control the BING-BONG with HS I have go and rip the white receiver box off the wall at 2am! grrr...

I talked to the President of the company at CEDIA this year and all he could say was that it will work up to 1/2 mile. Works up to 1/2 mile. works up to 1/2 mile - people love that part. works up to a 1/2 mile...

Yeah, maybe you get 1% triggers at 1/2 mile but it does NOT work reliably even at 100 yards so the claim that it works at 1/2 mile is complete BS.

I took the box apart and clearly made in china (lots of hand soldering). There is a small radio board that simply gets powered up when the sensor detects something passing thru the beams. I planned on replacing that board with a Z-Wave door sensor but while I was investigating the board the many hand-soldered ribbon cables inside it started breaking off so now I have to repair those first. I am surprised it works as well as it does.

I'd also really love it if it could distinguish between entry and exit. I don't care if someone is leaving.

[Pete]

Its been years now but here utilize a wired Cartell system. Never a problem. It is wired to the Leviton OmniPro OPII board.

Cartell

The above noted it is not the only means of sensors utilized.

Any other thoughts on using wired motion sensors or similar devices without having to wire them into your alarm system?

The sensors utilized outdoors that count are all wired to the alarm panel. In the 80's/90's used wired optical beams; lightning would trigger these.

[S-F]

Its been years now but here utilize a wired Cartell system. Never a problem. It is wired to the Leviton OmniPro OPII board.

Cartell

The above noted it is not the only means of sensors utilized.



The sensors utilized outdoors that count are all wired to the alarm panel. In the 80's/90's used wired optical beams; lightning would trigger these.

How long is your driveway? I got the Dakota driveway sensor (not the optical beam. The direct burial one) and it triggers when a truck drives by my house. I should really sell that thing.

[Pete]

Short at some ~70-90 feet and about 36 feet wide. We live in a small court of 5 homes in pie shaped lots. I use more sensors though than the Cartell set up.

The subdivision though is not on a main road and is only 100 homes with one entrance such that only traffic is mostly folks that live there.

The subdivision was a farm in the 1990's.

I decided recently to upgrade the Aircam to a Grandstream and haven't finished adjusting it. Well mostly because it was cold and I dropped the hex key in the bushes that day. Here is a view of one of 4 front cams. Geez realized it snowed a bit this morning.

[S-F]

Yeah. My driveway is more on the order of 30' - 35'. If I put the sensor far enough away from the road to not get false positives it doesn't pick up cars actually pulling into the driveway because they don't get far enough to pass the sensor. I'm thinking about getting one of these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=ASJQH6ID1GQGG
Someone on the Vera forum a few years ago had one set up and he appeared to be satisfied with it. Less money that a comparable Dakota beam break sensor. But you have to run a wire to it and then punch a wire into your house to interface it with your alarm panel or whatever.

[TomTom]

DrZwave,
Is it the sensors that are not transmitting or triggering reliably or is it the white box isn't receiving the signals( too far away, interference, etc)


Tom

[Pete]

Yup; mine are in the middle buried under the driveway on either side. That said I am using more wired sensors than the Cartell system for motion on the driveway.

That berm with the two boulders in the picture above is wired from many years ago (well before the sidewalk went into place).

I ran much more PVC stuff than what is currently being utilized for the irrigation system. Probably about double many years ago. It was quick to do with the machines that they used (I paid the irrigation company installers extra to let me play with their toys and run my own stuff while they did the irrigation stuff).

The Optex sensors are small while the Rokonet outdoor sensor is too big close up but looks tiny from far away. (testing it still). > 10" tall.

But you have to run a wire to it and then punch a wire into your house to interface it with your alarm panel or whatever.

Here added more HV outlet boxes for electric into brick. Each one involved using a chistle to break out half of a brick and installing a 1/2 sized metal box and conduit into the house. Each one took a few hours to install and running new electric wires. LV is easier but the deal is to make the connections look aesthetically pleasing and not noticed and water tight. Inside while I have multiple chases from the attic to the basement it can take a couple of hours to run one LV wire from the second floor attic down to the basement punch panel.

@chewie - best use of outdoor sensors initially is to trigger daylight at night with outdoor analog sensors. You can layer the daylight with multiple means today using low wattage high brightness LED flood lamps. Use sound outside and inside events. The camera stuff can come later. IE: my deck today is using LV LED lighting for normal light. For events triggers though it uses both HV and LV lighting turning it to daylight.

Thinking Adam mentioned this earlier in your thread. Folks (thiefs) doing stuff like this do not like bright lights lighting their paths and may wonder what it was that triggered the bright lights.