Multi Sensor 6(Aeon Labs) OUTSIDE?

[reidfo]

Does anyone use X10RF MS16A sensors outside? I'm wondering how good they are outside. I use about 12 of them in the house and am starting to displace them with the Aeon multi-sensors. I was hoping to transfer the MS16As outside and remove my dumb motion sensing security lights and replace with attractive lights controlled by some discreet MS16As. They seem to work quite reliably indoors.

I have one MS16A that I put outside to monitor my driveway. I do get a lot of false positives on it, but I'll admit I haven't tried repositioning it to see if it gets better.

[sparkman]

I have one MS16A that I put outside to monitor my driveway. I do get a lot of false positives on it, but I'll admit I haven't tried repositioning it to see if it gets better.

I have one as well, and get a few false positives due to sunlight reflecting of a wall late in the afternoon. The rest of the day and at night it works well.

Cheers
Al

[randy]

Thanks Randy, Ok found the manual.
Normally Closed, with 9-15VDC for the power. Should be able to hook up to inexpensive z-wave door sensor and provide power via wall wart.

You're always very through I've noticed before you implement things. This could possibly the holy grail of outdoor motion I've been searching for sometime. Thank you!

I'm only two weeks in but attached is a graph for the last 24 hours of both driveway sensors. You will notice not one trigger during the night and both of them were equally active as we were moving around digging out of a semi blizzard. The second chart is the last two hours while I was digging my truck out to take my wife to work. I left for her office at 9:00 and got back home at 9:45. You can see every time I walked within their path, but they don't ever pick up pedestrians on the sidewalk or cars on the street. They will trigger as soon as a person or vehicle make it more than 5 feet up the driveway. The DW-R sensor is on the right as you face the garage door. It is the one that picked up most of my motion. My wife tried to drive to work at about 8:30 and she couldn't get out of the neighborhood and came back home. That would be most of the DW-L triggers. Then I brushed off and warmed up "The Beast" to get her to work

Those path lights along the driveway are on about 12" risers so we are already at 8-10" this morning.

The have been very good so far and I am pleased with the results. It is about 17 degrees F this morning.

Click on any picture for a larger version.

12 hours



2 hours

[TomTom]

I'm buying one for the driveway this weekend.
Wow !! what I wouldn't give for some cold weather. It's 74 F in north FL right now. Doesn't feel like Christmas weather. Took out all my winter clothes from storage a few weeks ago and put up all the summer clothes. Well every day I'm having pull out more of my summer clothes! All the plants are confused and starting to re- sprout thinking its spring.


Sent from my iPhone

[randy]

Wow !! what I wouldn't give for some cold weather.

I get asked how we put up with the snow. The thing about Colorado is that this will all be gone by the weekend and it will be in the mid 50s. It is rare for it to stick around.

[waynehead99]

I get asked how we put up with the snow. The thing about Colorado is that this will all be gone by the weekend and it will be in the mid 50s. It is rare for it to stick around.

Very true... but this year I am becoming less tolerant of it ... Seems to comes again just as it finished melting. Can't get the bike out like I normally can .

[randy]

Very true... but this year I am becoming less tolerant of it ... Seems to comes again just as it finished melting. Can't get the bike out like I normally can .

Maybe I'll convert my GS

[Gunneyk]

I have seen this Fibaro door/window sensor with extra sensor connectors.

I have the same Fibaro sensor with the contacts and I too like Randy's idea about using it to interface with the wired sensor. I think I will buy one of the Microwave sensors and give it a try.

[Mack1979]

I think this is what many of us could use.
http://www.dsc.com/index.php?n=products&o=view&id=1347
Not sure which alarms it is compatible with, nor whether it is possible to have a sensor linked to a DSC alarm which only reports status, without being either an entry or intruder and hence triggering either the alarm or the entry delay.

It isn't wireless, so needs a 9-16V DC power supply. You could use it like the other suggestions, with a power supply and something like a Fibaro switch insert which takes the relay output and would report to HS on z-wave, hence ignoring the DSC compatibility point entirely.

Unlike the other suggestions it is at least IP65 rated. My current Aeon-labs multi-sensors have USB run through the wall, so providing power would be OK. There's load of outdoor PIRs without microwave sensors, and they would do the same job, closing the contacts on something like a Fibaro insert.

[lunkan]