HSM100 - Temperature Limitations

[RockLobster]

Hi All,

I can see that the HSM100 will report temperatures from 32-104F. I'm only interested in using these to detect motion... does anyone know if will function in lower temperatures?

I want to put one inside my shed (very close proximity to house), but it gets awfully cold here in NH. Any thoughts?

Thanks as always...

[Rupp]

They will work at lower temps but the batteries tend to die quickly at the lower temps.

[RockLobster]

Great, thanks Rupp.

[sleeve]

How about on the high side? I know these are indoor only units, but I mounted one outside under an eave. It gets morning sun until around 11am, that's central Florida morning sun, too.

I had a set of batteries make a nice run of about six weeks, and since I've read the battery threads here I understand that the battery remaining slopes off quickly. Popped in new batteries, dead in two days. More batteries, dead in two days. I'm sure I've set it to only wake every 12 minutes like I had when it lasted 6 weeks.

I'm not really tempted to put more batteries in it only to have them last two days again. I figure I must have fried the unit with outdoor direct sun Florida summer temps.

I've ignored the unit, been off doing other projects, but I'm starting to get back into it and I really want my entry lights to turn on with driveway motion like they did for those first six weeks. And my garage lights to turn on when they see a car enter and it's either night time or summer thunderstorm dark.

Do I basically have to buy and fry one of these every year? And get no functionality from June to October? It doesn't make much sense because I've got two EtherRain units enclosed in a timer cabinet in a garage with no air conditioning and they behave fine. The basic electronics in this sensor should be able to handle the heat. Outdoor cams can.

Granted, I would really love to see a truly outdoor rated motion sensor. Driveway motion has got to be one of the most important HA triggers I can imagine. Why are we still so MacGyver on a fundamental need?

[Rupp]

There are plenty of "real" outdoor motion sensors that can be intergrated with HomeSeer.
http://www.homesecuritystore.com/c-155-outdoor.aspx

[sleeve]

Thanks for the link.

That puts a few obstacles in my way. I've either got to expand my ELK to accept the motion trigger or add a new interface to my HomeTroller. The first adds a need to hardwire ethernet because the wifi connection to my ELK is not solid. The second sends me searching for a new black box to put next to the Z-troller.

I probably should have mentioned that the narrow scope of my search for outdoor motion was because I'm trying to stay within z-wave. I understand that for no good reason I block myself from 80% of the ability of HomeSeer/HomeTroller when I set that limit, but my first build in HA was intended to be simple.

I actually have events for all of the sensors in this HSM100, which of course currently never fire. I really would love to see this unit hardened for outdoor use, it's 99% of what I want and currently 100% of what I want for two days at a time.

In fact, I tend to think that the easiest way out of this is to hardwire power into this sensor. It functions and it doesn't false trigger, it just eats battery.