How Good Is The Outdoor DM10A-S?

[jeanv]

I have been looking at buying 3 of the DM10A-S

http://www.x10.com/products/x10_dm10a.htm

My plan is to use them to monitor my driveway that it outside in the open exposed to the elements.

My questions are:

- Are these units any good?
- Is there a better wireless alternative to outdoor motion sensors that are better?
- Are they water tight?
- Do they work well with the W800?

Thanks for any help before I buy.

[firtha]

I have one of them, which I bought before I discovered the activeeye/eagleeye, etc.

It works; I've had it outside for about 4 years and it's still on its first set of batteries. ( 4 AA's ). It doesn't send an 'off' after sending an 'on'. It's NOT a security device, it's just a regular X10 sensor.

Mine is in a position where it gets direct sunlight every spring and fall, and it falsely triggers when hit by sunlight (I'm sure the eagleeyes do that too, but I haven't tried any)

Oh yeah, it's big, about 6" dia and 3" deep.

IMHO, you are probably better off with a weather resistant activeeye/eagleeye... just for the size factor.

[jeanv]

Have you ever had water enter the DM10a?

[Oman]

I have one of them, which I bought before I discovered the activeeye/eagleeye, etc.

It works; I've had it outside for about 4 years and it's still on its first set of batteries. ( 4 AA's ). It doesn't send an 'off' after sending an 'on'. It's NOT a security device, it's just a regular X10 sensor.

Mine is in a position where it gets direct sunlight every spring and fall, and it falsely triggers when hit by sunlight (I'm sure the eagleeyes do that too, but I haven't tried any)

Oh yeah, it's big, about 6" dia and 3" deep.

IMHO, you are probably better off with a weather resistant activeeye/eagleeye... just for the size factor.

I'm pretty sure it sends both an X10 transmission and a security transmission. It does not send a "no motion" transmission though so the plugin has a built-in timeout for the device.

Outdoor motion sensing is actually very difficult because of surface heating and direct sunlight on the sensor. There are wired outdoor sensors that have multiple types of sensors to deal with these issues but I don't know of any wireless ones that are reliable.

Jon

[jeanv]

Thanks for the information on this!

Sounds like it will still work for me, I just can't do anything definite based on the motion trigger, it will just add to the data collected from that area (My Driveway).

Can anyone tell me, if they are weather resistenet? I have had the eagleeye outdoor sensor and all of them had water enter the case.

Is the DM10A water proof and weather resistenet? Has anyone has them out in the elements and found moisture or water in the unit?

[Oman]

Thanks for the information on this!

Sounds like it will still work for me, I just can't do anything definite based on the motion trigger, it will just add to the data collected from that area (My Driveway).

Can anyone tell me, if they are weather resistenet? I have had the eagleeye outdoor sensor and all of them had water enter the case.

Is the DM10A water proof and weather resistenet? Has anyone has them out in the elements and found moisture or water in the unit?

They are made to be used outdoors and have a pretty good gasket system. Changing batteries can be a pain because of the effort it takes to get into the battery compartment.

Jon

[jasv]

I have these and...

They work pretty well but they do have a lot of false triggers during the day. The one that causes me a lot of false triggers is the one I have in my pool area. My other 2 are pretty reliable. I don't seem to have the same false trigger problems with my ms14a's (active eye/eagle eyes) The range of the DM10a is better than the ms14a and so far I am pretty happy with it.

If you are going to buy use this web page
http://www.x10.com/products/dm10a_sp_3f1.html

X10 doesn't erase their prior deal web pages and so far my purchases using these old pages has always worked...

[griffined]

I've had 4 of these installed in my back yard for over a year now. They were there during all of the hurricanes and rain storms we get in FL. I'm 2 blocks from the beach, and 2 houses from the intercoastal waterway, so stuff outside tends to weather pretty fast here. I think 1 got water damaged, and I just replaced it. 1 had a battery rupture and the acid weakened the battery holder plastic until it broke, so I replaced it recently. The other 2 are still working.

I wrote an event that will automatically set the device stauts to OFF after 10 minutes, since they don't transmit an OFF. I also only consider motion detection from them at night time (sunset to sunrise) to be valid, and don't trigger anything on them during the day due to falses.

Ed

[jeanv]

Thanks guys.... great info!

Wow great price too!! Thanks for the web link.

[Guest]

I use the eagle eye ones (10 of'em)and they work great,
I put a second unit in the same general area as the first ones and set the event to trigger only if both units see motion.
This albeit redundant, eliminated any false's I was getting.
HTH

22v10


p.s. I have one active eye one, I think (came with active home)and it's been working for 3+yrs.