I need perimeter breach detection

SF1

Member
I need to be able to detect either a car or a human crossing the perimeter of my front yard. I'm toying with the idea of the Dakota Alerts break beam sensors. I'm thinking about having two sensors mounted at the front left of my yard, one straight back along the left property line and one diagonally back to the right. This would be able to pickup anyone walking or driving through the yard. I guess I'm also open to the idea of camera analytics but have no experience there and am worried that it would pick me up every time I went to my car for something. I'm attaching a picture of my front yard for reference. Any input?
 
Well, I guess I'm not attaching a picture. The board isn't offering me the option. Hmmmmm.
 
SF1 said:
I need to be able to detect either a car or a human crossing the perimeter of my front yard. I'm toying with the idea of the Dakota Alerts break beam sensors. I'm thinking about having two sensors mounted at the front left of my yard, one straight back along the left property line and one diagonally back to the right. This would be able to pickup anyone walking or driving through the yard. I guess I'm also open to the idea of camera analytics but have no experience there and am worried that it would pick me up every time I went to my car for something. I'm attaching a picture of my front yard for reference. Any input?
 
Well, I guess I'm not attaching a picture. The board isn't offering me the option. Hmmmmm.
 
Exterior detection is difficult to deal with in terms of reliability and false alarms. 
 
Detecting a car in a driveway can be done fairly easily and reliably with buried probe type sensors, like the Dakota Alert DCPA-2500.
 
Detecting a person walking through the yard is a much more difficult problem.  The IR beam sensors can work under good conditions, but can/will give you lots of false alarms.
 
There have been some other threads on Cocoontech that have discussed this topic.   Here's one thread.  My take is there are no inexpensive, reliable solutions.
 
Agree with the above. That's a partial benefit of doing it with cameras though - you can utilize them to truth the alerts, as opposed to something that's just dry contact like a beam sensor. 
 
HikVision cameras now have directional trip wires that can be used for stuff like this. Granted, the built in consumer stuff offered doesn't have a ton of filter capabilities. I believe it's just a general Sensitivity adjustment slider (0-100). 
 
In my case, I've never wanted an alert (text or email) if someone simply enters my property, but I have those setup if someone approaches my front door. Otherwise, the motion detection alerts are just tagging the video in the NVR for easier searches. 
 
I have the Dakota Alerts buried in the ground probe. My driveway is too short and the road I'm on too busy for it to work. It would trigger occasionally when a big truck drove by. If I turned the sensitivity down enough so that wouldn't happen it wouldn't reliably detect cars. I have an Optex PIR out back that simply doesn't get used because it would trigger when the clothes on the line blew in the breeze. I was thinking about using SightHound. I'm ordering a fancy IP cam and I'll experiment. I should probably just save my pennies and put up an 8' fence with an automated gate.
 
I used a combination of the above. 
 
Cams saw other cams, Optex PIRs, driveway sensors and tinkered with geophone sensors buried adjacent to the walk.
 
Old home in the 80's-90's I used optical beams and had many false positives mostly during bad weather and lightning...they did work fine for the driveway.  (it was maybe 100 feet of driveway and I used one beam sensor next to the front of the house and one closer to the garage).  It was a simple set up.  Camera on the garage, on the side of the house and in the front of the house.
 
The Geophone sensors worked the best for traffic on an expressway about a mile away.
 
There was much more space though between the house and the end of the property.
 
No traffic on the street and night triggers (rarely) were coyotes and rabbits playing and teenagers walking around at 3 AM.
 
One night (happened for a few nights) there was a group of teens going driveway to driveway opening unlocked doors in automobiles left in driveways.  (one entrance subdivision of 100 homes surrounded by a golf course - they walked across the golf course to get to the subdivision).  They checked out one vehicle that was in my driveway.  Daylight happened, one teen looked at the lights and directly at one camera (doesn't look like a camera) that night.
 
The PIRs triggered daylight after hours.  Personally the daylight at night worked the best. 
 
I was initially using text to speech alerts then went to chimes...one if by land two if by sea  (1-north, 2-south, 3-east, 4-west).
 
Helping an automator peer a bit with perimeter detection.  Mostly now because of an event like this...
This person was being chased by police and cut through the yards in the neighborhood.
 
Typically they enjoy their back yard around the time that this happened.  The recorded event was a video trigger from ZM.
 
cctv.jpg
 
There are two cameras present facing the yard on opposite sides.  They do not see each other today.
 
@SF1,
 
Copied your pictures over here from Homeseer.  I will remove them when you can attach pictures...just a few more posts should do it...
 
sf1.jpg
 
sf2.jpg
 
sf3.jpg
 
 
 
Thanks Pete.
 
I'd like to add that my neighbors on the left are gossiping, mean, slack jawed troglodytes and they have been very threatening to me. When I have a fire in my back yard fireplace they occasionally call the fire department (who shows up and then apologizes for wasting my time). A few months ago their son (grown man. maybe mid 50's) was threatening to mow me down with his snow blower. Once they blew their leaves into my front yard and filled my car as the windows were down. I am less concerned with false positives as I am knowing when someone is walking on to my property.
 
Get a terrier. No one will get in your yard without you knowing it but you'll never get a full night sleep again.
 
Mike.
 
SF1 said:
Thanks Pete.
 
I'd like to add that my neighbors on the left are gossiping, mean, slack jawed troglodytes and they have been very threatening to me. When I have a fire in my back yard fireplace they occasionally call the fire department (who shows up and then apologizes for wasting my time). A few months ago their son (grown man. maybe mid 50's) was threatening to mow me down with his snow blower. Once they blew their leaves into my front yard and filled my car as the windows were down. I am less concerned with false positives as I am knowing when someone is walking on to my property.
Get a big ass terrier!
 
The woman across the street has two little dogs that nearly blow a gasket any time someone gets near the house. I want to punt those things. I'd rather have someone burn my house down. While I was asleep. In the house.
 
mikefamig said:
Get a big ass terrier!
 
 
Like a pittbull terrier? ^_^
 
I am a dog person. Always have been. My dog and I are competing for obedience. When I was in the getting a new dog stage a few years ago it came down to something I could weaponize and do the Schutzhund training with or another herding dog. I have young children and live in a mindbogglingly peaceful place so I now have a herding dog. Also I live in MA and there are no castle laws here whatsoever. So if someone broke into my house, was armed but not brandishing the weapon and my dog mauled said person........... I would be liable. WTF? Otherwise all of this would be academic. I'd just get a dog, weaponize it and call it a day.
 
SF1 said:
The woman across the street has two little dogs that nearly blow a gasket any time someone gets near the house. I want to punt those things. I'd rather have someone burn my house down. While I was asleep. In the house.
Can't argue with that
 
In my opinion the dog, as much it can be a burden, is one hell of a smart intrusion detector. I'm a dog lover and our current dog is a rescue. Rescue's are not always everything that you dreamed they would be. I like to think of her as a work in progress. But there are very few false alarms with a dog. When the dog barks I do believe that there is a reason.
 
Mike.
 
SF1 said:
Like a pittbull terrier? ^_^
 
I am a dog person. Always have been. My dog and I are competing for obedience. When I was in the getting a new dog stage a few years ago it came down to something I could weaponize and do the Schutzhund training with or another herding dog. I have young children and live in a mindbogglingly peaceful place so I now have a herding dog. Also I live in MA and there are no castle laws here whatsoever. So if someone broke into my house, was armed but not brandishing the weapon and my dog mauled said person........... I would be liable. WTF? Otherwise all of this would be academic. I'd just get a dog, weaponize it and call it a day.
 
I also live in a mindbogglingly peaceful place and have a mix border collie/rat terrier as best as we can tell. She's fast and furious and we're also battling for the alpha status. It's a love hate thing but when something moves outside we know about it pretty quick. It helps to pull the shades down at night.
 
We're not all dog lovers but defending their turf is what they do.
 
Mike.
 
My current pup is a Border Collie mix as well. If I don't find him a job he will find one for himself! Probably emptying the cabinets or some such.
 
I see three problems with dogs for this purpose.
 
Problem the first: They aren't infallible. Often, when the windows are closed, he doesn't hear an approaching car, let alone someone on foot.
 
Problem the second: If said dog is put in a position where they need to fight, which is NOT the MO of the kind of dogs we have, I can't stay afloat legally.
 
Problem the third: The dog doesn't record the incident. In hindsight I'm wishing I had some things recorded. My dog can't testify.
 
When I first got my dog he didn't bark at people coming. I had to teach him that. It took months and a lot of treats. He usually responds to a car door closing even when he's asleep (and since my neighbors are so close it's often their doors he's barking at) but I'm more concerned about people walking onto my property.
 
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