Catching fast events with wireless sensors

2MuchTech

Member
I've got an OmniPro II and most of my sensors are hardwired, but I have a few that are on my 42A00-2 GE/Interlogix wireless interface.  I am finding that door/window sensors (2 different models tested so far) do not reliably catch fast events.  If I open and close a door really quickly (too fast to get through it, but enough to get it open a few inches before closing again), many times the OmniPro will not register a zone trip, and even if it does manage to catch the zone trip, it almost never registers the zone restore.  Unless I open the door and leave it open for a couple of seconds before closing it again, the zone trip/restore sequence isn't reliable.  My application isn't actually a door, and it needs to be able to catch any opening of the contact (even if it's very brief), and then reliably send the restore when it re-closes.
 
Is this problem specific to the OmniPro wireless implementation of the GE/Interlogix system, or perhaps the type of sensor that's enrolled?  Both sensors I've tested are supervised and send restores.
 
I also have a Linear DXSR system and at least with the wristband sensors (designed to be a panic button for personal safety) it seems to see even very short keypresses (if they're long enough to light up the LED on the wristband sensor, the system reliably sees both the trip and restore events).
 
I'd be interested in finding out if there are specific 319.5MHz wireless sensors that guarantee catching even very brief contact open/close events.  I would think any security application would want to be assured of reporting *all* open and close events, even if they are very short, so I'm surprised by what I'm seeing so far.
 
Now for some followup with an answer to my own question...
 
The first two sensors I tried were a Resolution RE101 (which, BTW, is a nice sensor because it supports both the internal magnetic reed switch zone *and* an external contact zone at the same time for 2 zone coverage with one sensor), and an Interlogix 60-362N-10-319.5 (which has connections for an external contact, but you cannot use both internal and external at the same time).  Both of these sensors seem to be a bit slow (as reported in my previous post) at responding to contact changes.  Today I tried another sensor, the Interlogix TX-E231.  This sensor also has external contact support, but like the other Interlogix I tried, you have to choose between internal and external contacts.
 
The good news is that the TX-E231 is a much more responsive sensor!  It doesn't catch extremely short contact changes, but it's way better than the previous two I tried.  In any real life situation I can think of, it's going to pick up the contact change.  Additionally, unlike the other two sensors that were extremely prone to missing the restore event unless you held the door open for at least a couple of seconds, the TX-E231 never seems to miss reporting a restore, even if the open/close action is extremely fast.
 
So to answer my own original question, the sensor make/model matters very much.  The HAI 42A00-2 wireless interface does NOT seem to be the culprit.
 
FWIW, my project was to add doorbell detection to my OmniPro II system, without replacing my existing doorbell.  Since I don't have any spare wired contacts anywhere near the doorbell I had to go with a wireless solution.  I found only a few commercial solutions when I searched online, and none of them were quite what I wanted, so I decided to make a project of it.  Hopefully my discoveries surrounding sensor response times will prove useful to someone else down the road.
 
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