False alarm by wired motion sensor

[RogueOne]

I have a DSC wired motion sensor in the hallway.  4 min after arming the system, the alarm went off.  I armed away and no one was home (no pets either).  I checked the log and it said
17:02,1,1003= Burglar Alarm, Any area,Upstairs hallway (zn1)
17:02,1,1146=Restore Burglar zone, upstairs Hallway (zn1)
17:07,1,1300=Exception Opening,User 199 (Unnamed)
17:07,1,1174 Area Disarmed,User 199(Unnamed)
 
Any idea why this happened.  Also I cant seem to paste in the forum, is there a trick to it?
 
Thanks

 

[RAL]

The motion detector might need some cleaning.  Spiders sometimes get in front of the detector, or even inside and can cause a false alarm.
 
Some folks seem to have trouble with pasting into a forum post.  Seems to occur with some browsers and not others.  I use firefox with no troubles.

 

[RogueOne]

Thanks I'll try cleaning it

 

[ano]

Yup spiders love them. If your panel allows for "cross zoning" and you have many motion sensors, its a great feature to turn on for motion sensors. Basically it requires two sensors to trip withing a given window, say 2 minutes. If your house is actually being robbed, and you have sensors in most rooms, there will definitely be many tripped in a short time. Just DON'T turn this feature on for window and door sensors.

 

[mikefamig]

I sometimes find that usng CTRL-V works to paste text when the right mouse button does not.
 
Mike.

 

[cobra]

We've had no false alarms with motion sensors, except when we put up mylar birthday balloons in the field of the sensor.  Those seem to get them to trigger once in a while.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

We've had no false alarms with motion sensors, except when we put up mylar birthday balloons in the field of the sensor.  Those seem to get them to trigger once in a while.

I had that happen to me. When the AC kicked on, is 'swayed' the balloon and tripped the sensor.

 

[cobra]

I had that happen to me. When the AC kicked on, is 'swayed' the balloon and tripped the sensor.

Yeah, they seem to make great targets.  It gets us once or twice a year.  Get an alarm and I think, "did we leave anything at home?"  Balloons...

 

[dgage]

I had an alarm put in our business earlier this year and since part of it is warehouse space, we’ve had multiple false alarms due to spiders. I will be installing double the motion sensors to enable cross zoning, which will require two motion sensors in the same room to go off before alarming.

 

[tinnytinny]

You can change the battery to have a try. Low-voltage will cause the warning.
Another reason is that some insect go inside. You can clean it to have a try.
Tip: When you install it, you need to notice the detection zone and avoid blind area. Installation site is very important.
This is my own opinion, hope that can help you.

 

[ano]

Most cheaper passive IR sensors occasionally cause false alarms. Spiders, quick-moving clouds in front of the sun, and automated curtains.  $60+ sensors tend to be better, but another solution is to enable "cross zoning" ONLY for motion zones. And set a cross zone time to several minutes. Also only do this if you have lots of motion detectors. If you only have a few, don't do it. Basically this prevents false alarms because TWO zones need to be tripped within a set period of time. Any false alarm on one zone, WON'T cause an alarm. BUT if your home is broken in, burglars will run around at top speed, so they will trip MANY zones, so this is never a problem.