Pet immune motion sensor still sees the pets?

[pmb1010]

Newbie here working on setting up Elk system. I have a mix of wired and wireless devices attached.
Progressing very well. Wireless door and window sensors installed on primary exit doors, and most vunerable windows.

For the 2 areas that sort of need this, I figured it'd be very easy to install motion sensor. I'm starting with living room.
The windows in the rooms in question face the front and would be silly to put sensors on, as they are high off the ground and would not be my pick to break into.

Anyway, I have a 60-511-02-95 type GE crystal wireless PIR sensor in the living room, temporarily installed in corner facing in at about almost 7 feet from floor. There are 3 sensitivity settings, standard, medium, and high. I have on Standard, as it says thats the one to use for up to 40 lb pets. (thats the lowest sensivity)

The room is about 20x20. In center of room is a armchair, that our cats just love to sit on the top of. As anyone with cats know, they go for the highest point, put a piece of paper on the floor and the cat will stand on it.

I've now found that this sensor does in fact pick these critters up as they jump up to the arm of chair, and up to the top of backrest. I've move the sensor up from 6.5 feet to 7, to try to take this out of the view of the sensor but no go...

So whats the deal? Any tricks I can do to get this device installed in a pet equipped household?

Thanks!
PMB

 

[michelkenny]

To overcome this in my living room I installed a 2nd motion detector at a different corner and used the cross zone feature on my Elk M1. Both zones must trip in a certain interval for an alarm to sound. No more false alarms since!

 

[Desert_AIP]

Cats are a problem, they move too quickly and climb on things.
PIR immune really should be billed as "dog" immune.
Usually the pet immune detectors use the lowest sensitivity as the only cat setting.

If the cats get up on a chair or table that the detector is looking at, you have to move the chair or move the detector.
I have one in a hallway that looks at a cabinet.
Our cats occaisionally get on that cabinet.
In two months of testing they never tripped the PIR, a week after we "went live" and started our monitoring service, we had a false trip from the PIR.

You can use the "cross zoning" function so the alram doesn't trip based on the PIR alone and have two PIRs watching different parts of the same area. Difficult for a cat to trip both within the time frame, but a human walking by should trip them.

 

[pete_c]

My parrot (Amazon Blue Crown) is the size of a small cat and she hasn't tripped the PIR yet. She is not quite as fast as a cat but one day did pounce on my dog (didn't trip the PIR either) who wouldn't stop barking at it; nipped the dog in the snout, dog went wimping to a corner; blood everywhere; never bothering the parrot again (some 14 years until the dog died of old age).

 

[Del91574]

Selective masking can sometimes help, but generally furniture placement and detector placement are key. Cross-zoning may be a band-aid solution, but I wouldn't recommend it for most, or someone that is "new" to alarm systems and design (no offense intended).

The downside is you're using RF, so your options are limited, but I'd strongly recommend, if possible, to consider running wire so a better detector could be chosen.

 

[pmb1010]

Selective masking can sometimes help, but generally furniture placement and detector placement are key. Cross-zoning may be a band-aid solution, but I wouldn't recommend it for most, or someone that is "new" to alarm systems and design (no offense intended).

The downside is you're using RF, so your options are limited, but I'd strongly recommend, if possible, to consider running wire so a better detector could be chosen.

Wow, I'd of assumed the only difference between detectors is the transport mechanism (RF or Wire) to get the output result (someone is in the room).
Thinking the technology of the PIR would be similar between detectors.

The room in question is a 2nd level of a tri-level home. It has vaulted ceilings so no wire from above. Basement is below, but it'd be a chore to get a wire up and to the detector spot... and even then, I'd hate to go thru all that work and still have issues. I picked this corner as the far right corner is the entry, and the left side is up from lower level of home (thus person would cross the beam). I do have another corner to try and will do so.

Can you recommend a "better PIR" detector? For the lower level I have access to the walll behind the corner in the basement so I did get a wired PIR for that spot, but the wire is not run yet... it did come with some tape strips to mask the view. I considered that for the wireless PIR but with my luck it'd be a 4 foot kid breaking in and walk right below the IR beam :wacko:

I think I understand the concept of cross zoning, once the term was mentioned I looked it up... what makes it so difficult assuming its tested thoroughly? Seems like sucessive trips are req'd to ensure it's a valid disturbance.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

My parrot (Amazon Blue Crown)...

For a minute there I thought you might have had a Norwegian Blue...Remarkable bird, beautiful plumage! B)

 

[pete_c]

So had to post this link here.

 

[tmbrown97]

There are a million options for wired PIR's; I haven't seen nearly the same variety in wireless unfortunately; maybe it has to do with battery consumption or lack of a market - I'm not sure... but there are some higher end wired ones that are good for pets.

I've been using Rokonet dual-technology pet immune sensors for roughly 5 years now... in that time I've had 5 false alarms, and I know the cause of every one. Once was a mylar balloon in front of a heater vent, two were in the master bedroom when the cat climbed up a stack of boxes to get on top of my 5ft tall dresser; the last 2 were similar in the livingroom - we had some boxes stacked in the middle of the livingroom that the cat was jumping on and/or knocking over.

All these were with my 16lb cat; my 27lb cat never set anything off because he didn't jump too much. The rest of my false alarms over the years have always been related to the door from the house into the garage not being fully latched on a really windy day.

Bosch Blue-Line has been recommended a lot in this forum as well - but I have no experience with them.

In general I agree that wired motions are much better; knowing how wireless ones trigger/reset, they're not good for automation, and I haven't seen the same quality go into them. I also would always go with a dual-technology that uses PIR and Microwave... and again this is where quality matters for compensating for certain temperature conditions, etc.