Please help with Prewire

[beelzerob]

Again, I don't have any, so this isn't personal experience...just what I've gleaned from the HA "cloud" I've been involved in so long...

I'm pretty sure you can point your motion detector anywhere you want. It will only have a certain "cone" or radius that it will detect in, and only a certain distance it will detect out to, so where you mount it will limit what it COULD see. But you can point it anywhere you want once you've located it somewhere. I'd still guess that up in the eaves, even 10 ft high would be ok. I think your bigger issue is how far it is from specifically where you'd like monitored. It may be find 10 ft high, but if it's 15 ft from the front door, then it might be possible for someone to make it to the front door without triggering. *shrug* Again, let someone who uses these things speak up.

And like I said...if you just run a wire to the outside, you can then extend it via conduit anywhere around the eaves you need.

 

[hunter69]

Again, I don't have any, so this isn't personal experience...just what I've gleaned from the HA "cloud" I've been involved in so long...

I'm pretty sure you can point your motion detector anywhere you want. It will only have a certain "cone" or radius that it will detect in, and only a certain distance it will detect out to, so where you mount it will limit what it COULD see. But you can point it anywhere you want once you've located it somewhere. I'd still guess that up in the eaves, even 10 ft high would be ok. I think your bigger issue is how far it is from specifically where you'd like monitored. It may be find 10 ft high, but if it's 15 ft from the front door, then it might be possible for someone to make it to the front door without triggering. *shrug* Again, let someone who uses these things speak up.

And like I said...if you just run a wire to the outside, you can then extend it via conduit anywhere around the eaves you need.

So that brings up a good point about distance. How far does a motion detector reach?
Thank you

 

[beelzerob]

*shrug* All depends on the specs of the motion sensor. There's a motion sensor on the front page of automated outlet that says 50' long by 60' wide. They come in varying areas of sensitivity and whether it's IR or motion or whatever. There's a dizzying array.

People who have outside motion sensors should speak up as far as if it would be better to wire as close a possible to where you'd like to monitor motion (such as a door), or would it be better to wire to a location 90 deg from said door (to get the cross motion sensitivity). I believe there's a motion sensor for each type (coming towards the motion sensor vs. going across its field of view).

 

[sic0048]

I would recommend that you carefully read the installation sheets of any PIR you might consider. Each PIR is different and they definitely have different recommended mounting heights and effective ranges. In fact, the two are usually tied together.

Basically the bottom line is that each device might be different. I'd say there is no "standard" anything. Read each spec sheet and installation sheet to be confident in what you do.

For running wire, just make sure you leave enough of a tail that if you need to mount a PIR at 7.5' vs 9.5', you have enough stuffed in the wall to make small changes like this.

 

[hunter69]

So I ran out of 22/4. I have one more motion sensor to pull, can I use 2 18/2 for this motion sensor?

Thanks for all the help

 

[sic0048]

So I ran out of 22/4. I have one more motion sensor to pull, can I use 2 18/2 for this motion sensor?

Thanks for all the help

Definitely. Nothing wrong with that. It is actually a larger sized wire, so if anything it will work better. Just make sure you label the wires well in order to distiguish the two apart.