Motion Sensor Battery dead warning?

[theedudenator]

I installed 3 Insteon and 3 Elk wireless motion sensors around my place.

 

My lights have been acting funny the last few months, so I finally got around to logging into to ISY99.

I wasn't getting any reaction from my Insteon motion sensors.

 

I started to check batteries, all the Insteon 9v's were dead, ELK's still going strong.

 

Shouldn't ISY tell me when the battery is getting low?

Or is this something I need to program in?

 

Thanks

[LeeG]

The Low Batt node on each Insteon Motion Sensor may show low. The Motion Sensor sends the Low Batt message once so if the ISY is rebooted it will be lost. The idea being an email or something visual such as a KPL button is turned On when Low Batt is turned On.

[jnaiser60]

You goal should be to rid yourself of the insteon motion detector.... It's a bit of work, but if there's a will, There is a way..... Sooner or later you will get tired off changing batteries.

 

I ended up with two sub panels to accomplish two motion detectors per room, 8 around the outside of the house and one in the garage.

 

Outside, all microwave/pir. Why two per room inside? Cats and coverage.... I think I have 60 or 70 sign of life macros... End result is 99% acuaracy.

 

In the bedrooms, I used disks over the beds and a good pir w/downward look nearest the entry door, in the corners.

 

If the kids aren't up for school, the squeeze Bo's and there room start talking, ceiling fan off, lights on.... Music gets louder as time goes by...

 

All rooms also have a blue button on the control links by the doors, to turn the rm automation off/on. These all reset to off every night around 3am.

 

 

 

 

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[oberkc]

Shouldn't ISY tell me when the battery is getting low?

Or is this something I need to program in?

 

Like any other computer, the ISY will do (and tell you) only that which you program it to. Yes, you could log in periodically to check the status of a particular motion sensor node but, as LeeG points out, this status may be lost during a power surge or similar.

 

Yes, you need to program this. Something like:

 

if

status motion sensor battery node is on

then

send notification to...

else

[JSchumann]

Jnaiser60, what detectors are you using, outside and inside?

[jnaiser60]

Small rooms inside, like bathrooms and closets, and directly over beds, I used visionic disk 360. They are very small. Paid 30.00 each at homesecuritystore.com

 

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[jnaiser60]

Inside corners I used ademco is2535 17.50 each, from homesecuritystore.com they work great, especially with two in a room crossing beams, and using variables for sign of life.

 

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[jnaiser60]

Outside a bit tricky because of temperature and animals etc... I went with visonic duet, with pir and microwave. These were 53.50 at the same place. Homesecuritystore seemed to have the best prices and selection on motion detectors. Let me pre warn you that their website is extremely hard to navigate.

 

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[jnaiser60]

I have been doing automation since 1989. Always integrated motion detectors.... I tried using the insteon. Besides battery issues, they also created a lot of traffic. More you add, (if you have multiple family members in different rooms) causes a lot of insteon network traffic, which causes false signals,ghost signals etc. I really wanted them to work. Went so far as to buying a 9v power panel.... Anyway, I ended up taking all of them out.

 

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[jnaiser60]

If your using text to speech and zwave locks, I did a flag for when the lock becomes unlocked, which I use to disable the perimeter voice announcement for that area inside and out. On my patio, when the door is unlocked and patio sign of life is true, I have the patio speakers unmuted, and it only announces the motion at the front door, driveway and side gate.

 

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[JSchumann]

Thanks!