Everything was great until we got chickens

[oh2bnMaine]

Hopefully the cute title gets more people to share their thoughts. I'm curious what potential solutions to my problem will be provided!

We have the Insteon Motion Sensor II devices scattered around the house. I use them to trigger lights at night. I also use them to trigger video/image capture from security cameras. I get an SMS alert when their sense motion. Certain Insteon light switches throughout the house will beep as well. 

The program is pretty slick, if I do say so myself! Then we got free range chickens.

Our ISY opens the chicken coop door at sunrise and closes it at sunset. So, the entire day, the chickens are running around the property triggering motion. It has rendered my "security" system as described above to be pretty useless. 

Are there other motion detection products I could use that would not get triggered by a 2-pound chicken?!

 

 

[larryllix]

There are filters that you can install over the lens with a Rhode Island Red colour. 

 

 

[simplextech]

2 hours ago, oh2bnMaine said:

Our ISY opens the chicken coop door at sunrise and closes it at sunset. So, the entire day, the chickens are running around the property triggering motion. It has rendered my "security" system as described above to be pretty useless. 

Are there other motion detection products I could use that would not get triggered by a 2-pound chicken?!

First.. how you enjoying the free fertilizer... EVERYWHERE!!!! I used to have a flock of about 2-3 dozen a few years back and wow....

As for the motion sensors and alarm with chickens running around??? Umm... no?

 

[TomL]

Consider it a Chicken Tracker instead, study their feeding and migration patterns..  Can you turn the sensitivity down in AC settings or change mounting height lower and angle up?

[giesen]

Maybe look at a security sensor with a pet filter? They typically will have ranges up to 60 lbs or so.

Sent from my SM-N9500 using Tapatalk

[oh2bnMaine]

22 minutes ago, giesen said:

Maybe look at a security sensor with a pet filter? They typically will have ranges up to 60 lbs or so.

Sent from my SM-N9500 using Tapatalk
 

Do you have any recommendations? Are they Insteon-aware? I would like to keep the ISY as my base for my smarthome logic if at all possible.

[larryllix]

[oh2bnMaine]

38 minutes ago, TomL said:

Consider it a Chicken Tracker instead, study their feeding and migration patterns..  Can you turn the sensitivity down in AC settings or change mounting height lower and angle up?

I've been testing the sensitivity reducing pins in a couple of places and so far it doesn't reduce things enough. So, I didn't think that would be useful enough for my situation to implement. One sensor "sees" a plant's leaves move and starts alerting me even after being desensitized. I'll look at where I have the sensors mounted. Maybe I can change their orientation. But lower usually equates to being more noticable, which isn't ideal from my perspective. Where they are mounted now, people don't notice them at all. I have been thinking that I could point them straight down in specific areas to create a detector that only announces when something crosses a line. 

[lilyoyo1]

If they are used at night why are you having them trigger during the day time while the chickens are out?

[kclenden]

9 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said:

If they are used at night why are you having them trigger during the day time while the chickens are out?

He also indicated that he uses them to trigger video/image capture so that's probably why he has them trigger during the day.

Our cat causes my MSII to trigger the hallway light in the middle of the night while we're in bed.  I think I'll try the masking method Larry posted above to see if I can cure that problem.