matapan Posted October 29, 2011 Posted October 29, 2011 Does anyone have any best practices they can share with respect to programming to check occupancy, especially when you have pets around? I've got three Insteon v1 motion sensors, plus some X10 ones I've been thinking of deploying. Two issues keep cropping up which roadblock me from moving forward on this idea: - The issue of managing false readings caused by pets. How does one negate or filter out the reality of pets when determining occupancy? Some ideas which have popped in my head (and possibly yours too) include somehow modifying the motion sensor to be more selective about what it sees and when it gets triggered. Maybe you can do this by putting tape over sections of the freznel lens. Or perhaps a careful placement of the motion sensor might achieve the same objective. If this is possible, what are the best practices here? - Making the motion sensor become more discriminating. Pets and wind seem to be issues that can cause lots of false positives. What do people do to get around this and make the sensors more accurate? I know, this is like the previous issue, but more generalized. - The sensor's inherent operation. Motion triggers the sensor, but the sensor does not reset immediately afterwards. There's always a timeout. This makes it hard to use a sensor for checking direction if you have an array of two or more motion sensors to determine where one is headed and to run a program in anticipation of this. Are there some clever ways to use the sensors, as designed in ways that can provide meaningful feedback to a program? That Nest intelligent thermostat coming out soon is intriguing in that respect. Perhaps some of the general ideas about gathering real time occupancy data to better control a thermostat can be used in an ISY setup.
LeeG Posted October 29, 2011 Posted October 29, 2011 "Motion triggers the sensor, but the sensor does not reset immediately afterwards." Not sure about v1 motion sensors but v2 motion sensors have an Occupancy mode which causes the motion sensor to trip for each motion independent of the timeout value. Generates lots of messages if there is heavy traffic. I have no pets but I have successfully blocked part of the field of view with opaque tape. Had one tripping as traffic passed close to the closet door. Solved that with a piece of tape mounted vertically along one side. I would think the same thing could be used across the lower part of the lens to block low traffic. Of course if there is a climbing cat that will not work. Jumper 1 will reduce sensitivity but it lowers overall sensitivity rather than a particular quadrant.
Recommended Posts