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Wednesday, August 18th, 2021 12:36 AM

Motion Sensors - Not Triggering with Motion

I have recently installed the system and have three motion detectors -- none of which appear to be picking up motion.  I have reached out to Customer Service, but also decided to post here.

Installation: All three are installed in the corners of a room, button up, and 6' from the floor.  They do not point at a window and are not near any HVAC, appliance, lamp, etc. which may create a false alarm.  There is no large object obstructing the view either laterally or in the 45 degree downward direction. (And, yes, I removed the little plastic tab to activate the battery.)

How I Tested:  I set the system to "Away" and waited for it to alarm.  Once active, I walked through the rooms at a meandering pace as well as a faster pace.  No trigger.  Stood in front of the motion detector -- within three feet -- and waved my arms and jumped up and down.  No alarm was triggered.

Thoughts?

Captain

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6.2K Messages

3 years ago

@cardihouse you are not the first, and I am sure not the last, to post about this.   Here are a few things to know: first, the sensitivity switch should be on high (at least that's where I start). Next, it does take a few minutes for the motion sensors to "warm up" as they say, to read the temperature in its entire covered area.  If there is a pick up in a temp difference, that's what sets the alarm off.

Try this:

1. make sure  you mounted the sensors with the test button on top
2. Make sure the senstivity switch is set to high.
3. Make sure ALL of your motion sensors are set to "Instant trigger" (no alarm delay if sensor is tripped)
4. Arm your system with you not in any of the covered areas.
5. Wait at least 5 minutes.
6. Walk into covered area, the alarm should go off and shut it off within 30 seconds or, if you are on monitoroing, will get a call.

Post your outcome here if you get a chance.

5 Messages

Don't put on high.  You will get falses.

3 Messages

3 years ago

Thanks @Captain11.  Will give it a try and report back.

1.3K Messages

3 years ago

Personally, I think they also get a little desensitized if you are trying to test them repeatedly. I have no empirical evidence of that but it's what my anecdotal evidence suggests from working with my three motion sensors.

I have two of the three usually set to alert only so if I don't disable them I get notification of motion alerts if I go into those spaces even when the system is off/disarmed.

That's the other thing you can do. If you have interactive monitoring you can set the motion sensors to alert only for experimenting/troubleshooting. That way you don't have to worry about arming/disarming the system. You will (or should anyway) get motion notifications even with the system disarmed/off.

3 Messages

3 years ago

Motions Sensors are working and tripping the alarm as designed.  I used a couple of @Captain11's suggestions.  
1.  The sensors were already mounted with the test button up (forgot that in my original post).
2.  Changed sensitivity switch on the back of the sensor (behind bracket and above the battery) to High.  (Did not set to Instant Trigger -- was using that as a backup in case I was still having problems.)
3.  Armed the system while outside the covered areas.  Waited five minutes.  Then walked into covered areas.  Triggered pretty quickly once I walked in and after the "5 minute" rest or "warm up" period after setting to Away.

@whoareu99, thanks for the heads up about desensitizing.  I've had the system less than 10 days, so I don't think they should have been desensitized (yet).  Good to know about setting to alert only.  Clearly there are some missing definitions/information in the user manual.  Understanding "secret alert" would be good to know, but not included anywhere that I could easily find.

Captain

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6.2K Messages

3 years ago

@cardihouse glad it worked out, but understand that without the "instant trigger", the system will "count down" before sending the signal to dispatch. During that time the base is vulnerable.
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