So, i’ve got my PIRs almost down, but one is giving me greif with false positives. Its in a relatively harse enviroment with sun in the morning, but i’m also getting false positives at night. It’s a pretty cheap outdoor 12v PIR ive converted with a ESP32.
So, i’m considering getting something a little more expensive, or even going down the microwave route and ideally something available locally here in NZ.
I dont mind something that I can convert to ESPhome with a ESP32 and a relay etc.
Was looking at this, anyone have experience with these? Are these flashable with ESPhome or custom firmware? I’m gessing they need internet and need to phone home.
Microwave will be even worse, because it can trigger on flying leaves, debree….can detect through glass, (thin) walls…
Either good quality pir or some pir/mw combo (programmed in a way that both must trigger in order for “alarm”to go on”)
Can you get the SONOFF SNZB-03 ZigBee Motion Sensor? I sometimes see a two-pack for 32.99USD/53.14NZD on the South American forest site. That is not bad for two ready to use Zigbee PIR detectors.
Yeah, well… the fact is that two technologies are very different, so for decent sensing i think combination is a very good solution. You can use, say, any classic PIR sensor and LD2410, together with esp board and esphome you’ll make a great and highly configurable sensor .
Regarding sonoff : i have a few sonoff devices, also some shelly ones, but on all my devices first thing i do is replace original FW with esphome one.
Well, i see that you do have space left in your enclosure, ESP is powerfull enough, so just add LD2410 and you’re done. MW detects through plastic, so it doesn’t really matter where you fix it.
And get BT one, so that you can configure it with phone, since esphome (officially) doesn’t support changing parameters yet.
Or, since i see that you used burglar sensor: get a combo sensor (IR+MW)…
Isn’t a PIR sensor’s “vision” or coverage area mostly depends on the lense? It is really just one chip with two areas and watching for change. The lense provides a “wide view” - sort of like a parabolic antenna for IR.
Asking, because the solution might just be to cover the “segments” on your PIR sensor’s dome.
IR sensor has so called “fresnel lens”. This lens is basically a bunch of small lenses close together. So, when you’re in"viewing field" of one mini-lens sensor detects heat, and when you move out then heat is lost from sensor, and then it triggers alarm. Sensor only watches for heat changes (heat YES, heat NO), nothing more. With sensitivity change you only set how big this change must be in order to trigger alarm.
By changing lens you only set detecting area and how much you have to move for trigger alarm. As example: there are anti-pet lenses, which doesn’t trigger to small animals. But, this system is largely made so that it doesn’t “look” down, where animals can be, only straight (above certain height). So, if you have a cat climbing on cabinets, shells etc… it will still trigger alarm…
Masking areas will perhaps somewhat reduce false positives, but it won’t cancel them. Basically, it will reduce false positives only as much as it will reduce sense area, nothing more.
Adding MW also won’t 100% cancel false positives, but it will noticeably reduce them.
