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BEST locations for motion sensors....all ideas welcomed


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On ‎6‎/‎9‎/‎2020 at 4:26 AM, tekki70 said:

Depends on what your doing, if you want your house truly automated i would do all rooms, you could have a scene running and have lights, music, and/or tvs turn on and off as you enter or leave rooms. closet doors turn lights on and off. kitchen, have lights, music start, while your in the kitchen. Timers going, etc. if you have a door lock, use a certain code to kick on the scene to begin. different codes can do different scenes, for different people or just your mood 

Agree totally - I have a motion sensor in every room.

This gives me total lighting and fan control. I do NOT have every motion sensor tied to the alarm system. The carbon monoxide sensors and glass breakage sensors are all tied to the alarm.

We have not used the switches we put in more than 100 times in the 8 years we have lived in the house. Everything is automatic. Including closets.

Bill

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2 hours ago, TexasBill said:

Agree totally - I have a motion sensor in every room.

This gives me total lighting and fan control. I do NOT have every motion sensor tied to the alarm system. The carbon monoxide sensors and glass breakage sensors are all tied to the alarm.

We have not used the switches we put in more than 100 times in the 8 years we have lived in the house. Everything is automatic. Including closets.

Bill

To get this right requires sensors that react quickly (in C4) and are well placed to pick up motion where it is important.

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20 hours ago, South Africa C4 user said:

To get this right requires sensors that react quickly (in C4) and are well placed to pick up motion where it is important.

Exactly, security motion sensors will not do it, especially not ones powered by battery.  However, battery powered sensors can work if they are ZigBee.  The Nyce Ceiling Motion Sensor has been almost flawless for me for years.

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50 minutes ago, turls said:

Exactly, security motion sensors will not do it, especially not ones powered by battery.  However, battery powered sensors can work if they are ZigBee.  The Nyce Ceiling Motion Sensor has been almost flawless for me for years.

I've had NYCE wall sensors that are great.  I installed 1 NYCE ceiling sensor and based on my talk with NYCE, and their charts, an 8' ceiling should give like a 16' radius.  Mine works only within 2-3' of the device.  How about yours?

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3 minutes ago, eggzlot said:

I've had NYCE wall sensors that are great.  I installed 1 NYCE ceiling sensor and based on my talk with NYCE, and their charts, an 8' ceiling should give like a 16' radius.  Mine works only within 2-3' of the device.  How about yours?

I definitely get better than that.  The room is small (although it is close to 8' ceiling), so I'm probably not the best example.  I know another dealer that posts frequently here said to avoid Nyce, but I'm not sure how many other good options there are for C4.  Axxess seems hard to come by.

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21 minutes ago, turls said:

I definitely get better than that.  The room is small (although it is close to 8' ceiling), so I'm probably not the best example.  I know another dealer that posts frequently here said to avoid Nyce, but I'm not sure how many other good options there are for C4.  Axxess seems hard to come by.

i had some Axxess wall and NYCE wall sensors.  they act the same response wise.  Axxess has more features built in (temp reading, ability to program off ambient light, etc) but its 3-4x the size.  so depending on location, the NYCE wall sensor is fine for just pure motion.  so i thought the ceiling sensor would be just as good, but its been a dud for me.  I even gave the layout of the room to the guy at NYCE, he told me where to put it (which is where I wanted it), and it still barely worked.  I sent him videos and his response was "I've sold 1,000's of these and I know they work".  He gave me no real troubleshooting advice.  The sensor is within 20' of the EA1 that is acting as the zigbee coordinator and I have 100+ zigbee devices on 2 controllers, so I know I have a fairly reliable zigbee network.  new batteries.  oh well.  It is relegated to being over my kitchen sink for now.

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sometimes its just a bad device,  i wouldnt judge a product by one piece, hopefully they sent you another or you gave another to try out. the nyce ceiling motions seems to be pretty solid and mostly what ive used. i have tried fibaro zwave sensors, the little eyeballs work well too for a zwave environment, i just am not a fan of zwave at all 

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1 hour ago, tekki70 said:

sometimes its just a bad device,  i wouldnt judge a product by one piece, hopefully they sent you another or you gave another to try out. the nyce ceiling motions seems to be pretty solid and mostly what ive used. i have tried fibaro zwave sensors, the little eyeballs work well too for a zwave environment, i just am not a fan of zwave at all 

He would not exchange it

between motion and door sensors I have close to 15-20 NYCE sensors.  Was a bit disappointed to say the least. 

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10 hours ago, eggzlot said:

He would not exchange it

between motion and door sensors I have close to 15-20 NYCE sensors.  Was a bit disappointed to say the least. 

That's crazy that he would not exchange it.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Wondering what people’s experiences have been with ceiling motion sensors vs curtain sensors. I like the look and smaller size of the Nyce sensors and have a few ceiling sensors slated for our install but now that I’m thinking about it, probably not the best idea as we have a dog - wasn’t even thinking about that!

We have a few rooms where we can use the ceiling sensors but I’m trying to figure out if the curtain sensors would be a better fit with the dog or if both models would still trigger anyway. Right now, with our Hue motion sensors, the kitchen doesn’t trigger when the dog is in there, another room it does but that’s ok since it’s a small entry hall from the garage with a 5 min time off timer. I really would prefer the kitchen lights not turn on from the dog walking in and out as it is a lot of bulbs and can ruin a movie watching experience from light bleed into the family room.

Are there decent, smaller sensors like the Nyce product that are adjustable or less prone to pets from your experience? I looked at the links earlier in this thread but didn’t see anything about an adjustable beam.

Thanks!

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4 hours ago, Jakelay said:

Wondering what people’s experiences have been with ceiling motion sensors vs curtain sensors. I like the look and smaller size of the Nyce sensors and have a few ceiling sensors Alex’s for our install but now that I’m thinking about it, probably not the best idea as we have a dog - wasn’t even thinking about that!

We have a few rooms where we can use the ceiling sensors but I’m trying to figure out if the curtain sensors would be a better fit with the dog or if both models would still trigger anyway. Right now, with our Hue motion sensors, the kitchen doesn’t trigger when the dog is in there, another room it does but that’s ok since it’s a small entry hall from the garage with a 5 min time off timer. I really would prefer the kitchen lights not turn on from the dog walking in and out as it is a lot of bulbs and can ruin a movie watching experience from light bleed into the family room.

Are there decent, smaller sensors like the Nyce product that is adjustable or less prone to pets from your experience? I looked at the links earlier in this thread but didn’t see anything about an adjustable beam.

Thanks!

NYCE has two wall sensor - curtain and regular.  Regular has a wider area of view.  I have many NYCE products - regular and curtain sensor, door/window sensors and 1 ceiling sensor   Love them all but the ceiling sensor   Very narrow cone of coverage and support was not super helpful   

If worried about the dogs messing up a movie - program it so if movie is on don’t engage the lights via motion sensor.  
 

re dogs though - i know alarm companies/systems have motion sensors Rated for different dog sizes.  It’s not 100% best practice and they are a bit larger but you could wire an alarm motion sensor to your alarm panel (if you have one) and tie that into programming.  And get a sensor that is rated to not pick up your dogs movement.  
 

also though bigger than the NYCE model this axxess model can be programmed off ambient light which is very useful and it also has temperature built in just in case you want the temp in that room displayed in c4

https://www.axxind.com/smarthome/motion-sensor/

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Good thoughts. I know my installer doesn’t want to use the alarm panel for motion sensor triggers because we’ve got an older model and we don’t want to have issues with a third piece interfering with the sensors and Control4. I’m 50/50 that when the alarm guy comes to connect the panel to the system that I’m going to upgrade that but that remains to be seen.

I’m thinking the curtain sensors would work better in the kitchen and I can use the 3M removable tape to try different locations. My guess I that if I places the sensors correctly, they won’t pick up the dog since she’s pretty small and low to the ground.

I saw you had a bad experience with the Ceiling sensor, did you ever try another one and did you have similar issues or did you throw in the towel after that one experience. Just curious if it was a bad unit or the ceiling sensors in general.

Thanks!

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8 minutes ago, Jakelay said:

Good thoughts. I know my installer doesn’t want to use the alarm panel for motion sensor triggers because we’ve got an older model and we don’t want to have issues with a third piece interfering with the sensors and Control4. I’m 50/50 that when the alarm guy comes to connect the panel to the system that I’m going to upgrade that but that remains to be seen.

I’m thinking the curtain sensors would work better in the kitchen and I can use the 3M removable tape to try different locations. My guess I that if I places the sensors correctly, they won’t pick up the dog since she’s pretty small and low to the ground.

I saw you had a bad experience with the Ceiling sensor, did you ever try another one and did you have similar issues or did you throw in the towel after that one experience. Just curious if it was a bad unit or the ceiling sensors in general.

Thanks!

Threw in the towel so to speak. It’s a kitchen with multiple entries.  I ended up getting another wall sensor for a second area of the room and I tied in the alarm contact sensor for the Patio door. Used the lighting control agent or whatever it’s called.  Was a breeze to program and all 3 sensors work in unison.  So there was early frustration but got it all working. 
 

https://drivercentral.io/platforms/control4-drivers/lighting/advanced-lighting-timer/

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