Motion sensors

I have a GE Concord4 system that the installer has integrated into my C4 system within which there are a bunch of motion sensors. I have two problems

1) The sensors are hit or miss whether they seem to work. He has programmed the lights to go on when I walk into the bathroom and turn off after 30 minutes of no motion. Most of the time when I walk in the lights will turn on. When I'm in the bathroom however no matter how much movement after 30 minutes the lights shut off. It makes me think the motion sensor is just not detecting me.

2) My friend's system shows him a little running man icon on the motion sensor on his touchpads (and on onscreen nav I think). I have an ipod touch and neither on that or the nav does a little running man come up under the sensors. Is it incorrect that the system was programmed with the 'GENERIC MOTION' sensor?

thanks

bdo

Your friend is probably using the card access motion detectors.

I don't have any experience with the GE ones...sorry!

An alternative may be that his programming is incorrect.

i.e. starts a timer on motion, maybe he doesn't restart it on subsequent motion.

Just a thought.

RyanE

I dont have card-access motion sensors and my touchscreens etc show the little running man whenever the motion detectors detect motion, I think thats the point, isnt it?

What I think he's saying is that his touchpanels dont seem to show the running man when motion is detected

My guess is that the motions are wired incorrectly.

they are wireless and learned in fine into the system

GE wireless sensors have a "sleep mode" which is meant as a way to save battery life. They will essentially turn off five minutes at a time after detecting motion.

This could explain the erratic behavior you're seeing. CardAccess motions and hardwired motions would not have this feature.

That could be it... my motion detectors are wired.

... but, anytime the detectors *do* detect motion the running man should still appear, shouldnt it? The actual detection of motion may be erratic based on if the sensors are in sleep mode, but once they detect motion they should have the equivalent effect as a wired detector.

anyone know the running man question..it will allow me to troubleshoot

It all depends on how the driver(s) were written for the device.

A wired sensor, will trip a relay when it is sensing motion, and release the relay when it no longer senses motion. The 'running man' will appear when the motion sensor holds the relay tripped.

In the Control4 system, there are two messages, OPEN and CLOSED, that the hardware, through the protocol driver, sends up to the relay proxy. They correspond to 'sensing motion' and 'not sensing motion'.

Some motion sensor drivers will ONLY ever send a 'tripped' code, and then will send another 'tripped' code if it senses motion later. In that case, the driver will typically send both the OPEN and CLOSED immediately one after the other, and the running man will appear, and immediately disappear. The events for motion get triggered, but it's deceptive on the UI.

Anyway, it's a bit more complicated than that, but the running man isn't always the best indicator.

RyanE

I have heard that the GE motion sensors are not very good to use for occupancy type situations. As described above, they are only intended to detect motion one time, and fire an alarm based on the motion. They are not designed to continue sensing motion. The way it was explained to me is as it was described above: Once they detect motion, they basically shut off for 5 minutes.

My understanding is that if you want a motion sensor to be used for occupancy type motion detecting (continue detecting motion constantly), you really need the Card Access units. The ones from GE just simply aren't designed to work that way, and it makes sense (to me anyways).

^ Unless its a wired sensor... mine are wired and work fine as occupancy sensors. Which makes sense based on Ryan's post above the last one.

Personally I gave up on the running man.... I have several and they must be exhausted. They are always running. They work, but they are always running. I just stopped looking at them.....

I finally did get my sensors for my GE Concord 4 integrated.... However, I too am having trouble using the GE Concord wireless motion sensors to continually send any notification of movement in a room.

Here is my scenario:

I have a motion sensor in my garage that I would like to use to trigger my garage lights to turn turn on/stay on when someone is in the garage. However, I have found that the GE Concord wireless motion sensor DOES have about a 5 minute delay before being responsive to another trigger. I've been testing this by just using a 10 second timer and moving around in the garage and the lights do not activate. However, when the sensor is in test mode and I'm moving around (thereby actively sending signals to the board and the red LED lighting up indicating it's detecting motion) it works perfectly indicating it's actively sending signal after signal.

Does anyone know if there is a setting in the GE Concord programming to change this timeout or is it built into the wireless motion sensor to preserve battery life?

I did try to change the GROUP of the motion sensor to a group 32 which is for pressure sensors and motion sensors armed at all times hoping this would function as more of an occupancy sensor. That didn't work so tried group 13 (similar to a door sensor) and that didn't work so I'm guessing that the timeout issue is built into the sensor and has nothing to do with the GE Concord panel.

Are there any alternatives? I don't see a GE wireless occupancy sensor anywhere that could provide this function. I'm not familiar with how the Card Access sensors work or are integrated into Control4 if I just need 1 sensor.

It's built into the sensor, for longer battery life.

Because of this, motion sensing has to be a longer-term prospect.

RyanE

I just dug through the instructions for the Concord motion sensor and it has a built in 3 minute timeout to conserve battery life. So any timer less than 3 minutes using a GE Concord wireless motion sensor won't work....

My workaround will have to be to use a timer greater than 3 minutes duration and just STOP and RESET the timer any point after that 3 minutes has expired so it should work just fine.... I think the issue I was having was due to my testing the programming and using a 10 second timer so I do rapid testing with immediate responses.....

Anyone else have any other suggestions as a workaround or is this similar to what other people are using for the GE Concord and Control4 wireless motion sensors?

I just dug through the instructions for the Concord motion sensor and it has a built in 3 minute timeout to conserve battery life. So any timer less than 3 minutes using a GE Concord wireless motion sensor won't work....

My workaround will have to be to use a timer greater than 3 minutes duration and just STOP and RESET the timer any point after that 3 minutes has expired so it should work just fine.... I think the issue I was having was due to my testing the programming and using a 10 second timer so I do rapid testing with immediate responses.....

Anyone else have any other suggestions as a workaround or is this similar to what other people are using for the GE Concord and Control4 wireless motion sensors?

This is the main reason why I use Card Access motion detectors. If your house is like mine, most trips in and out of the garage last about 10 seconds. 3 minutes is a long time for then to stay on unnecessarily, in my opinion.

So to clarify, the wireless Card access does not have the long timeout feature like the concord?

I just dug through the instructions for the Concord motion sensor and it has a built in 3 minute timeout to conserve battery life. So any timer less than 3 minutes using a GE Concord wireless motion sensor won't work....

My workaround will have to be to use a timer greater than 3 minutes duration and just STOP and RESET the timer any point after that 3 minutes has expired so it should work just fine.... I think the issue I was having was due to my testing the programming and using a 10 second timer so I do rapid testing with immediate responses.....

Anyone else have any other suggestions as a workaround or is this similar to what other people are using for the GE Concord and Control4 wireless motion sensors?

This is the main reason why I use Card Access motion detectors. If your house is like mine' date=' most trips in and out of the garage last about 10 seconds. 3 minutes is a long time for then to stay on unnecessarily, in my opinion.[/quote']

How do the Card Access sensors work with Control4? Do you need a central monitoring box or can they be used independently by connecting with the Control4 system? I'm not familiar with how Card Access works....

I just dug through the instructions for the Concord motion sensor and it has a built in 3 minute timeout to conserve battery life. So any timer less than 3 minutes using a GE Concord wireless motion sensor won't work....

My workaround will have to be to use a timer greater than 3 minutes duration and just STOP and RESET the timer any point after that 3 minutes has expired so it should work just fine.... I think the issue I was having was due to my testing the programming and using a 10 second timer so I do rapid testing with immediate responses.....

Anyone else have any other suggestions as a workaround or is this similar to what other people are using for the GE Concord and Control4 wireless motion sensors?

This is the main reason why I use Card Access motion detectors. If your house is like mine' date=' most trips in and out of the garage last about 10 seconds. 3 minutes is a long time for then to stay on unnecessarily, in my opinion.[/quote']

How do the Card Access sensors work with Control4? Do you need a central monitoring box or can they be used independently by connecting with the Control4 system? I'm not familiar with how Card Access works....

Card access uses zigbee, and they already have a driver for control4. Pretty much plug and play.

So to clarify, the wireless Card access does not have the long timeout feature like the concord?

Correct. You can set it for whatever duration you want, all the way down to one second. They were designed from the ground up to be used to sense occupancy, and they work much better for that purpose. They also have a built in ambient light sensor, so you can create a conditional to turn on the lights when motion is detected IF the light level is below xxx (it has a real time light level readout in composer so you can see what light levels are). The garage is a great example. If the garage door is open and you're doing yard work while the kids are riding their bikes and it's high noon, why do you want the lights turning on for 3 minutes at a time whenever someone moves in the garage? It's plenty bright already.

Thecodeman is correct as always. They're zigbee, so they're wireless and can either be battery powered out liner powered.

Wow... just reading the Card Access website on the sensors and they are quite advanced with the amount of configuration you can do. The GE sensors of course are basically on or off....

I like the idea of direct connection to Control4 without adding another full panel and just adding 1 for my garage is likely all I would need for now...

For those that have purchased these, can you buy direct from Card Access or where do you buy them and how much can I expect to purchase 1 (I'm always looking for a discounted priced if possible vs. dealer markup)?

Wow... just reading the Card Access website on the sensors and they are quite advanced with the amount of configuration you can do. The GE sensors of course are basically on or off....

I like the idea of direct connection to Control4 without adding another full panel and just adding 1 for my garage is likely all I would need for now...

For those that have purchased these, can you buy direct from Card Access or where do you buy them and how much can I expect to purchase 1 (I'm always looking for a discounted priced if possible vs. dealer markup)?

Card access is dealer model like Control4. Control4 now offers the full line of CA to their dealers, so any C4 dealer should be able to get you card access.

For your case, there's always ebay or the forums here.

After messing around a lot with my DSC motion sensors I found the wireless ones tend to have such a delay that they do not work well for occupancy sensors. The wired ones are better but the Card Access I have is so far superior and lets you do so much more that I think it is definately the way to go. Only bad thing is having 2 motion sensors in some rooms (wife doesn't like it).