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[bleicker]

Hi there,

I’ve a garden about 19m long and 6m wide that I want to cover with floodlight as burglaries have been on the rise around my area.
I was looking at LED floodlights with PIR sensors and now came across some models with microwave sensors with may be a bit better. I was thinking first to install 2 or 3 floodlights and connect them to 2 or 3 different PIR sensors around the garden to ensure any movement at odd parts would be detected but it ended up looking overcomplicated and I’m back to 2 or 3 floodlights working standalone and perhaps with microwave sensor.

I’m just worried about a couple of cats that can activate it, but so far, I’ve heard the sensitivity of microwave can also be adjusted. The model I’m thinking is this http://cpc.farnell.com/pro-elec/pel0041 ... dp/SR09946

Ideally, I would like to also have manual control of the lights from inside with a switch, but it seems PIR lights can do this as they have only 3 wires (earth, live and neutral) and the microwave has a remote control, but I believe it must be IR sensor so only when facing the light I can control it. I’m thinking about a smart home automation system like Samsung SmartThings with Z-Wave protocol, so if anyone knows a way of integrating floodlights and smart home systems that would be a bonus

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

[ericmark]

I’ve a garden about 19m long and 6m wide that I want to cover with floodlight as burglaries have been on the rise around my area.
I admire your thoughtfulness for the burglar, but personally I understand although you should not set a trap, allowing them to injure themselves while trying to burgle your house is permitted, you are not obliged to assist them.

Passive inferred (PIR) means it detects the heat change which will happen then something hot is detected, there has to be an allowance for slow change, so it does not activate when the sun comes out, so there is little difference between a cat moving at 6 MPH to a human dressed so heat does not escape too easy moving at 1 MPH, so although you can set a PIR to detect you in the garden moving at a reasonable speed, it will not really be any good to detect some one trying not to be detected.

I don’t know what is so worth stealing from your garden? If you want to detect the human, and not the cat, then you are looking at breaking a beam, rather than using a PIR.

If you want to stop the burglar getting into your house, then a completely different type of alarm is used. However in the main the idea is to deter the unwanted visitor and having lights switch on and off can make them think some one is at home, so likely they will select some other house.

Because my mother has carers I have PIR lights around the house, these are to help them enter the house not to hinder, it lights up the key safe for example, and the hall light auto switches on, we live with mother so don’t want to be disturbed when the carers arrive and depart unless some thing has gone wrong.

So my alarms are powered by smart sockets so they can be disabled at the times carers are due, but still alert us should my mother try to leave the house. In other words they do the reverse to what you want.

Consider no lights and a garden pond or two, these are far more likely to cause problems to unwanted intruders. A time switch that switches on a light in a room is far more likely to deter intruders, TV flicker may tell the intruder you are unlikely to hear them or notice any outside lights switching on/off, but lights going on/off within the house makes the house look occupied by some one moving around, so likely to deter much more than the garden flood light which after it has gone on/off a few times they know the occupants will now ignore it.

[bleicker]

I'm coming to terms that is better to have a manually operated flood light from inside the house with a regular switch or perhaps a switch which is connected to zwave so I can control remotely and then I'll put a camera with IR like the Ubiquiti unifi G3 https://www.ubnt.com/unifi-video/unifi-video-camera-g3/ with an IR extender that then can detect movements on a specific area and send alerts. Thanks!

[ericmark]

I got a Motorola camera and the camera is good, however to work it needs a server with a fixed IP address, so they use hubbleconnected.com and this is the problem, as to if I paid it would be better I don't know, I had it to monitor mother to see if she was OK, I would get a phone call from the council call centre to say bed sensor, door sensor or button had been pressed, so then I would use camera to see if she was OK or if I needed to visit, but 10% of the time I found the camera off line, be it server, mothers internet or my internet can't say, but it seemed too many times I had to visit as camera not working, only to find her fast asleep in bed.

It did however reduce the midnight visits, 90% it worked, so either I could hear her or see her and know she was OK.

For security having a camera which only works some times I think is not really what you want. There was a pay for option where they record when sound or movement is detected, this was no good for me, I did not want a record I wanted to know there and then.

I also use Energenie MiHome remote controlled sockets, until I bought them I did not realise just three timed on times per day, unless you use IFTTT you can select which days of the week it is active for and it has three remote controls, plus PC, tablet, and phone assess. When I tried to read what others did I found it hard to get info. Selected mine as same system as central heating so only one hub required, but I would say KISS or keep it simple silly.

So simple plug in timers and some standard lamps or table lamps, timed so one switches on as other switches off, so it looks as if some one is active and walking room to room.

[Mr White]

I fail to see what your mother and a camera has to do with floodlights in a garden.

[ericmark]

The camera is designed to remotely record intruders, it has a small built in inferred lamp so will work at night, although my version is designed for indoor I am sure there are outdoor versions.

Whole idea is the recoding is not held local so the intruder can't delete it, however it went down that many times knowing my luck it would not be working when the intruder got in.