Solutions for pets triggering motion detectors?

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Does anyone have any creative solutions to reduce pets triggering motion detectors?

When our cat wanders into the bathroom at night he turns on the lights.

I have three motion detectors in aggregation mode.

One over my mirror facing out. I am tall.

One over my wife's sink facing out. She is short.

One in the potty closet over the toilet facing out.

As I write this it occurs to me to check the log and see which ones see the cat.

Any other ideas?

Thanks!

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I try to place them where there is something under them so they can't see downwards. So maybe in this case on the cistern, pushed back so it won't see anything under waist height. Or on a shelf or window sill.

Is it possible to keep the bathroom door shut? That's what we used to do when we had a cat and didn't want him in somewhere.

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Too easy.

I'm looking for something complicated!

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Does the cat jump up on the sink? If so, he'll probably set off the short one for your wife.

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I moved that one to a different position where it is less likely to see the cat. That may do it for now!

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Replace one of the motion sensors with a pet-immune sensor like this one. Change the motion zone to use triggered activation, and make the pet-immune motion sensor the trigger device. (Triggered activation makes it so that none of the motion sensors can trigger the zone without the trigger device sensing motion. Once the zone is active, it stays active until all of the sensors in the zone have been inactive for a set period of time, called the activity timeout) Set the activity timeout to something fairly long, to ensure the lights won't turn off on somebody while they're on the toilet. You may need to reorganize the layout of your sensors a bit - you want the trigger device to be positioned such that it will always trip immediately when someone enters the room. My trigger sensors are always pointed toward the door.

The Ecolink sensor I linked to isn't your only option, Here are a few others:

  1. Ring motion sensors are pet-immune. A little slow though.
  2. Ecolink also makes a good Z-wave pet immune sensor. Since it's Z-wave, it's still kind of slow.
  3. Bosch has made 2 different pet-immune zigbee motion sensors. One of these is available super cheap these days, but is very flakey for some people. The other one is usually more expensive on eBay, but is a great sensor, if a bit large. I use this one in a bunch of locations in my house.
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"pet immune motion sensor" sounds exactly like what I am looking for!

Thanks!

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Cool! One thing I'll note - pet-immune often also means toddler-immune. Small kids won't be able to trigger the lights either.

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Sort of off the OP's question, but can triggered activation include both Zwave and ZigBee sensors?

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Once they're connected to your system it's transparent how they connected.

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@Inge_Jones has it right, You can mix Zigbee and z-wave sensors.

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If things were predictable, you could restrict the app from turning on the light during a certain time period. We did this for the master bedroom closet. I have a contact sensor on the bathroom door, and that is what turns on the lights in the overnight hours, rather than the motion sensor. When the door is closed, the lights come on-prevents disturbing wife.

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I'm trying to keep things as complicated as possible. At night I have an LIFX BR30 above the shower that comes on at 20% red at night and the potty light comes on at 10% while the main lights do not come on between 10 PM and 6:30 AM.

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You can even use wifi sensors from an ecobee remote sensor! But uh, youll be done with your business and gone before they come on. :slight_smile:

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How have these been flakey? I went ahead and picked up 3 of them, they were cheap enough it wasn't that much of a gamble. If they don't work right I might just go with that Eco link sensor you suggested.

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I ordered two.

Hopefully, they will make it to the dock this month and I will see them in June!

:slightly_smiling_face:

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Here's a little trick I picked up accidentally. Covering the fresnel lens of the Xiaomi Mijia motion sensors with a piece of Scotch tape reduces their sensitivity - they continue to detect a human (me), but stop detecting any of my cats - the largest of whom is ~14 lbs.

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I've never used them, but I've seen a number of comments about them getting stuck active. Here's a thread about it:

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I have two of the Bosch ISW-ZDL1-WP11G, which have proven effective with 2 cats and a dog (90lbs). The only false triggers have been when the dog stands up on the couch that is 5 feet in front of the sensor. Good luck finding any PIR that will ignore that but still detect people.

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Have you tried constructing a snoot? That worked really well for me... I've also had good luck with the NYCE curtain motion sensor. Very narrow beam. NYCE Sensor Solutions

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