I’m trying to dial in my security system for “away” type motion detection. I have a handful of IR capable interior cameras and interior PIR sensors (mostly Smart Things branded but 1 Aeotec and 1 off brand).
I’m finding that’s a recipe for disaster in that the PIRs are basically triggered 100% of the time at night once the cameras detect darkness and flip on their IR LEDs.
Has anyone come up with a solution to this kind of problem?
The obvious solution is to move the motion sensor or the camera so they play nicely. Otherwise the rules will be surprisingly confusing like turning off motion zones at sunset+/-offset when away. Ick.
Yeah. I was hoping people know of a way to tune the sensitivity of the PIR sensors… or maybe to have a PIR with “privacy zones” (blackout spots you can configure, similar to actual cameras). It’s also possible there are ways to tune the IR LEDs themselves but that seems very unlikely to me.
I’m probably SOL and just need to choose “cameras or PIR” (I can theoretically cover night time with cameras doing visual motion detection).
Maybe you don't need the IR lights on if you're using PIR to sense with. Unless you have animals indoors you probably don't need pixel detection as well as the heat detection.
How about some separate normal motion detectors, with a rule to turn on the light in the room when they detect motion and the light coming on will either start your cameras rolling, or they will already be rolling from their own PIRs - but at least the images will be lit up and all without the IR lights
Or you can get spotlight cameras (the Reolink Lumus is what I use - gorgeous little thing, ideal for both indoors and out) and then they will turn on their own light when their PIR picks up warmth. The Lumus uses both senses to decide if it's a person or other type of movement.
Part of my use case is finding sleeping pets in various places, so the pixels are useful.
The Lumus does a reasonable job of telling humans and animals apart.
Oh I’m good there, but I appreciate the tip anyway! My preferred goal would be to find a PIR sensor with “privacy zones” (I’m reusing the term cameras have for ‘ability to blank out/ignore certain parts of the visual field’). Those would allow me to tune my PIR such that it would NOT trigger in the areas that are illuminated by the IR LEDs from my existing cameras.
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