I found these sensors on Amazon that are like the ones made by Dakota, but cost half as much. They shoot three IR beams up to 300 ft, between the sensors, and all three beams have to be broken to trigger the alarm. I was looking for a solution to false alarms. After working good for a couple years, my “Mighty Mule” was false alarming all the time, I needed something else.
I bought four, 4 ft by 1 1/2 in galvanized pipes, and mounted the sensors to those. I think the instructions could have been a little more clearer, but got the two pairs of sensors in as zone 1 and zone 2. The receiver has dry contact connections and this is where Smartthings comes in.
I used two Ecolink 2.5 open/close sensors. Walking out in the driveway with my app open I could see the Ecolink open when I broke the beams. Success.
So now, when the sensors trigger, Alexa says “Someone is in the driveway”. I also get a text message, (set up in Smartthings under ‘notify me when’)
Going for three weeks now, and no false alarms. It’s got every car coming in the driveway. Below are the ones I ordered, and I added two more sensors for another $99
This gives you an idea of how the sensors look, and the distance I placed between them
Didn’t try it, but I think I could have used one pair of sensors to cover both my drives.
Hey dan, I have the same issue, I got the same products as you, but I was wondering if you could give a couple of closeup pictures on the wiring on the alarm unit. Especially inside the ecolink sensor. I see 3 connections for each zone on the HTZSAFE alarm unit, which ones did you connect? Also what gage of wire did you use?
Thanks in advance,
Jeff
Jeff, Looking at the alarm unit, I wired to the two spots on the left, out of the three. This gives me “normally closed” when I look at the sensor in my Smartthings app. I used 22 gage phone wire.
I also opened up the back of the alarm unit, and there are four rows of connections, each with a jumper you can pull off and move. On the far left row, I moved the jumper to “10 seconds” . This is the time it takes the alarm unit to reset the dry connections before it can be re-triggered again. I don’;t remember what it was on originally, I just thought 10 seconds would be a good choice. I think there is a 1 second also. But this works for me. i really like this system. Still no false alarms, and it’s got everything coming in the driveway.
Awesome you are a gentleman and a scholar. One question do you have a spec sheet for the circuit board for the EcoLink? I couldn’t find one when googling…
Sorry Jeff, I do not.
No worries, got an operational question for you. The sensors with the solar cells are beeping really loudly when the beam is broken, any idea how to disable that? Or was it maybe just cause I was levelling them?
Jeff
Ok, here’s what you do to put the sensors in stealth mode.
Press them three times to turn them off. Once off, press seven times. That will mute the beeping.
Thank you sir, how did you find that out? The manual I got was pretty sparse…
There’s a YT video of it. Glad to help you out.
link plz if you still have it
I took a quick look on YT and couldn’t find it. It’s probably in there somewhere. On the Amazon page for that unit in the Q and A;
Question:
Answer:
Hi there, please kindly find the details below:
- If the beam sensors are ON status, please turn off the sensors first by pressing the ON/OFF button 3 times , and then turn on the sensors again by pressing the ON/OFF button 7 times.
- If the beam sensors are OFF status, please turn on the sensors by pressing the ON… see more
This is the video where I learned how to move the jumpers inside the receiver.
I installed the system the way you did Dan2…very nice. Except that the “Front” sensors seem to constantly open from the IR beams. I bought the 2 beam 190ft version, and during the day they’re opening and closing non stop. They’re about 160ft from each other on posts like yours. Do you think putting them near the max allowable distance is the issue? Should I move them closer? Ugh so frustrating. The set I have along the back of my house (literally against the house windows) don’t get set off and they’re only 30ft away. I wonder if its the distance. I hope its not sun/shade.
It’s either the distance apart, or they’re not aligned good enough. would be my guess.
Okay I’ll adjust both and report back. Thanks Dan.
Worked! Adjusted sight line and moved them closer. Bummer that the beam range didn’t hold up, but I put them in a different spot and worked. Just to take it a step further, I put zwave plugs with stepdown plug-in converter for 12v, and ordered police strobe lights (the little 4 or 6 LED ones on the bumpers and mirrors). Now if a beam is tripped after 11p, or anytime when in Away mode, 3 different police strobes start going off! I set them for 5min auto-off. Pretty neat.
Glad it worked out for you.