Long Range PIR sensor

As a manufacturer and designer of PIR lenses I know what is possible. We have made lenses that will detect at 50m and further with a very narrow field of view… So I know what is possible technically.

I am looking for a battery driven PIR device to integrate with my Smartthings network and which I want to point at our front gate and some other critical areas around our garden. I cannot find any product that will do this? Does anyone know of an outdoor PIR module that has a long narrow range that I can use with my Smartthings system?

Appreciate any help you might have?

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There aren’t any specifically designed for a low cost residential system like SmartThings as either there would be a horrendous number of false alerts or the sensor would cost more than most of the $20 competition.

However, if you know of a sensor you would like to use, there’s nothing to stop you from building your own integration to smartthings. MQTT Would probably be the simplest integration path.

BTW, I forgot to mention that Probably the most popular solution for this use case for smartthings customers is to get one of the security cameras that has activity zones and person detection features. These avoid most of the false alarm issues you get outdoors, and can work quite well. Ring and Arlo have the best smartthings integration, but there are ways to use some of the other brands as well, particularly through Ifttt. So not only do you get the alert, you can see what caused it.

I realize that with your particular expertise you may prefer to look for a PIR solution, but I just wanted to mention it for anyone else who is interested because of the topic title. :sunglasses:

Thank you JD for your comments and advice.

I might for fun take a cheap pir sensor apart and see if I can somehow glue or mount a different lens on the front. This is quite tricky as its’ hard to see what Pyro has been used and therefore know how far away to mount the lens. Fortunately the cheap sensors tend to be simple dual element Pyros which makes things easier.

The biggest challenge is making them waterproof (I want to mount outside) as the HDPE the lenses are made from is a pig to bond anything to. The best way is to clamp the lens and this might mean investing in a 3D printer and come up with a mechanical design. Another big project …

That’s why I was hoping to find something already in the market.

BTW, you can botch it by blanking off segments on an existing lens in a similar way to using zones in the camera versions. A marker pen will do. Better do it on the inside of the lens as the ink will eventually come away from the HDPE plastic. The best way is to use a metal foil if you can fix it over the lens segments that you don’t want to be active.

There are sensors out there with little shutters you can slide across the lens to block off some unneeded segments.

I would still prefer an off the shelf solution…

Ho Hum
Thomas

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I have a standard outdoor PIR (typically used to control a light) connected to the switch input of a Z-wave module and this works extremely well. In my case the module is a Fibaro Dimmer 2 which has two switch inputs, S1 and S2. The module is has a momentary switch (for manual control of the local light) on S1 and the PIR on S2. The module is configured to use momentary switches and I use the scenes feature to send a trigger to Webcore. The PIR motion trigger is seen as a switch held event and the PIR motion stopped as a switch released. Because the PIR is normally used to control a light it has a luminance sensor and timer feature. However, I have turned both off and use Webcore pistons to control everything. This way I can use the PIR to trigger any event, not just the local light.

Maybe you could use one of your long range PIR sensors in the same way?

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