There’s an FAQ for this which discusses many different options. Different ones will work for different people.
I am looking for outdoor motion sensors to monitor my yard.
I bought a pair of the Aeon Labs Aeotec Z-Wave Multi-Sensor and am quite unhappy with them. Even on the lowest sensitivity setting it randomly sends alerts, some perhaps due to clouds changing the lighting (even though PIR is not supposed to be susceptible to this) and others I can’t explain at all. With several false alerts a day this thing is just useless. The Smartthings Motion sensor works great, I have some in my house, but it is indoor rated only. The Schlage / Nexia motion sensor is also indoor use only.
I am hoping someone has come across an outdoor rated motion sensor they have been able to pair with the Smartthings hub.
Mike Maxwell has a very good smart app for putting sensors into zones:
I built this to solve a number of motion related issues.
–Reduction of false motion events in exterior applications (False Motion Reduction)
–Represent a group of detectors with a single virtual detector (Motion Aggregation)
–Enable a Motion Aggregation zone from various devices, switches, contacts ect (Triggered Activation)
This is a parent/child application (like Smart Lighting) where the motion zones are created and edited from the parent application.
When a new virtual zone is created, a virtual motion sensor is created for that zone. This virtual motion detector represents the states of the physical motion detectors that you configured for that zone.
You can then use that virtual zone device in any applications that accept motion devices.
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Three co…
Since you have the Arlo though, why don’t you just use the built-in camera’s motion sensor? It’s actually going to be better for outdoor use than pretty much anything that connects directly to SmartThings.
Hi All,
I have an Arlo camera monitoring the front of our house. I’ve always found the motion sensing to be a bit hit and miss and ended up installing a secondary outdoor smart things compatible motion sensor to trigger the recording via IFTT/Smartthings - it works well and makes sure I’m recording on the occasions when the camera didnt pick up the motion - but there is a delay in triggering the recording via IFTT.
I understand that Arlo is now supported under smart things. I want to set up a rule to replace the IFTT integration.
If motion detected by the motion sensor start recording. Ideally I don’t want to rely on smart things to do the recording or to use the security dashboard etc. Instead, just a direct replacement for the IFTT rule. On motion detected tell the arlo to start recor…