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Talked to a 30 year veteran about sensor placement and felt like a rookie
I was at a supply house in Denver last week and this old school installer named Mike started telling me about how he places motion detectors. He mentioned he never puts one directly facing a window because the sun can trick it into false alarms, but instead angles them at 45 degrees. Made me realize I've been slapping sensors on walls without thinking about the light path or heat sources nearby. Has anyone else had to rework their installs after learning this kind of detail?
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campbell.robin1mo ago
Honestly, that window angle thing is something I only picked up because a buddy of mine had his whole system going off every morning. He's a pretty sharp guy too, been wiring houses for like 15 years. He placed a motion detector right across from a big east facing window and the sunrise would trigger it like clockwork around 6 AM. Drove him nuts for a week before he figured out the sun was hitting the sensor at just the wrong time. Tbh he ended up moving it to a corner and angling it like that Mike guy said, and the false alarms stopped instantly. That's the kind of tiny detail nobody tells you in the manual.
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blairwhite1mo ago
That "hitting the sensor at just the wrong time" part is so true. I had almost the same problem but with a different room. I put a motion detector in my hallway thinking it was perfect, but every afternoon around 2 PM the sun would hit that thing through a side window and set it off. Drove me crazy for a weekend. What finally worked for me was flipping the sensor upside down and angling it so it pointed more at the floor instead of straight ahead. That tiny change killed the false alarms and it still catches anyone walking through. Have you found any other weird tricks like that from messing around with your setup?
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