That moment I realized how much background noise affects motion sensors

Last month I had a job in a warehouse in Tulsa where the alarm kept triggering at 3 AM for no reason. Customer was ready to toss the system. I spent two days swapping sensors and checking wiring with no luck. Then I noticed the ceiling fans kick on at the same time every night, and the vibration was enough to set off the PIR. Switched all four sensors to dual-tech units and havent had a single false alarm since. Anyone else deal with environmental vibration issues on commercial sites?

1 comments

1 Comment

anthony_fox9018d ago

Damn, that's wild! Tbh I had almost the exact same thing happen at a cold storage facility a few years back. Their big industrial exhaust fans would cycle on every night around 2:30 and the whole freaking wall would shake just enough to trip the old PIRs. I finally caught it on the log viewer, saw the pattern, and swapped them for dual-tech like you did. Night and day difference. Those vibration issues are sneaky, you never think about it until you're standing there at 3 AM watching a fan spin up and the alarm goes off.