Hi,
I have one of the pir1-345 motion sensors installed and configured in the 2GC2 panel as a ‘follower’ and as ‘motion’. It seems that once triggered, Alarm.com shows it as activated even a couple of hours later. When I set it as ‘contact’, things seem to work more as I expect, resetting in a few minutes. Why is this? Is there a problem with leaving the sensor as contact? Does this mean that Armed Stay will have an alarm trigger if the sensor is activated if it’s not set as motion? Thank you.
Does this mean that Armed Stay will have an alarm trigger if the sensor is activated if it’s not set as motion? Thank you.
Yes, motion detectors should be programmed as interior follower. The “Activation” delay on ADC pertains only to activity monitoring, not whether or not the sensor can trip an alarm.
Motion detectors remain “Activated” in history to signal that activity has happened recently.
When armed, the only delay a motion detector is affected by is its own power save delay period which is a couple minutes from the prior activation.
1)Thank you for your response. It’s just that the app shows the motion detector as ‘Activated’ even now, even though the history shows it was activated at 11:22AM EDT (currently it is 1:21PM).
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So it is ‘Follower’ that determines if an alarm is triggered by the sensor when Armed Stay or Away?
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And the difference between the types ‘Contact’ and ‘Motion’ when configuring? Why use one over the other?
1)Thank you for your response. It’s just that the app shows the motion detector as ‘Activated’ even now, even though the history shows it was activated at 11:22AM EDT (currently it is 1:21PM).
Yes, the history will provide the time at which it was triggered, but current status will remain “Activated” for an extended period as a notice that activity has occurred in the recent past should you glance at the current status of a disarmed system. This has nothing to do with how the sensor behaves locally.
2) So it is ‘Follower’ that determines if an alarm is triggered by the sensor when Armed Stay or Away?
Interior Follower type zones do not trip alarms during stay mode, and they do not trip alarms during the exit or entry delay countdown.
3) And the difference between the types ‘Contact’ and ‘Motion’ when configuring? Why use one over the other?
This changes how the sensor reports its type to ADC, and how the back-end describes it. Setting to contact will typically result in an abundance of history events stating the motion detector opened during normal occupation, flooding history with information that is in most cases unhelpful.
Thank you.
It’s just disconcerting that now, three hours later, the ADC app still shows one sensor open/activated. A configurable time-out would be cool.
I took a look at the device shows as idle as of a little over an hour ago. You may need to refresh the app page. Does that update the status?
Thank you for checking.
I see that the sensor became idle at 1:41PM…over two hours after initially triggered. It is activated again; someone probably went into the room.
Over two hours seems a bit excessive, no? I can’t think of a specific use case where I need to see that the motion sensor triggered two hours ago, displayed front-and-center on the Android app, when instead I could just look at the logs and/or have a notification sent to myself.
My logs show numerous opening and closing of doors, etc. that initially show as an open sensor on the app, but are immediately reset when the door or window is closed. Why does the motion sensor have to continue (or ADC continue) to report that there is motion activity for hours after the motion happened? This really should be configurable. Or, as mentioned earlier, I can just change the type from motion to contact.
Over two hours seems a bit excessive, no?
We are always happy to send feedback to ADC of course! Activated/idle status can vary a bit with continued activity at the detector. I will pass on the suggestion for a configurable option, although I am not sure this would occur. It would help if we could include a suggested use case for this. What case would you be looking to cover while the system is not armed away and a current status showing a motion detector as active for a short scale?
In general I would not really agree as motion detector status on the current status section is irrelevant without a sizable delay.
To try to clarify: Wireless motion detectors only remain open for a few seconds, have a cooldown, then after a few minutes of no activity in range of the detector it can register motion again. But it only ever stays open for a couple seconds at a time, regardless of what is going on in front of it.
The purpose of the current status is to show the current status of sensors. For doors and windows that makes sense because they are open until they are closed, and you must physically close them.
Motion Detectors do not function this way, and are generally not that useful for activity monitoring on an acute scale.
Setting a motion detector for contact would result in it opening and closing within a couple seconds every time it activates, and current status would always be closed, perhaps unless you managed to refresh status within one second of motion occurring.
You are of course able to program the sensor as you wish, we are just making recommendations based on best practice and how the equipment and service is designed.