My last job had a motion sensor that kept giving false alarms

I was putting in a basic wireless system at a small office last Tuesday. The door contacts worked fine, but the motion detector in the back room triggered all the time for no clear reason. I swapped out the sensor, changed the battery, and even adjusted the sensitivity settings. Nothing fixed it until I noticed a big fluorescent light fixture right above it. The light's ballast was sending out noise that messed with the sensor signal. I moved the sensor to a different wall and the false stops stopped. What's the strangest fix you've had to find for a sensor problem?

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3 Comments

val2816mo ago

Yeah those hvac vents will do it too. Had a sensor thinking it was detecting movement but it was just hot air blowing on it from the register. Took forever to spot.

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the_sean5mo ago

Man, tech really hates fancy art...

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parker_flores6mo ago

A buddy of mine installs home security systems, and he once spent weeks trying to figure out why a motion sensor kept going off in a client's living room. He replaced everything, checked the wiring, even thought the family pet was setting it off. Turns out, the client had one of those fancy art sculptures with a small motor that rotated it slowly. The sensor was picking up the heat from the motor or maybe the movement, I'm not sure. He had to reposition the sensor away from the artwork, and that finally stopped the false alarms. It was one of those things you'd never think to ask about during the initial walkthrough.

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