When we install monitored security systems in homes and businesses, we design each and every system according to the layout and security needs of each property. This certainly proves more effective than taking a “one-size-fits all” approach. However, certain aspects of these systems still stay consistent from one installation to the next. For example, we always install contacts to secure all of your home or business’s exterior doors. Furthermore, we almost always install motion detectors as part of a complete security system installation as well. In this post, we share some of our top motion detector security tips to help you understand how we do so in a way that adds as much security as possible to your alarm.
First, we’ll explain why we install this security equipment to begin with. This knowledge will go a long way towards understanding the rest of the material in this post. From there, we’ll show you how we find the best locations for motion detectors. This includes the areas we install motion detectors in within a property, as well as the locations within rooms that we prefer. Then, we’ll shift our focus to a couple tips to help you avoid false alarms. This section will include an examination of both equipment-based and installation-based causes of these nuisance alarms. Now, let’s dive in with a look at why we install motion detectors as part of a security system.
Why Do We Install Motion Detectors?
Motion detectors have long represented one of the most popular ways to secure a home or business’s interior. When used properly, these devices have great security potential. Door and window sensors secure the most commonly-breached exterior areas of your property. However, we also use motion detectors to create an extra layer of interior security. These sensors can catch thieves who use creative means of breaking into a building. For example, professional burglars may break or even cut a window’s glass to gain entry.
We always recommend installing motion detectors to secure your property’s staircases.
Additionally, we can use motion detectors as a cost-cutting substitute to placing a sensor on every window. We offer a large variety of motion detector styles. Long-range motion detectors can cover impressive areas with just one detector. Ceiling-mounted 360-degree detectors can catch motion in all directions, creating an effective circumference of motion detection around them. Taking advantage of all available technologies helps us create efficient and effective security. Now that you know why we install these detectors, let’s take a look at where we install them!
Finding the Best Location for Motion Detectors
Among the most important of our motion detector security tips lies in finding the best spots to install motion detectors. To begin, we like to cover areas that house valuables. When inside a house, burglars often have a list of rooms in mind to visit. Living rooms and entertainment rooms often have valuable televisions and gaming systems. Offices often contain computers and sometimes even credit cards and cash. Bedrooms often house jewelry and other records that burglars can use for their own gain, such as information about bank accounts and other personal information. With this in mind, thieves generally have to travel to different floors of multiple-story homes in order to “hit” all of the rooms on their checklist. Therefore, we highly recommend installing motion detectors that “watch” your staircases. Doing so can help limit where intruders can travel before they get caught.
In businesses, installing motion detectors in areas that house money and company documents takes precedence. This means covering managers’ offices, area with cash registers, and any rooms with safes. Additionally, we also like to install motion detectors in any areas of the office with vulnerable windows. Finally, installing detectors in main hallways helps keep thieves from traveling through your business without getting caught.
We like to install motion detectors in areas that cover rooms as efficiently as possible. Specifically, we find that installing a detector in the corner of a room that faces the entrance provides the best coverage. The corner-mounted orientation focuses the detector on the center of the room. Additionally, corner installation helps eliminate the “blind spots” created by installing a detector on the center of a wall facing outward. Moreover, finding the corner with the most efficient view of the room’s doorway makes it difficult, if not impossible, for someone to enter the room without activating your alarm. For these reasons, we seek out this exact location for motion detector installation. Now, let’s move on by reviewing some ways that you can cut down on motion detector-related false alarms.
Avoiding Motion Detector-Based False Alarms
In our post on False Alarm Causes and Solutions, we pointed out that the term “false alarm” often proves misleading. Generally speaking, people use this term to describe any alarm activation created by something other than a true burglary or fire emergency. However, these “false” alarms often indicate a properly-working security system. In these cases, fixing mistakes in the planning or installation of motion detectors can minimize or even eliminate nuisance alarms. In this section, we’ll share some helpful tips to address the possibility of false alarms proactively. Let’s get started with a look at how animals create unwanted alarm events, and what you can do about it!
Pet and Pest-Related False Alarms
Our customers have animals to thank for many of their nuisance alarms. Of course, many families welcome animals into their home in the form of pets. When installing alarms in these homes, we have to take specific precautions. For example, we can install “pet-immune” motion detectors that require a certain amount of weight to activate an alarm. This can greatly help families with small dogs and cats. Additionally, careful detector placement can also lower the risk of pet-created false alarms. For example, even light animals jumping on stairs and on furniture in front of motion detectors can cause false alarms. Therefore, when we install pet-immune motion detectors, we take the surroundings into account. Avoiding installing these detectors in front of stairs or in rooms without tall furniture can go a long way.
Occasionally, even our commercial customers experience false alarms created by animals other than pets. Surprisingly, even bugs can cause alarms if they crawl inside a detector. Most common motion detectors use heat-sensing technology to activate an alarm. Therefore, spiders and insects crawling inside the detector creates just as much heat on the detector’s heat sensor, if not more, than a person walking into a room. For this reason, we recommend cleaning detectors regularly to make sure your detectors do not double as a bug shelter! Now, let’s look at a motion detector security tip dealing with how we install these sensors.
False alarms can lead to unnecessary police dispatches to your home or business.
Installation-Related False Alarms
As we pointed out in the previous section, motion detectors generally detect motion by sensing shifts in heat. A quick change in a room’s heat index generally comes about when someone walks into a room. Of course, animals can also create this heat index shift, as we’ve pointed out. Furthermore, events that do not involve people or animals can also cause false alarms. For example, a burst of sunlight through a window can replicate the heat caused by a person entering a room. Therefore, we aim to install motion detectors in a corner of the room that does not directly face windows when we place them in our customers’ homes and businesses. Additionally, curtains or large plants blown by fans can also activate your alarm system. Paying attention to these risk factors when planning out your motion detector installation goes a long way towards eliminating nuisance alarms!
Putting Our Motion Detector Security Tips to Work for You
We hope that these motion detector security tips help you secure your own property more effectively. Additionally, we encourage you to contact us with any questions this post may raise for you. We will happily answer any and all of your security-related inquiries. Moreover, we also invite you to take advantage of our complimentary site survey program. We offer free security audits and equipment quotes to both residential and commercial customers alike. While on site, we can help you design a complete security solution for your application. Regardless of how much security you have in place now, we can work to either fill in the gaps or even create a new plan completely from scratch! Together, we can help design and implement a security plan to keep you, your property, and everyone on it as safe and secure as possible.