Recommendation for outdoor PIR (RFX or Zigbee/Hue)?

Hardware Home Automation
1

Hi,

I’d like to install three or four outdoor PIR sensors to trigger some outdoor lights that I’ve recently installed. At the front door I have a zwave PIR looking down the drive that isn’t IP rated but is sheltered from the weather, however in other positions around the house the PIRs would be exposed to rain.

I have a Hue bridge installed so I could use the Hue motion sensor but at £45 each they’re not cheap. I also have an RFXcom USB dongle so I could use RFX devices too.

Googling throws up a few possible devices from Banggood/Aliexpress but if anyone has any success stories I’d be very interested to hear them.

2

Short answer: both work… however, radio transmitters may be less reliable.

3

I’ve ben using EverSpring: SP816 Motion Sensors for a few years now. They are outdoor rated and have been reliable. They aren’t the smallest or prettiest devices though.

4

Thanks for the recommendation, I can’t seem to find these for sale in the UK though. I can find a combined floodlight/sensor by Everspring but not the PIR on it’s own.

5

I’m looking for specific hardware recommendations such as Maximo’s above, thanks.

6

I use these in various places. Working well, detect up to 8-ish metres.

7

Does it need to switch a load/device? If not you can use an IP camera that has a PIR sensor built in if you buy from a brand that has a supported API and has a PIR built in. Amcrest, Dahua, Hikvision and Instar are all brands to look at. Instar has them on almost all models and you can link the PIR so that the video feed AND the pir both have to agree there is motion before openHAB gets told.

Just throwing another idea your way.

8

I thought I was familiar with most of the Hikvision camera range but I didn’t know they had ones that included PIRs. I actually use your IPcamera binding to link the motion alarm from a Hikvision above my front door to an item that’s in an AND group with the PIR switch item. This means that when both the PIR and the camera have to agree that there’s motion a rule triggers a Sonoff switch to turn on a light over the front door. I want to achieve something similar with one of my other cameras that looks over the back gate. Maybe if I can find someone to sell the camera to I’ll replace it with one with an integrated PIR, at the moment the motion detection alarm is triggered by rain, something we have a lot of at the moment!

Thanks for the info!