Beam sensor?

[Spare tyre]

Had a spate of car crime where we live, main road with lots of houses set back, so not an estate location so to speak

Have had people walking down the road walking up drives and trying handles

Luckily all we had was a cat peeing on a car last night (I have lots of cctv so can only guess that they saw that and didn’t try us), but a lot of neighbours have reported issues on the village Facebook



We have a single entrance with gate posts but no gates

Can anyone recommend a beam system that can be mounted high enough that a fox would trigger it etc

I don’t want infrared or microwave (Doppler?) technology

I’ve seen things on eBay but not sure if they are just gimmicks


I’d probably just link the thing if it existed to either a floodlight or chime

I’m hands on so not out off by tricky stuff

[Whistle]

Fitted loads of these and they are more or less 100% reliable once set up correctly.
https://takex.com/

[red_slr]

I have an optex at work. Arm it each night before I go home, it covers about 40m. 100% reliable in anything other than really serious wind, something like a carrier bag gets blown it will go off. Been fine in heavy snow, rain, fog etc.

We just make sure there is nothing lose if there is a big storm coming which can blow into the beam which reduces false alarms.

[Whistle]

Optex and tekax are identical kit, although tekax is cheaper to buy. We have sites with 100 metres plus range beams fitted externally with no issues what so ever.

[Jonboy_t]

Can’t help directly, but my sister and parents got done last week within a night of each other in Southampton and their neighbour was done the next night. I got cctv through amazon prime and it was up within 24 hours!

It seems quite opportunistic round here as all cars that were done were left unlocked (“but it’s the only time over ever left it unlocked”...) so hopefully your cctv will be a deterrent.

[Spare tyre]

Jonboy_t said:

Can’t help directly, but my sister and parents got done last week within a night of each other in Southampton and their neighbour was done the next night. I got cctv through amazon prime and it was up within 24 hours!

It seems quite opportunistic round here as all cars that were done were left unlocked (“but it’s the only time over ever left it unlocked”...) so hopefully your cctv will be a deterrent.

I’m in Southampton, where about about are they?

We also have some caravans arrive, but just a coincidence I’m sure

[Spare tyre]

Thanks for the suggestions

Will take a look

[V8RX7]

Whistle said:

Fitted loads of these and they are more or less 100% reliable once set up correctly.
https://takex.com/

But is there a simple way to link these sensors to an audible alert rather than a full on alarm system ?

I've tried the £25 driveway alarms and they are rubbish all I want is a better version - ie twin beam sensor £30 and a similar alert box sub £25 (as the Alert is £25 with the crappy sensor) yet suddenly the prices are £300

[Jonboy_t]

Spare tyre said:

Jonboy_t said:

Can’t help directly, but my sister and parents got done last week within a night of each other in Southampton and their neighbour was done the next night. I got cctv through amazon prime and it was up within 24 hours!

It seems quite opportunistic round here as all cars that were done were left unlocked (“but it’s the only time over ever left it unlocked”...) so hopefully your cctv will be a deterrent.

I’m in Southampton, where about about are they?

We also have some caravans arrive, but just a coincidence I’m sure

We’re all in Bitterne. There’s been a load of caravans being torched too, not sure if it’s just Southampton or not (sounds like a right dodgy place!!) but there was one a few roads away that got torched and it took the car and half the house with it too

[red_slr]

V8RX7 said:

But is there a simple way to link these sensors to an audible alert rather than a full on alarm system ?

I've tried the £25 driveway alarms and they are rubbish all I want is a better version - ie twin beam sensor £30 and a similar alert box sub £25 (as the Alert is £25 with the crappy sensor) yet suddenly the prices are £300

It would be pretty simple to wire up a relay to a traditional bell or door chime.

Ours outputs to a dialler.

At home we use smart things to send push notifications, Its a shared drive though with 4 garages at the bottom of the drive so its quite inviting to people as it goes right round the back of both houses. I have 2 outdoor sensors on the drive about 10 feet gap between and one at a high angle and another at a lower angle so I pretty much ignore single activation but if both go within a few seconds of each other I know its probably a person as a cat wont trigger both.

Its quite surprising how many people wander down your drive at 3am "looking for their mate bob"....
Also drunk people, police officers, estate agents, dog walkers just having a look round (?!?), bailiff, kids, people looking for lost drones (?!). That's all in 2 years. Out of all those we have had one legit burglar, later arrested and sent to the nick, he was trying to gain access to next door. Without the beam he might have got in and 2 lads about 17 ish who climbed our fence in the day when we were out luckily we were only round the corner no idea what they were up too, probably no good. Well worth having IMHO along with CCTV with remote access we basically know pretty reliably if someone is on the property.

[V8RX7]

red_slr said:

It would be pretty simple to wire up a relay to a traditional bell or door chime.

Ours outputs to a dialler.

At home we use smart things to send push notifications

Would it ?

That would be fine - any suggestions on which to use ?

[eliot]

As noted above the Takex/Optex beams are the best ones - but I can tell you that these Ailif ones, which are probably direct from the same factory and are very reliable. Position them about 50-100 cm off the ground.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Alarm-Dual-Beam-Photoel...

Try to avoid direct sunlight hitting the receiver, i.e. make the receiver is behind the sun if possible.


The output of the sensor is pair of relay contacts - so normally open and normally closed. In it most simple form, you can wire a buzzer to the contacts in the house. They are normally connected to other alerting systems (alarms, presence , automation) or as a trigger into a CCTV system - which makes the camera record and send an alert - which is far more reliable than than doing it electronically on the camera itself (spiders on camera usually causes false trigger)

Edited by eliot on Tuesday 4th September 12:22

[foreverme]

I have been looking for a similar requirement, however i would need some kind of way to convert the signal to somthing that could be picked up by smartthings or rfxcom..

[PurpleFox]

This is all useful info, I have almost the same scenario as the OP but not on a main road. Cars on driveway with gateposts but no gate.

I only ever recall going to my car twice in the morning and finding it unlocked - both times someone had been through it, glovebox open / papers all over etc. Luckily I have only lost a few pound coins and a credit card which was soon stopped by the bank on the 4th contact less transaction.

I have thought about this a few times so armed with the information above will move ahead with it.

Just a few things to iron out.....

At the gatepost I have a mains cable (currently not connected to anything) and a couple of Cat5 cables which I put in the ground when we were having a new water main and gas pipe just in case. The idea behind the Cat 5 was a PoE camera on the back of the gatepost.

I don't want to run any more cables if I can help it so my options would be transformer in the house and send power to the beam sensor over the cat 5 or ideally use PoE for the beam sensor as the cat 5 is terminated in my data cabinet but the voltage seems to be 30v for the sensor where PoE is 48......thoughts?

Or use the mains cable and setup a power supply at the gatepost but ideally wanted to keep the mains cable for driveway lighting etc when I get the driveway done.

I could setup a buzzer in the house but need this on a timer so it only works at night - not interested in receiving alerts throughout the day. Again, fairly easy to do it's just a case of deciding where to put it.

I have a dialler connected to my garage alarm but think for this purpose any would be intruder would have gone before I got the text / call.


I have a Fibaro home automation system which would be perfect as I could connect the sensor relay to a Fibaro Universal Sensor which could then run a 'scene' this could ping my phone, put all the lights on, put the outside lights on or sound an alert etc but I just don't trust the Fibaro system as it seems so flaky and cannot be relied upon for security purposes.

Decisions....decisions.....

[eliot]

foreverme said:

I have been looking for a similar requirement, however i would need some kind of way to convert the signal to somthing that could be picked up by smartthings or rfxcom..

I use a different home automation where i csn sense digital inputs and take actions.
Quick google suggests its similar with smartthings. This thread talks about using a water sensor (you would use the relay to short the water sensor)

https://community.smartthings.com/t/recommendation...

[red_slr]

eliot said:

foreverme said:

I have been looking for a similar requirement, however i would need some kind of way to convert the signal to somthing that could be picked up by smartthings or rfxcom..

I use a different home automation where i csn sense digital inputs and take actions.
Quick google suggests its similar with smartthings. This thread talks about using a water sensor (you would use the relay to short the water sensor)

https://community.smartthings.com/t/recommendation...

You could try an Everspring outdoor sensor (SP816). I have 2 and whilst they are not 100% waterproof I have had them over 18 months now no issues. They are IP44. 1 battery change on each. (AAs)

If you mask off the front of the sensor with tape you get a much more focused beam.