motion alarm + robot vacuum

sven eigenbrodt shared this question ago

Need Answer

Hello,

I plan to use my zipabox as alarm system. As I already have a couple of motion sensors, I'd like to add them to the alarm partition. But I also have a robot vacuum which rolls around when I am away.

What is the best way to deal with this?

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Replies (2)

Alberto Macias ●

Hello Sven,

I will recommend you to locate your motion detector above 2 meters height, take a look at their manual, most of them explain how to deal with "Pets", usually is a combination of height, orientation and configuration. Before you arm the alarm, first make some tests experimenting with diffent sensibilities, some other sensors (like fibaro) have a configuration that tells the sensor how many motions detected should trigger a MOTION report, this can be used too.

I would recommend you to either look at the "live events" on zipabox or generate some rules that send you push notifications when detecting motion. You can send your vacuum to work and if the sensors don't detect it then make sure they will detect a person.

If you have aeotec sensors only sensibilty and blind time can be adjusted, if you have fibaro motion sensors you have more settings to play with. Last step but most important, is to configure your motion sensors as "Group" in your alarm zone configuration, I was having false alarms before using this setting due "masses of air moving" being detected as a person, read the description in the alarm configuration.

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Adrian Van Der Heijden ●

well said alberto. I definitely agree with the cross zoning. You can also add door and windows sensors, this way the motion sensors will only trigger alarms if the window or door is opened first. Big plus to the security function of the alarm panel in Zipato. Also you could have a separate partition for internal sensors, or rooms where your vacuum goes. And if you can set a specific time on your vacuum, you can disarm these partitions accordingly, or if the vacuum is "connected" maybe send a http request to zipato system turn on/off that partition when vacuum starts and stops.

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Alberto Macias ●

Separate partition is also not a bad idea. The only inconvenient is that you will have to arm a few partitions instead of one or make rules to quick arm/disarm based on a "master" partition.

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Attila Hajdu ●

I have a neato bootvac connected. I jave zipato duo sensors (2.2m), kaipule motion sensor(2.2m) zipato quad sensor (1.8m). I dont jave any cross zoning or inteligent setup at all. The robot vacum has low profile and so far (well over 2 month) even if have the vacum started every day, not only once did i receive alarm triggered.

So motion sensors seem to be immune to the vacum.

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Alberto Macias ●

I also think cross-zoning might not be required specifically for the robot vacuum, I don't have one since at home there are a lot of floor level changes so the bot won't be able to do it's job automatically without me moving it into a different level.

I recommend using cross-zoning specially if you have big windows at home or somehow air currents are generated inside the house. I use mostly fibaro sensors but I have aeotec MS6 and zipato quads, I started experimenting false alarms in the biggest room of the house which also have very big windows and sliding doors, reading the manual it says that the sensor can trigger motion due masses of air moving. I noticed the configuration in the alarm, tried it and it helped a lot.

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