Cat and Motion Detector

Hi Ryan - so I’ve had the system setup for nearly a month now. Overall it’s working well (thanks again for your help with the other questions I’ve had), but within the last week our 2gig motion detectors keep sending an alarm. I think this is being caused by our cat. I have set the sensors for 55lbs, low sensitivity and have them angled at 0 degrees. These sensors are marketed as pet sensitive (up to 55lbs), but it seems our 10lbs cat is setting them off. Any suggestions on how to prevent this from happening? Thanks in advance.

Our product page says “Works well with dogs under 55 lbs. Do not use with cats.” Amanda addresses that issue in the video as well.

The way pet immune PIR (passive infrared) motion detectors work is they are less sensitive to motion near the floor. Dogs under 55 lbs tend to stay near the floor. Cats jump up on furniture, counter tops, cabinets, etc… and find a way to get up into the more sensitive range of the motion detector.

It’s difficult and sometimes impossible to set up a PIR motion detector based system that won’t be triggered by cats. If you’re going to attempt it, the best approach is to position and aim the motion detectors so they aren’t pointing at anything a cat can climb up on. Even then, if the cat sees a fly or a shadow and decides to leap up in the air then it can trigger the PIR motion detector.

There are “dual technology” motion detectors such as the Honeywell 5898 that use a combination of PIR (passive infrared) and microwave to do a better job handling cats.

They’re still not guaranteed to not false in the presence of cats but they handle that problem much better than simple PIR motion detectors.

I wish I had an easier answer for you but you’ve come across one of the more difficult problems in home security alarms.

I was afraid that the answer is that there is always a risk of cats triggering the PIR, and yet PIR is likely one of the most effective ways to improve effectiveness of the alarm. With that being said I want to “test” my PIRs for a while to see if they do experience false triggers from my cats, I have them aimed in ways that hopefully the cats won’t do anything that triggers them but would like to leave them in some “monitor” mode that doesn’t trigger the alarm for a while.

I want record/history of the sensor being tripped, I just don’t want them to actually alarm. What is the best way to go about that?

Change the sensor type to “no response” in 2GIG sensor programming and turn on activity monitoring for those sensors in Alarm.com.

Later you can search the event history and filter on that sensor to see if and when it was activated. If you want you can even set up a notification to alert you when it’s activated, although that might get annoying when you’re home.