I’ve been considering installing some outdoor motion-activated lights on the back side of the house. But it seems a shame to install anything like that if it doesn’t integrate with my 2GIG system. Are there any outdoor Z-Wave or ADC solutions here? I guess I am mostly looking for an outdoor motion sensor, but one that was already combined with a light would be cool too.
I’m not aware of any motion activated outdoor Z-Wave lights. The closest would be an outdoor light plugged into a Z-Wave lamp module or wall switch and then a separate outdoor motion detector that triggers an Alarm.com rule to turn the light on. That would be more expensive and more work then just a simple motion detector light. We have the outdoor lights and lighted street sign at our office set up that way but we don’t trigger them off a motion detector, we use an Alarm.com schedule to turn them on at sunset and off at midnight.
The PIR motion detectors in typical motion detector lights are really cheap and inaccurate but it makes sense because when they “false” the only bad thing the happens is the light comes on unnecessarily. No big deal. If you want to trigger alarms or notifications based on outdoor motion then a separate outdoor motion detector is the way to go.
Thanks Ryan. Regarding the outdoor motion detector - the only one I’ve found is “Aeon Labs Aeotec Z-Wave Multi-Sensor”. Is that the best way to go?
No, that doesn’t even work with 2GIG and putting a Z-Wave radio outdoors is asking for communication problems going through your exterior walls. Z-Wave is a low power short range technology. I’d go with a wired outdoor motion detector.
This post has some good info about outdoor motion detectors with 2GIG.