Hi all, we have an RE204 driveway sensor that’s been installed for several months. Over the past couple weeks it has reported “malfunction” six times. Each time it happens it lasts for a few hours and then comes back with no action on our part. Any clue what’s going on? I haven’t tried changing the battery. I suppose I could also make it not monitored as it is not an essential sensor but that doesn’t seem ideal.
Thanks,
Ben
I would start by opening it up and checking for ants.
Outdoor detectors like that do have a tendency to be irresistable to ants. If this is the issue it may just require some cleaning.
Heh, interesting theory. I’ll check it out after work, thanks.
No ants unfortunately (looked clean inside). Next I’ll try changing the batteries.
What is the distance between it and the panel? Have you checked the panel history to see if the malfunction has more detail listed? (Likely a supervision error, which if the sensor is operating fine otherwise may be turned off since it is an announcement sensor rather than a security one.)
The RE204 has quite a range, but it can still have signal issues depending on distance.
Cool, I didn’t know it would give me more detail, I will check when I get home. Probably ~150 feet away, and sometimes it does not trigger so I wonder about the range (although I think that has more to do with sensitivity)
It was indeed a loss of supervision. I have disabled supervision for this sensor. If I understand correctly, this just means that if it “loses contact” for some reason, I won’t know about it and it won’t announce the driveway until it comes back - is that right?
Yes, more or less. At times you can have loss of sensor supervision but standard signals still go through seemingly with no trouble. This is more common on systems with a large list of sensors.
