Unexplained door open/close despite sensor functioning properly

Support
1

One of my doors has a Yale smart lock and a Qolsys IQ DW sensor. Both have functioned perfectly for months. Today, that door sensor registered open / close activity when only my wife and I were home and neither of us were near the door.

Besides the possibly of an intruder, what would be the reason behind this false alarm happening and how can I reduce the likelihood of the error recurring?

In case it matters we have a Qolsys IQ4 panel and all sensors are wireless.

2

Here is a picture of the sensor.

PXL_20230215_234519915
PXL_20230215_2345199151920×2560 133 KB

3

So that we can assist and look into the history, what time did this occur? A rough time will still help if you can’t pinpoint it in history.

How did you find that activity? Did the panel chime and announce the door open, or are you looking at the Alarm.com history?

Does that door have any give to it when shut? Can it wiggle, even a little? Pressure differences and wind can sometimes cause movement on the door.

4

False alarm on 2/15 at 5:30p ET.

Timeline of events:

  • Wife and I were moving around the kitchen getting the dog ready to go for a walk (hence panel motion detected at 5:22p.
  • Manually unlocked garage door at 5:27p
  • Opened garage door at 5:27p
  • Both of us walked outside and to the other side of the house and were captured on our video doorbell at 5:28p (along with the dog)
  • Garage door shows false open/close at 5:30p
  • At 5:37p I checked the activity monitor to see how long we’d been outside with the dog and noticed the above activity and returned inside through the back door and began trouble shooting (hence lots of sensor activity from 5:38-5:47p.

Found the activity by coincidentally looking at the activity monitor. That door sensor is configured to chime, but we were both outside so can not confirm if it did chime.

Door is rock solid when closed with no flex / play / movement when pressed. Pressure differences / air movement could not have caused the sensor to trigger. Distance between the two halves of the sensor is about 5mm with no front-to-back or side-to-side offset.

5

Thank you, this is what I suspected, it is a common point of confusion when you are not expecting to see it.

Door sensors have a 3 minute delay in Alarm.com between when the same event will be processed in history. This avoids rapid fire activation of rules or flooded history due to sensor malfunctions or excessive opening.

What this means is if you open and close a sensor a couple times in a row what you will see in history is one open/close event, followed by one more 3 minutes later. This is totally expected.

Whether you open it twice or twenty times within the 3 minute span, it will just report one more event 3 minutes after the first.

6

Fascinating. I could not find anything about that in any online documentation so really appreciate you clarifying.