How To Create A False Alarm Free Zone Without Using Video Verification.
How To Create A False Alarm Free Zone – How would SEN go about creating a false alarm free zone without using video verification to handle seasonal changes without service calls?
In the first instance, we would use video verification if we could, but we’re going to assume the issue in this application is a lack of network support, or that the existing system is older or hardwired.
It’s hard not to think that because you’re talking about seasonal changes, you have issues with sun and/or moving foliage on hot days – these are tough challenges for many sensors.
We’ve never tried anything as silly as this, but we think it might be possible to cover a target area with multiple hardwired NO or NC sensors (they all need to be either NO or NC), installed on the same zone loop, each in a different location and all of which need to go into alarm simultaneously to trigger an alarm event. This might deal with alarm events generated by the sun, but it’s much more complicated than one good quality, well-configured sensor, and you’d need to try it at home before you installed it in the field.
Moving foliage on hot days is a tougher challenge than strong sunlight between 8-10am in the morning. You could try the same approach with one sensor facing the challenging angle and the other looking back the other way – this may limit your detection area, however. Other possibilities include moving the existing sensor, shrouding the existing sensor, changing the wider angle lens on the existing sensor to a curtain lens.
Another possibility is to set up sensitivity (pulse count) for the worst-case days and to retain that config throughout the year, though it’s going to make the system less sensitive to genuine intrusion deeper into the detection zone outside of high summer.
We like the idea of creating detection layers with all layers needing to activate one after the other for an alarm event to be actioned by a monitoring station – for instance: gate, approach to property, veranda, front door and internal sensor. This sequence would require 5 sensors to activate, and only a genuine intrusion could cause it. Obviously, the sequence must be written into monitoring station procedures and interpreted by an operator – doable but probably eye-rolling.
The more I write about it, the more I want to install a quality CCTV camera with well-sorted IVA rules that will action an alarm event to a control panel and onwards to a monitoring station when it detects people or vehicles on the site.
In any case, the best solution is likely to be talking your customer into installing a very high-quality external sensor in the location you’re struggling with – even if it’s an internal application. Have the client spend some proper money.
You can learn more about a quality external sensor that’s unlikely to be triggered by sunlight here, or read more SEN news here.
“How To Create A False Alarm Free Zone Without Using Video Verification.”
