Networked (non-integrated) motion sensor?

[BlackSteve]

I'm tired of messing with camera-based motion detection. No setting is perfect, or durable-- when I achieve something that looks like it works, the seasons change and the leaves fall off the trees, or a spider weaves a web over a camera, and everything stops working again. And detecting visual field changes is really just a proxy for what I want anyway-- detecting the motion of a physical body. So, I don't want to mess with that any more.

Instead, I want to use a different technique. Perhaps a PIR sensor, perhaps one of those weak lasers used e.g. to prevent garage doors from closing on your head. Very open to other suggestions.

Importantly though, I specifically don't want to adopt someone's turnkey sensor which only integrates with their hub + camera system, unless that system does not require internet connectivity to fully function, and is open to integration with third-party components over an IP network.

The ideal item here, in my mind, is a device which:

• is low-powered + wifi-connected or POE-powered
  • POE is less good-- I have plenty of POE ports, but pulling additional cable to where I have my cameras is a challenge
• emits an event over the network when motion is detected or can be continuously polled over the network to see if there are new detection events
• encodes events in an open (or at least documented) format
  • so I can write code to connect the event to various things (play a sound, wake up a monitor, trigger the start of a recording, change threshold levels for other parts of the system, so on)

My own search has turned up only sensors for turnkey hub systems, or completely naked sensors which give only a yes/no digital signal over a single I/O pin. I don't know if parts from the former can be recycled for what I want, and while I'm sure I could eventually build what I want with the latter it seems a bit daunting.

Help? Thoughts about any of this are welcome.

 

[Lucas05]

Like you, I went looking for some easily used commercial solution that didn't tie me to some cloud based subscription scam while still not doing what I actually wanted, but I couldn't find anything. I eventually threw up my hands and just started learning how to build it myself.

I'm currently making something similar to what you described for my home setup. I'm using a series of ESP8266 based boards that connect over WiFi and attaching generic PIR sensors to them via GPIO expanders (to allow for several sensors to be served by each control board). They're programmed to send MQTT messages to a NODE-RED based setup when they detect motion. The actual logic of what to do when motion starts or stops - be that turning lights on and off, sounding alarms, sending emails, etc. is all handled in the Node-Red software.

I use BlueIris for my camera monitoring/recording. It has MQTT signaling built in, along with various URLs that can be called to activate or deactivate recording and/or alarms. You could completely disable motion detection in BlueIris and only trigger recording via Node-Red when your PIR sensors detect movement, if you wanted to go that route, or you could just let the cams do their normal thing of recording every vague movement but hook any alarms or messaging features up via Node-Red so you don't have to hear a buzzer every time a spider walks by. There are many different ways you could approach it, depending on your desired behavior for the system.

Oddly enough, one of the more annoying parts of such a project isn't even getting the software to behave itself -- it's making custom water resistant enclosures for PIR units. I've seen a few PIR units with enclosures that still have just the basic digital on/off signaling, but they tend to require AC input levels or some other odd power level that is not conducive to a system designed to be run from 12vdc adapters (the power sources I'm using for most of my devices).

 

[dmiller]

The simplest outdoor PIR is probably the zooz brand connected to a z-wave enabled hub.

I use homeseer with the blue iris plugin, which does not require an internet connection. I in addition to PIR I have pressure mats connected to the terminals of z-wave door and window sensors. Pressure mats are often ideal for sensing presence around doors.

A PIR pointing out into a large space is going to have false activation problems similar to cameras. A realistic design has to be limited.

 

[crw030]

@Lucas05 sounds like you are already doing exactly what I am hoping to do.

I have been tinkering with ESP8266 programming, and I ordered some Bosch Tri-Tech OD850 Outdoor motion detectors for exactly this purpose, but I need to make some time to tinker with a way to power them plus the ESP8266 that passes WAF. I might order a WESP8266 wince it supports POE power and direct network connection but first order of business if to get it working.

I also use node red with my esp8266 temperature and humidity sensors, and even though I record continuously, I thought it would be nice to see if Blue Iris can be triggered to leverage the emailing of clips feature after I get the detectors mounted and working.

Gratz to you, for tackling such a cool project.