Driveway and Door

I’ve been tossing around getting something setup for my front door and for my driveway. I have two outdoor wyze cams and just in case, one in a window. I want the outside lights to turn on when car pulls in the driveway, or someone walks up. All of my automations are set up through node red. I have some extra motion sensors, but not really any good place to put them that would keep them shielded from the elements. I know this is a common thing, so I’d like to see what others are doing. To cross this obstacle. Here is a photo of the front of my house so there is perspective. Any ideas are welcome.

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Not sure if you can hook into IFTTT but you can probably use that to trigger events if motion is detected on the wyze cams? That is probably the easiest with minimum investment.

I personally use the Homeseer hs-fls100+ to do this around my house and it works great. Mainly to alert me of other animals outside in case I have to let out the dog. We get a lot of raccoons and skunks. However those won’t work with your lights, they are made for a floodlight setup.

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How about a microwave motion sensor in a weatherproof housing? I haven’t looked to see if there are any Zxxxxxx devices but I know it could be hooked up with an ESP board and, with all your contacts, I’m certain you know someone who’d be willing to set one up for you.

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I use cameras for this function. I have POE cameras looking out over the front driveways (circle drive). Those are feeding into Blue Iris currently. I’ve looked into other systems but I keep going back to using Blue Iris. Blue Iris then sends a HTTP event to my system on motion events.

All local. Automated lights, TTS notification about the motion and it’s all recorded.

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I’ve heard of using Blue Iris with DeepStack, never tried it but it sounds interesting.

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If you want to use your Wyze cams there’s this:
Wyze Cam RTSP

The old RTSP firmware was very unstable for me, so I removed it from all of my cameras. I haven’t heard how the new release is treating people. I really only want it for my battery powered outdoor cams. (Hubby wouldn’t let me get anything wired. I’ll be broaching that subject at some point with him)

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Can someone look at this for me?

I use Hue and Zooz outdoor motion sensor for driveway and foot paths. They both work well, and both can withstand direct element exposure.

The Zooz Outdoor Motion is Z-Wave, and a bit big, but has a swivel based mount that allows you to pivot it (mine are mounted at the “elbow” of the gutters facing down, and noone sees them up there)

The Hue Outdoor Motion is Zigbee. It’s more compact but only faces directly forward no tilt or turning it (came with some tilted mounting bracket I think)

My biggest issue with them is the dang squirrels setting them off even at the lowest setting. Oh well at least the work for everyone else too.

I have one as well. If you go this route, I recommend using the USB hardwire option that comes with it instead of batteries. Mine chewed threw batteries when I first got it. Also, make sure you get version 2 if you order one. I ordered one from Amazon shortly after Ver2 was released and I got Ver1. SmartestHouse would only be selling Ver 2 now. Ver2 allows you to change settings thru device settings in hub. I can only adjust using physical dials on device.

Wow that is way different from my experience. Make sure you turn your dials from test mode, or they will send events all day. They should only send motion after dusk. I’ve had mine for about 6 months (V1) and have never changed the batteries.

I did adjust dials and it’s hardwired now so it’s moot.

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Yah, that’s my problem. No power where they need to be installed.

Is there an independent driver for the zooz? If it wasn’t supported before 135 I probably can’t use it unless there is a driver that I can manually load. One of those little hurdles I have to jump.

Checked the HE threads and it was release with 2.0 in 2018 so you should be fine. or…

This seem to be a driver in progress (commit), maybe? Not great with how github works

Might be worth a shot. He has one for ST as well if that is good enough.

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Then you don’t want the ESP idea either.

As mentioned above i use blue iris and the motion detection within it to send a http command back to HE to turn a couple of lights on. It’s also been really rock solid aswell.

Not a fun thing but worth it. Run some cabling for POE. It’s worth it.

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TBH in that house it should not be to bad. Looks like you have a decent attic crawl space (consideration others), and could easily come out the soffits. Crab a 25" fish wire push in from the soffit outside to the attic space, then pull your wire down. Even with vaulted ceilings the fish tape will be stuck in the joist bay and go up to meet you.

But the battery powered Zooz has a higher SAF for now :wink:

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Hue outdoor sensors!

BAH… send him on a fishing trip and get it DONE! :slight_smile: I ran the wire and drilled the holes when my wife went on a camping trip with my daughter LOL!!!

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