Had a run of bad luck with false alarms on Wednesday

I got called back to the same house 3 times in one day because their motion sensor kept tripping from a ceiling fan in the next room. Turned out the fan was wobbling just enough to set it off through the wall. Anyone else ever had a weird false alarm trigger like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

thomas.cameron5d ago

Hang on, are we sure the fan was actually the problem here? Seems like a big assumption to make without checking the sensor itself or the wiring first. I mean, those cheap motion sensors fail all the time, especially if they're a few years old. A wobbling fan through a wall setting off a sensor sounds more like a convenient excuse than a real cause to me. Have you considered that maybe the sensitivity was just cranked up way too high, or the sensor was just faulty and needed replacing? Sometimes people look for any reason to not admit the equipment is just junk.

iris_jones894d agoMost Upvoted

So youre saying the whole thing could just be a sensor issue and not the fan at all? But if the fan was wobbling bad enough to shake the wall, isnt that still a problem even if the sensor was oversensitive? I mean, who wants a fan that vibrates like that regardless of what it sets off. What kind of distance are we talking here between the fan and the sensor anyway? Thats the real question nobody is asking.

the_robin2d ago

Honestly, thomas.cameron makes a solid point about the sensor being junk, but I've seen enough wobbly ceiling fans trick those things to know it's not that crazy. That said, you're totally right to question the wiring and sensitivity first, especially since a bad fan usually means the homeowner's got bigger issues anyway. And @iris_jones89 asking about the distance between the fan and sensor is the real key here, because if it's less than 10 feet through a lath and plaster wall, that vibration could definitely be the culprit.