Visonic K9 pet tolerant detecor not working for me

[david17sr]

I've been interested to read that people generally seem to find that the Visonic pet tolerant detectors work well. This hasn't been my experience. I have 2 whippets which together weigh comfortably below the recommended mass yet the alarm triggers almost immediately if they are in the room. My professional installers seem baffled by the problem and have basically given up on me. The only solution seems to have been to mask off the entire bottom part of the lens with tape, which seems a pretty crude answer considering the high tech logic that is claimed by Visonic!
The only thing that I can think of is that the whippets have very short coats and so might appear hotter than a normal dog and so give a bigger signal.
Does anyone have knowledge of whether you are supposed to "tune" pet tolerant detectors by masking the beams? Or are they supposed to work "out of the box"?

 

[sparkymarka]

i think you will find the k980 is allready masked off at the bottom if you look at the lens pattern you will see a strip across the centre only. two whippets i think you would be better with a bosch tritec pet dt.

 

[TheAlarmMan]

The clue here is in the name, "pet tolerant" not pet immune.

I've used these sensors before with somewhat differing success, the installation instructions are quite specific on mounting height etc which needs to be adhered to because of the type, however I think they are quite basic, as sparkymarka has said the K980 has the bottom section of the lens is masked off providing an area below the sensor immune (around 1mtr), however above this height the sensor reacts like a normal sensor, although the box says something like up to immune up to 20kg this is based on a single pet in the masked area. If either dog jumps (front legs) on to the kitchen counter this is likely to trip.

They are a reasonably inexpensive detector and your alarm company engineers should be able to resolve this for you even as sparkymarka suggests using a better sensor but be aware no sensor is totally immune.

The way I normally use when offering customers protection with pets is use volumetric protection throughout the house (dual technology sensors) and isolate the pets into a specific area (normally the kitchen) and then using door/window contacts protecting the perimeter, for additional protection vibration detectors can be used. Your installation company should be able to advise you accordingly, if they cannot, please change to a better company.

 

[Europlex]

I don't like writing essays

 

[bernardgreen]

Europlex is correct in suggesting the segregation of pets into areas without PIR sensors is the best ( and maybe only ) way to assure pets do not trigger alarms.

A 10 Kg dog with a body temperature raised by exercise or anxiety will have a thermal image ( to a PIR sensor ) greater than that of a 20 Kg dog at normal body temperature.

An animal moving across in front of a hot radiator will create a moving cold image that will affect a PIR sensor that could be enough to trigger it.