According to the AVMA, approximately 71.5 percent of US households have pets like dogs, cats, and birds. Homeowners that have security systems installed should consider their pets when choosing systems and placing motion sensors. Pets can accidentally trigger motion sensors and create false alarms, which can become a waste of money and time for your customers. As proactive security dealers, you can help your customers ascertain whether or not their alarm motion sensors and the placement of them is pet-friendly.
Understanding Sensor Technology
Helping your customers to fully comprehend sensor technology is an important first step in creating a pet-friendly alarm environment in the home. Having binary technology that integrates zone-reflective sensors with a PIR sensor—which identifies human versus small animal movement—will optimize your customer’s security system. With such binary technology, pets cannot trigger an alarm alert without triggering both sensors. The Pet-immune PIR motion sensor from Alula is a superior quality PIR motion sensor that has a 44-foot range featuring a 90-degree viewing field. This sensor is pet-friendly for animals weighing up to 85 pounds.
Tips on Ensuring a Pet-Friendly Alarm Environment
1. Understand Pets
You can advise your customers to pay attention to the daily habits of their pets. If a dog spends time lounging on the furniture or if a cat plays in the sunroom, your customers can have the sensors pointed in another direction. Of course, pets can be unpredictable, so this is not a foolproof method.
2. Secure Pets
A simple, more sure-fire solution to creating a pet-friendly alarm environment is to make sure that your customer’s pets are secured in a room or gated area of the home, so they cannot roam the house and set off the alarm.
3. Plan Sensor Placement
Your customers can plan out the sensor placement to ensure that their pets won’t set off the alarm. The sensors should not be aimed too low to the floor where the pets move around at ground level. Sensors should be located approximately six feet out of the reach of pets. They should be placed higher up to identify movement by people. If your customers have pets and decide to implement the best sensor placement plan, you can offer helpful advice for the DIY installations or complete the installation if they opt for the professional route. Either way, your customers can be assured that the alarm environment will be more pet-friendly.
4. Specify Arming Mode
There may be situations where the pets are too unpredictable, or your customers do not want to secure them in a room or gated area. You can suggest that they specify the arming mode when leaving the house with their pets home alone. They can arm the system with the “stay” mode, which ensures that the sensors on the windows and doors are armed but the motion detectors are off. This way pets won’t accidentally set off the alarm and cause your customers unnecessary frustration.
US fire departments answered approximately 2,889,000 false alarms in 2018. Responding to false alarms costs money. Emergency service departments and security system end users both pay these costs. When your customers have pet-friendly security systems and motion sensors installed in their homes, they’ll have peace of mind, effectively secured homes, and safe pets—while saving money and not wasting the invaluable time of emergency service personnel.
