Driveway alarms; do they work?

I did the HF cheap system.

Its like 18 bucks but goes on sale for half that.

Good to 300'.

Also did the Cobra Camera system also HF....The 4 camera ( only comes with 2) The one WITH the Moniter screen.

Works good for what it is and the App to smart phone is working.

I'm sure there is better...but in a pinch they are OK.


I hear Costco has some set up thats good....I hate that place and will likely never return.

my02

Dan in Oregon

The Chamberlin sounds like it wouldn't be any better than the Harbor Freight unit which costs much less.

Gates are better!

I have one of the HF units I bought on sale for $10. It will detect ANY movement so may not be good for a driveway sensor if you have a lot of critter traffic. You might could mount on a pole and aim it high enough to make it work. I use it when I have an armadillo digging up the yard to detect when it shows up. I might try mounting it on my inside keypad post to see if it works without a bunch of false alarms but it would only go off when the wife comes and goes.

I had these out in WA and now have them here on the new house in PA. I got the base with dectector $179 and an extra detector $119. They are awesome. When something passes the outer one probably about 1/4 mile out it goes “Alert Zone 2” then when something crosses the inner one at the edge of the heavy woods, about 100yds it goes “Alert zone 1”. You can set up to 4 zones they also have magnetic sensors you can bury under the drive and they have a mobile receiver etc. the base can handle 4 senors.

They also sell a fake bird house to put the detector in. Note the antenna hole. They use a black rubber ducky antenna on the detectors now.

They have other cool stuff like a gizmo that tells you when someone opens your mailbox, etc.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FJ9S0W2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Captain K said:

Just installed 1/4 Mille version of guardline driveway alarm. Works great. It is expandable.

https://www.guardlinesecurity.com

Click to expand...

This is the only reliable drive alarm I've ever found that will work from our gate to the house (exactly 600' line of sight). I need to move the sensor above the fence to get it in the clear, when we have wet or drizzly conditions it doesn't work, I suspect the signal gets attenuated too much due to the moisture and fence proximity. I installed it two or three years ago.

Oh, I've never had a false alarm with this but it looks down and across from our gate entrance.

Oh, (#2) - I tried a Dakota alert and sent it back to Amazon. Wouldn't work at 600'.

Pretty cool that an 8.5 year old thread was revitalized!! :good2: :laugh:


I had a Mighty Mule magnetic driveway alarm that was a piece of crap.

My Harbor Freight alarms were triggered by shadows.

I've had good luck from my Dakota Alerts! I've got the shorter range system (1000' I think) and it works fine several hundred feet from the house, even with the receiver in my basement office.

I've also read good things on another forum about the Guardline systems. They supposedly have great customer service.

mark02tj said:

Pretty cool that an 8.5 year old thread was revitalized!! :good2: :laugh:

I've had good luck from my Dakota Alerts! I've got the shorter range system (1000' I think) and it works fine several hundred feet from the house, even with the receiver in my basement office.

Click to expand...

We also have had good luck with the Dakota Alert system aka, the Dave Detector (Dave is our UPS driver.) It is the one with the probe buried in the road that only detects ferrous objects. I can set it off with the wheelbarrow, rake, shovel, etc. The good news is that deer, griz, coyotes, jack rabbits, etc do not set it off as they are most active when we are trying to sleep. A power 'blip' will cause the receiver to go off. The one time it woke us at 1AM, I decided enough was enough. Now we power the receiver in the house with one of these and not the supplied wall wart. Problem solved. Even the tech guy at Dakota Alert thought it was a good solution.

We have a 2nd receiver in the garage. It just runs off the wall wart as I have not (yet) been sent out to sleep with the tractor. :kidw_truck_smiley:

mjncad said:

Northern Tool has Chamberlain and Mighty Mule driveway alarm systems.

Chamberlain Wireless Motion Alert System, Model# CWA2000 | Motion Detection | Northern Tool + Equipment

Click to expand...

I have had the Chamberlain system for over 6 years and it has proven to be very reliable. The battery life is very good. I've never had them go dead on me but I change them out once per year as a preventative measure.

Roger47 said:

We also have had good luck with the Dakota Alert system aka, the Dave Detector (Dave is our UPS driver.) It is the one with the probe buried in the road that only detects ferrous objects. I can set it off with the wheelbarrow, rake, shovel, etc. The good news is that deer, griz, coyotes, jack rabbits, etc do not set it off as they are most active when we are trying to sleep. A power 'blip' will cause the receiver to go off. The one time it woke us at 1AM, I decided enough was enough. Now we power the receiver in the house with one of these and not the supplied wall wart. Problem solved. Even the tech guy at Dakota Alert thought it was a good solution.

We have a 2nd receiver in the garage. It just runs off the wall wart as I have not (yet) been sent out to sleep with the tractor. :kidw_truck_smiley:

Click to expand...

This is the issue for me - a standard motion detector would drive me nuts as there is constant wildlife moving around here.

Another thing with motion sensors is not being able to limit the range - at least I don’t think they will do what I want. I would set the sensor on a post alongside my driveway and want it only to sense directly in front of sensor - not 30’ or so beyond.

A gate would be my first solution and want one in the worst way but I can’t find a reasonable way to sink gate posts into solid shale. The end of my driveway is made up of 10’-12’ deep shale to build it up to road level.

I have been using the Mighty Mule units for 4 years and am very satisfied with them. I have two of them installed and they trigger the same receiver in the house. The only problem I have with them is that the receiver sounds are very high frequency and as a lot of men are as they get older, they lose the ability to hear high frequencies. I fixed that by setting the receiver inside a box with a microphone to a larger speaker. These units require you to bury a sensing rod along the driveway, therefore they do not pick up anything except traffic on the driveway.

I previously had an infrared unit that was constantly giving false alarms, usually from wildlife, even birds. I used to think my current one was giving an occasional false alarm until I installed my security camera and discovered that occasionally someone would use my long circle driveway as a turnaround and be gone before I could get to where I could look outside. They are mostly people pulling horse trailers and those I do not mind. Others I am not happy about. I suspect they are just nosy. There is a big equine place about a mile north of me and I suspect a lot of those come from there where they miss the turn to get over to the major highway. In fact, that happened just recently in the late evening after dark. He pulled off to the side of the road after he missed the turn. I pulled alongside of him and asked him if he missed the turn and he said he did. So, I told him to follow me home and he could use my long circle driveway to turn around. He stopped long enough during his turnaround to thank me for the help. I pull a 31ft gooseneck dually flatbed so I can sympathize with them.

One final note. Do not buy a Mighty Mule from Northern Tool as I did my first one. They are much higher priced. Shop around for a better pricing.

Dave

Roger47 said:

We also have had good luck with the Dakota Alert system aka, the Dave Detector (Dave is our UPS driver.) It is the one with the probe buried in the road that only detects ferrous objects. I can set it off with the wheelbarrow, rake, shovel, etc. The good news is that deer, griz, coyotes, jack rabbits, etc do not set it off as they are most active when we are trying to sleep. A power 'blip' will cause the receiver to go off. The one time it woke us at 1AM, I decided enough was enough. Now we power the receiver in the house with one of these and not the supplied wall wart. Problem solved. Even the tech guy at Dakota Alert thought it was a good solution.

We have a 2nd receiver in the garage. It just runs off the wall wart as I have not (yet) been sent out to sleep with the tractor. :kidw_truck_smiley:

Click to expand...

I have the same Dakota alert in my driveway, it's sensitive enough it will alarm when the neighbor's dog comes down the driveway to pee on my gate keypad...detects the buckle or leash loop on his collar. I have receivers in the barn, my shop, the garage, the kitchen, the master bath and my office. One oddity is it works as a pretty good lightening detector if the lightening is within a couple of miles. I've had to turn off receivers a couple of times during a good thunderstorm.

trboxman said:

I have the same Dakota alert in my driveway, it's sensitive enough it will alarm when the neighbor's dog comes down the driveway to pee on my gate keypad...detects the buckle or leash loop on his collar. I have receivers in the barn, my shop, the garage, the kitchen, the master bath and my office. One oddity is it works as a pretty good lightening detector if the lightening is within a couple of miles. I've had to turn off receivers a couple of times during a good thunderstorm.

Click to expand...

Oh, yeah. I forgot about the lightning. That sets it off like you said.

You could offer the to buy the neighbor's dog a new collar with brass, or other non-ferrous, hardware. Be worth testing first, though.