PIR Light Trigger?

Cadder · 3 Oct 2022 at 02:13

We have three PIR lights coming from the same consumer unit in the garage. After a few years two of them developed faults so I replaced them. One was coming on randomly while the other was activating when triggered/sensed but flickering badly.

The replacement for the flickering light has been fine. The replacement for the randomly-activated light, however, is doing the same thing.

This makes me wonder whether the wiring for this light is compromised somehow. Another possibility I wonder about is if the camera I have fixed close to it is triggering it with its night mode IR.

Has anyone come across this issue before? It's driving us mad. It's been particularly bad tonight. I had assumed spiders crawling over the sensor but I gave it a good clean and turned the sensitivity right down - still no change.

If the camera IR could be triggering the PIR I'll look to move them apart a bit. If it's wiring I'll have to get in touch with the sparky who replaced the light and see if he'll sort it.

Semple · 3 Oct 2022 at 04:34

Can you cover the camera up for a night to see if that makes any difference.

Cadder · 3 Oct 2022 at 04:42

Semple said:
Can you cover the camera up for a night to see if that makes any difference.

I'll give that a go thank you.

Mysterae_ · 3 Oct 2022 at 11:24

Do you have a boiler flue or similar close to the sensor, even from a neighbour perhaps? The heat from that could be triggering it.

Cadder · 3 Oct 2022 at 14:07

Mysterae_ said:
Do you have a boiler flue or similar close to the sensor, even from a neighbour perhaps? The heat from that could be triggering it.

No it's quite far away and the boiler doesn't run overnight.

bazzabear · 3 Oct 2022 at 15:08

I assume the PIR was part of the light, so that got replaced too?

I once had a burglar alarm going off randomly due to a sensor in the house. Took ages to work out why - until I took the sensor apart and realised there were dozens of tiny, tiny spiders crawling around inside it (like, barely visible to the naked eye).

However, if this is an external sensor, that's unlikely because it will be weather / rain proof.

It does seem likely there's an external source.

if your two replacements are identical, and easy to get to, could you swap them over? Then if the working new one turns into the non-working new one, you know it's the environment, not the unit, to blame?

Beer_MonsterUK · 3 Oct 2022 at 15:14

I suspect it might be the IR camera triggering the light PIR. It's even in the name, Infra Red camera.....Passive Infra Red light sensor.

Cadder · 3 Oct 2022 at 15:25

Beer_MonsterUK said:
I suspect it might be the IR camera triggering the light PIR. It's even in the name, Infra Red camera.....Passive Infra Red light sensor.

That's the angle I was coming from with my line of thought. Will disable/cover the camera as recommended earlier.

@bazzabear I may well try that after the first experiment, thank you.

Cadder · 3 Oct 2022 at 19:40

Here we go... Light is at it again tonight. Camera is now plugged into a Hive smart plug. I'll let it do a few more times and then turn off the camera to see if it stops the light activating.

Cadder · 4 Oct 2022 at 22:32

Seems like it was the Camera's night vision IR setting off the light.

Camera is plugged into a Hive smart plug on a schedule now. That'll do until I get round to a permanent solution.

Thanks all for your help on this.