martin.paige•1mo agoProlific Poster

Got a call for a 'motion sensor' that turned out to be a hamster ball

Honestly, last week I went to a house in Tempe for a false alarm check. The homeowner was sure their new pet was setting off the motion detector in the living room. Tbh, after 20 minutes of testing, we found the culprit: their hamster had escaped its cage and was rolling around in a plastic ball directly under the sensor. Ngl, I've never seen a system triggered by rodent cardio before. Anyone else had a pet cause a weird false alarm?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_riley1mo ago

It makes you wonder how many false alarms are just pets doing normal pet stuff. We had a cat that learned to jump on a bookshelf to stare at the sensor. Most people don't consider their pet's weird routines when placing detectors.

simonb921mo ago

Actually, most modern motion sensors are designed to ignore pets under a certain weight.

the_pat27d ago

Oh come on, that's giving people way too much credit. Most false alarms are from BAD sensor placement or CHEAP equipment, not crafty pets. People stick those things right above a heater vent or facing a window and then blame the cat when it goes off. I've seen setups where the sensor is literally aimed at a streetlamp through a gap in the curtains. Your cat staring at a sensor is a specific problem, sure, but the bigger issue is people not reading the manual or spending 10 seconds thinking about where to put the damn thing.