I have been getting random Tampering alerts on my 2GIG GC3 image sensor/motion detectors for the last few months. Normally, I didn’t think much of it, since the tamper alerts are very random and normally went away within 10 to 15 minutes of occurring. It never caused a serious issue other than annoyance. Until last night.
We were away, out of state, when I got a 3am notification on my phone that the image sensor/motion sense had triggered an alarm and that the authorities had been dispatched. Now mind you, this motion sensor is inside my house, which every door/window has a contact sensor and a glass break nearby. Its pretty much impossible to get inside my house first without triggering something else, let alone only triggering one of the two problematic motion sensors that has been giving me random tampering errors lately. The police found no evidence of an intruder. The camera didn’t photograph anything, other than an empty room. We are rarely away from home, so we mostly use Armed/Stay at night, instead of Armed/Away. That’s about it.
Where is the Image Sensor installed? If it is installed nearby any sources of vibration that may cause this kind of behavior.
The Image Sensor uses a gyroscopic Tamper switch to detect when it has been tampered with. The Image Sensor must be mounted to the wall and cannot be resting on a surface like a bookshelf or table. Avoid mounting near doors.
The two image sensors that report tampers are mounted to the wall in our Den area and in the downstairs basement. Both are on the same main wall, opposite sides, on different floors. So there is a common link between the two of them.
I always sensed vibration was the cause, but its hard to know what’s causing it, when its so random.
Now, from what I can understand, the incident yesterday morning was reported as a pending alarm by the image sensor, followed by an alarm 1 minute later. Could this have occurred due to vibration within the walls, leading to a tampering alert/alarm, followed by a false alarm being triggered?
A Pending alarm just means that you have Dialer Delay active for that sensor.
When a sensor has Dialer Delay active it means that the alarm signal is held for a period of time after the initial alarm before being forwarded to the central station.
ADC gets the alarm immediately and shows it as a Pending alarm, then if no disarm occurs in the dialer delay period that alarm is confirmed and sent to the central station.
If the system is armed, a sensor tamper during that time would result in a tamper alarm, correct.