Driveway Alert System By Kakoa on - Updated Sep 18, 2011
We have a long driveway at our house in which we can not see when people pull in or park. I wanted a way to know when people pull up so I was not caught off guard when someone came to the door. I have been told by many people to try this driveway doorbell system by Bunker Hill from Harbor Freight.
Many of my family and their friends have had great results with this system. I even talked to one person at the store who said they use it for their campground. No one that I have heard of has even had any problems with the distance or not alerting. The system says it works up to 400 feet away from the receiver, but we did not find this to be the case for our system. We could not get our system to ring unless the receiver and transmitter were no further than about 30 feet away from each other. We tried many different things to make it work better and nothing worked. we decided to return it. After talking to other people who have this system, we decided that we will try with another unit and hope it was just a fluke problem with the one we had.
The doorbell has two settings, quite and very loud! The loud is almost defining, but the quieter setting would have worked great in the house.
UPDATE: Since the time I wrote this review, we have bought another unit and figured out why the first one did not work when we tried it. We found out that the sensor outside has to be pointing almost directly at the unit inside. Also, there can not be more than one wall between the two units.
Second, the outside unit has to be elevated off of the ground. Because we do not have a tree or building next to the driveway, we had to place it on a stake and randomly put it next to our driveway. It looks out of place and of course everyone knows it's there now.
Lastly, because it is on a stake in the middle of nowhere, the wind gets to it easily. Even a good breeze will shake the stake and make the motion sensor go off.
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Bunker Hill 93068-0VGA
I have never heard of anything like this before- I hope your new unit will work better for you!
Great info! I think I will pass on this one!
Good to know. I'm sure it wouldn't work for our long hilly windy driveway!
Bad news and good news all in one, love it! ;)
it sounds way too sensitive. you'd eventually ignore it or shut it off if it keeps going off just from wind!
I beg to differ on your review Kakoa. First, the sensing and receiving units DO NOT have to be "pointing at" one another. They are wireless and non-directional as far as the radio frequency is concerned. Second, as far as function through walls is concerned; unless your walls are made of stone that is several feet thick, contain lead or have R.F. or metallic sheathing (such as reflective aluminum faced fiberglass insulation) the radio power of the sensor, with a good 9v battery operating within normal temperatures, should be more than sufficient to be used "UP TO 400' AWAY". (This means exactly what the quote from the MFR states: 400' being the upper limit.) I have mine approximately 80' from each other, with no fewer than 4 well insulated walls between the units (depending on if you count each sheet of drywall, then 8 walls!) and have no problems with the signal reaching the receiver. Third, Yes, the units work best located 3 or more feet off the ground. This is not only explained in the simple instructions included with the system, but should be common sense, certainly for someone who claims a university education (AKA: "Well, DUH."). The higher up you mount the sensor,(Higher being relative to the surroundings.) the greater the sensing distance, up to it's maximum, which varies with obstacles and terrain but should be a minimum of 30' straight forward. (Up to 40 degrees to either side.) Mine detects people walking not only at the end of my driveway which is 42' long, but, on chilly mornings it detects both people and cars past the driveway, the sidewalk and across both lanes of the rather wide street in front of my house. At that distance, the area of detection is narrow and someone has to pass directly in front of the sensor to make it go off, but the closer they get to the place it's mounted (in my case about 5'5" above pavement) the wider the angle of detection. At the end of my parked truck, about 27' from the unit, coverage is about 50' in width so anything coming anywhere near my property is detected. Lastly, as for your "Stake" job; If it looks out of place, yes it will be seen, try a better place, camouflage it or mount it on your house or garage facing the driveway. If the wind moves it, GET A BETTER STICK! (See AKA above). Oh, and FYI, the sensor is INFRARED not motion sensing, it "sees" heat, not motion although if it's being waved around, yeah it might detect temperature differences. Especially if the sensor array gets moved between a sunlit area and a shaded one.
I know a lady who had bad experiences with this same model. She ended up getting a completely different brand. The one she bought is still very sensitive; the wind tends to set it off at times, even a bird flying by it will set it off. The idea is great, but I wonder if there is any model that isn't so sensitive.
I like the design. great product.