Aaron Parecki

So many neighbor dogs like to do their business in our unfinished driveway. Thankfully the neighbors do clean up after their dogs. But if this happens after 8pm, they have been tripping the alarm that keeps out the creepers from the yard.

So earlier this week I set up a new automation. If the cameras spot an animal in the driveway, it disarms the alarm for 5 minutes. This gives their humans enough time to clean up without tripping the alarm. Then it re-arms the alarm after.

This has significantly reduced the number of false positive alarms!

Tonight I had *three* false alarms where dog walkers picking up their dog poop from the driveway set off the siren. I feel bad when people who pick up after their dog set off the alarm because I'm glad they are being responsible! But also tonight I had two people wander in, one smoking something and the other stealing some trash.

Five alarms in one night was enough for me to attempt to fix this.

So now, if everything goes according to plan, if an animal is spotted in the driveway it will disarm the alarm for 5 minutes. That should give the nice people who pick up after their dogs enough time to do so without triggering the siren.