I have a sliding glass door with a screen door that sometimes gets left open and lets the cats out. I want to set an alert that notifies me if both doors are left open, since either one of them would stop the cat from leaving.
I was able to attach Wyze Sense magnets to both doors with just one contact sensor in the middle, which works flawlessly when closing the doors independently.
However I was surprised that when both doors are closed (and both magnets activate the sensor’s light) the sensor reports OPEN.
It was tricky to get everything positioned right so they would work independently, but I am tempted to do this again…just to see if this was a fluke.
Can anybody tell me why this doesn’t work as anticipated?
the contact sensors work in a binary fashion. they are open or closed.
when both doors are closed the sensor does not know whether it should read open or closed as its getting signal from both doors not allowing it to read in either open or closed completely and thus reading incorrectly.
one Idea might be to install 2 sets of contact sensors.
one set would be for the screen door, and mount that high on the frame. you can even name it for the door its connected for.
and one for the glass door mounted low on the frame.
with the distance they wont interfere with each other and should work flawlessly.
you could check them both at a glance and even tell which door is open.
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The problem with using two sensors is from the alert part. There is no NOT OR AND logic for the conditions, at least not yet. I would need to use one of those operators to get an alert if both doors are left open and my cat can escape.
I actually do have a 2nd contact sensor on this door already, but from a different manufacturer (my security system). It is about 6" away from the Wyze solution and I haven’t noticed any interference from it…but I will do a 2nd test much further away.
I have read about how people can fool these contact sensors with another magnet. If people can use magnets to fool these things (two magnets on one sensor), then I don’t understand why my solution won’t work.
Wouldn’t it be due to opposing magnetic fields?
You need to make sure that your magnets are polarised the same way otherwise whey will counteract and create a null zone in-between
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Contrary to @bam, I actually think this should work. It should not matter how many magnets are pulling on the reed switch as long as they are both pulling the same direction (approaching the sensor from the same direction). But here’s a thought… have you tried flipping over one of the magnets? I’m wondering if the polarity (N/S) of the two magnets is opposite so they essentially cancel each other out.
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That’s a good catch, I am now interested to see if that works.
Good idea. I will try this again and get back to you.
I said the same 6 days ago
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I didn’t notice the email notification for your reply. Now that I’ve had a few moments to consider this, it probably won’t work in my case anyhow. I had to position those things to a millimeter in order for them to both work independently. I sense that this idea will stop them from working individually, even if it work for both doors together.
I may set this up on my desk temporarily though, just to get an answer.
I’m not sure why I didn’t see your reply before I posted mine. Sorry about the redundancy. I got to this topic late.