Tried using those cheap wireless door sensors on a commercial job and regret it

Last month I put in about 20 of those no-name wireless door sensors from Amazon into a small office building downtown. Saved maybe $150 compared to the brand I usually buy. But after two weeks, the manager called me because half of them were going offline randomly. I spent a whole Saturday driving around the building with my meter trying to figure out the interference. Turns out their new Wi-Fi router setup was stepping all over the 433 MHz signal these things use. My old reliable sensors have a frequency hopping feature that avoids this issue. Learned the hard way that saving a few bucks upfront can cost you way more in time and headaches. Has anyone else run into interference problems with discount wireless gear in commercial spaces?

2 comments

2 Comments

harris.james18d ago

Did you ever find out if those cheap sensors had any kind of shielding or filtering built in? I keep wondering if the factories that make them just leave that stuff out to save a quarter per unit. Seems like the frequency hopping on the expensive ones is doing a lot more work than people give it credit for. I bet in a noisy office environment with all those routers, cordless phones, and even some alarm systems, those cheap transmitters just get drowned out completely. Maybe it's just me but I'd rather pay a little more upfront than lose a whole weekend chasing ghosts again.

evant4816d ago

Honestly I used to think cheap was fine but this makes total sense now.