Outdoor lighting and PIR sensors

[GrendelsMum]

We're putting up some outside lights in our house, and we're trying to decide whether they ought to have built in PIR sensors, or separate PIR sensors.

The only suitable light with built in PIR sensors we can find is this one:
www.johnlewis.com/231328730/Product.aspx

The PIR sensors don't look very attractive, but it does mean that we have a wider choice of lights.

We're thinking of going for some of these, but aren't sure which : www.gardentrading.co.uk/lighting/outdoor?listing_page=1&viewall=1

What do people think?

Sorry, this is a really boring question, but DH and I are going round and round in circles on it!

[Fizzylemonade]

It would depend where you are putting the lights. I have 3 lights that are all linked to one stand alone PIR.

So my house has an upside down T shaped drive, my house is actually sideways on to the road. See my terrible plan I have 2 front gardens flanking the drive, my door is in the middle.

road...garden........house..........garden
road...garden........drive ...........garden
road...garden........drive............drive
road...drive drive drive drive drive drive

So the PIR points to the entrance to the drive, but the lights are on the house and light up the drive bit where we park and exit the cars.

The porch has a separate PIR integrated light.

PIR's have a limited range of angle, mine couldn't go wide enough to pick up anyone walking up the drive until they were quite far on the drive. Our house is surrounded by mature hedges and trees so it is very dark. Hence why we have a separate PIR which we could angle.

Hope that makes sense.

[PigletJohn]

If you like that railway-station style of lamp, I think you will have more choice with separate PIRs. The combined lamps will not last forever and you will find it difficult to match them.

BTW galvanised steel wil go rusty in a few years if exposed to rain. At that price I would want stainless.

If you've only looked in shops so far, try looking at some electrical suppliers.

for example

[GrendelsMum]

thanks very much to you both. we have the same sort of problem as Fizzy, although we can now pretty much unerringly walk down our drive, through the garden and up to the house in the pitch black. We'llgo for the separate PIRs.

[PigletJohn]

I'm also keen on lamps with a dusk-to-dawn photocell. With an energy-saving 12W lamp in, they will run for about 80 hours on 14p worth of electricity.

[Fizzylemonade]

What I also meant to say is do you want all the lights to come on at the same time? That is why we have the set up that we do. All the lights on the drive light up at once, rather than in sequence, and then if someone ventures all the way up to the front door then the porch light goes on.

We have actually just changed ours to dusk till dawn using an timer switch rather than the PIR, mainly as a deterrent as my car was broken into on my drive. They used a jammer to stop the signal from my key fob locking my car so I was fortunate that there was no damage to the car from where they gained entry.

So instead of the drive looking very dark and people wondering if we have security lighting, we now light it up, helps to highlight our little CCTV cameras

[GrendelsMum]

My current thinking is to put sensors at the gates and at the doors, and then the lights all come on at once in a chain to lead you from the gate to the door or vice versa. Does that sound sensible?

I actually prefer the lights not to be on all night for security reasons (and because I don't like the light pollution) - I like to know that if the lights have gone on, there's a reason for it, IYKWIM.

Have to say that people are pretty unlikely to want to nick our car, aka the mobile compost heap...

[Fizzylemonade]

Mine are little energy efficiency ones so are more courtesy lights than security, plus having seen via the cameras how many times cats and foxes set the PIR off, we are probably saving money. As I said we side on to the road, there are mature hedges around us to so we only light up our own property, no one else.

I think having the PIR at the gate sounds like a good idea, you just have to work out the logistics of where you will run wires.