How do you alarm a house when you have cats?

[Davespecifico]

We've just been burgled. We didn't have the alarm on as we have cats. Is there a way to alarm a house if you have cats who roam the house?

We have an ADT alarm with “pet sensors”. It’s supposed to work on heat and movement. Something small like a cat isn’t supposed to set them off because they don’t generate enough heat. We haven’t really tested it properly since it was installed (c 20 years ago) because we always used to shut the cat in a room that didn’t have a sensor, and we haven’t had a cat now for years anyway. But I assume you can still get that type of sensor.

Ours doesn't react to the cat. No idea how it works though. It does go off the second I put one toe inside after I forgot to disable it.

You can have an alarm that covers the entry points but no sensors inside, so goes off if external doors are bashed or opened, or windows bashed (vibration detectors). Also good as you can set it once you're home for the day - good if home alone at night.

My parents have one that does t react to the cat.

I paid quite a bit extra to get mine fitted with pet sensors (Mine is a Bosch). We had quite a long conversation about where the cat tree would go and how the alarm needed to be angled 'just so', Finally they asked about the cats and I had to admit that there were none.

Thanks all. That's really helpful.

Mine has pet sensors - it's set to not go off if its senses things below a certain kg I believe (how it does it I don't know!) I think it's 10kg? We often go away and have a cat sitter pop in and it's never gone off

@Davespecifico - we've been wondering about this too as we just got a cat who jumps up to very high places. Will post back if I find anything useful.

Mine has sensors on all the doors and windows only and doesn't react to movement within the house

@maggiethecat

It's based on mass density/weight - so a cat managing to get near the sensor won't set it off

Although my cat has gotten really fat lately so I need to check whether it's 5kg (which he's definitely over!!) or 10kg I've got it set at 🤣

I got told the “pet sensors” only work with pets that don’t jump, since they work by not covering the lowest 40cm (ish) of the room.

So we have vibration sensors on all accessible doors and windows and no PIR sensors at all, except one on the landing where there is no furniture Dcat could jump on.

@minipie

It depends on the system? The good ones use passive infrared motion detection and disregard anything weighing less than a certain amount.

I don't know a single cat that stays less than 40cm off the floor - they always jump on sofas or tables etc