Chamberlain RWA-300R Wireless Alert System
by THE REPORTER
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Our Price: $159.00 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $74.99 (click here) Category: Tools See more product details |
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of Chamberlain RWA-300R Wireless Alert System
Customer Review: Junk!
Summary: 2 Stars
I just bought one of these things. Chamberlain now sells them. The one I bought came with a receiver and two transmitters. Okay, if you REALLY want one of these things to monitor a room inside, they will work well. The claim of 1200 foot reception range is laughable. It will pull out 100 feet from transmitter to receiver, on BRAND NEW batteries. At 75 feet, it will go through two of my garage walls and will reach the unit mounted on the back wall by a window. Thats as good as you will get, or at least as good as I got and there is NOTHING between my garage and my house except a tree that isn't in the line of transmission. By the way, a fifteen dollar Driveway Patrol unit does this with ease. It is also more consistant too. This system doesn't trip on every pass, but neither does the Driveway Patrol unit. The Driveway Patrol Unit is more consistant!
Now, as for transmitter coverage, you should be jumping up and down if you get fifteen feet out of it. I checked the spec. sheet in the instructions to see if the transmitters were set for 30 feet and they were, so count on fifteen, MAXIMUM. I called Chamberlain about this and the guy said that they are getting all kinds of complaints about the range of the sensors. They told me that this was because the ones I bought had a shorter antenna on them. They said they have some with 8" antennas on them now. Thats funny because they were the distributors who made the ones they JUST sent me, yet instead of correcting the problem before shipment and putting on longer antennas, they sent out ones with short ones in hopes that well, goodness knows what they were thinking. Mine were made this year. They offered to make it right by sending out another transmitter with a long antenna but wouldn't send out two. They will replace both but you have to pay for shipping the ones they shouldn't have shipped out, to send back to them.
The buzzer is terrible and has no volume control and the receiver is really light plastic that is probably going to break if I touch it again. The transmitters also have a habit of turning off for about fifteen seconds if you pass by them more than four times. You have to stay away from them for that time in order for them to turn back on. They stay off and no matter what you do, if you don't stop passing the beam after four times, it will not transmit or flash. Theres another irritating thing; the sensor LIGHTS UP everytime the beam is tripped. This gives away their location and existence to a theif who will probably break them when he sees them light up. There is NO stealth whatsoever!
The only saving grace to this system is that the batteries last up to two years, or so they claim, lol. The receiver plugs in to AC which saves on batteries. I have a Driveway Patrol unit that works better but I think it will drain batteries in the transmitters fast, although I have been using the same one in their transmitter for about a week and its still working, BETTER THAN this system! Their receiver has a jack for AC but its not provided with their system.
Don't pay attention to the claims of distance. Read the other reviews and you'll see the same words. If you monitor a room inside, this system is not bad and may save you from having to change batteries often. Other than that, you're better off with a fifteen dollar Driveway Patrol unit. I am not encouraging the purchase of either of these systems, but just take the advice of the people who have this system and LISTEN to them, then decide for yourself. I wouldn't suggest the use of either one of these systems as a solitary early warning system. They're just not reliable. Good luck.
Customer Review: I rate this okay, with reservations.
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought the kit and added a sensor. So, I'm using two sensors with one receiver.
The advertised range is, to say the least, optimistic. 1200-ft? Unlikely, especially as configured out of the box.
I mounted two sensors at two driveway entrances about 150-ft from where I put the receiver in the house. The reporting reliability was poor. The buzzer might have gone off 1/4 of what it should have. The sensors were sensing but the receiver wasn't getting the message.
I added 8-ft of wire (small gauge doorbell buzzer wire from Home Depot) to the receiver antenna. I looped the wire around a window frame next to the front door and the reporting reliability seemed to improve some. The buzzer might have then gone off 1/2 of what it should have.
I then added 18-inches of wire to each sensor antenna. The original antenna wire is 6-inches long. I drilled a small hole in each sensor rain cover and looped the antenna wire through the hole so it pointed horizontally off the rear of each sensor housing with 12-inches of the wire free in the air. The wire can't touch anything past the sensor, the wire has to be "free" or it doesn't work. The antenna wire also has to be horizontal and oriented perpendicular to the path to the receiver or it doesn't work.
Now, the sensors report properly nearly 100% of the time. They work well enough the buzzer fires for deer, birds and a possum that regularly visits the tree one of the sensors is mounted on. I've cleaned the spider webs off one sensor antenna wire several times as that seems to stop it from working properly when the wire is "grounded". The squirrels will bend the antenna wires down sometimes requiring you to bend the wires back horizontal again. The only other problem was reduced reporting reliability with cold weather but putting lithium batteries in seemed to fix that. One set of lithium batteries now lasts about a year.
I also wired a doorbell alarm into the receiver. The receiver's original buzzer was a bit quiet. I used a wireless doorbell from Ace. The doorbell transmitter was wired into the receiver's aux terminal and I tucked it all inside the receiver housing. The wireless doorbell ringer itself was simply plugged into a nearby electrical outlet.
I discarded the original (rather cheap) sensor mounting plate. I made a small aluminum bracket instead, attached it to a 5/16-inch lag screw and mounted each assembly in the backside of a couple of trees to hang the sensors on. Each sensor screws to each bracket with a single machine screw.
That was my experience with this thing. Everything's been up two or three years now with no further problems. I don't understand why Chamberlain came so close to a finished product without going all the way to making it well engineered. They seem to have left it up to the end-user to finish this off. With a little massaging, this is a good device to warn you someone's driving in.
Customer Review: Excellent Deer Detector
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this unit a few months ago specifically to let me know when deer are in my front yard. I mounted it to a tree 10 feet away from the salt lick/feeder which is about 70 feet from the house. When it didn't pick the deer up consistently, but was triggered by squirrels, I lowered it from about 3.5 feet to about 2 feet off the ground and pointed it very slightly above horizontal. It now triggers every time the deer come around with no false triggers from smaller animals.
One thing not mentioned in the Product Description is that the receiver unit has a relay with connectors on the side. The relay can support up to 120V 10A. This can be used to activate many other devices for various purposes. The most obvious would be a louder (or different) alarm or a lamp. However, with some imagination and a little electronics know-how, you could activate a camera or (the opposite of what I use it for) a noise maker to actually scare off the critters.
The Reporter does a good job and seems to be reliable. A friend recommended this unit and has been using it to detect deer on his property for 2 years. And, just like the manual states, he hasn't had to replace the AA batteries in the PIR sensor during that time.
One negative: About 2 months after using it, the receiver died... or so I thought. I was about to try another AC adapter, when I decided to check the 9v, back-up battery. The battery was dead. When I took the dead battery out (or replaced it with a fresh one) it worked perfectly. It seems that the B/U battery doesn't last long and if it dies, the unit can't be powered on. Solution: Do not use a B/U battery.
There may be similar devices with more features (choice of alarms, volume control), but they will cost more. For the price, I am very pleased. I'm sure if the deer knew how often I've enjoyed watching them (which is one reason I put the corn out for them) and knowing when they're around, they would be pleased with it as well!
Customer Review: Excellent Deer Detector
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this unit a few months ago specifically to let me know when deer are in my front yard. I mounted it to a tree 10 feet away from the salt lick/feeder which is about 70 feet from the house. When it didn't pick the deer up consistently, but was triggered by squirrels, I lowered it from about 3.5 feet to about 2 feet off the ground and pointed it very slightly above horizontal. It now triggers every time the deer come around with no false triggers from smaller animals.
One thing not mentioned in the Product Description is that the receiver unit has a relay with connectors on the side. The relay can support up to 120V 10A. This can be used to activate many other devices for various purposes. The most obvious would be a louder (or different) alarm or a lamp. However, with some imagination and a little electronics know-how, you could activate a camera or (the opposite of what I use it for) a noise maker to actually scare off the critters.
The Reporter does a good job and seems to be reliable. A friend recommended this unit and has been using it to detect deer on his property for 2 years. And, just like the manual states, he hasn't had to replace the AA batteries in the PIR sensor during that time.
One negative: About 2 months after using it, the receiver died... or so I thought. I was about to try another AC adapter, when I decided to check the 9v, back-up battery. The battery was dead. When I took the dead battery out (or replaced it with a fresh one) it worked perfectly. It seems that the B/U battery doesn't last long and if it dies, the unit can't be powered on. Solution: Do not use a B/U battery.
There may be similar devices with more features (choice of alarms, volume control), but they will cost more. For the price, I am very pleased. I'm sure if the deer knew how often I've enjoyed watching them (which is one reason I put the corn out for them) and knowing when they're around, they would be pleased with it as well!
Customer Review: Reporter Review
Summary: 4 Stars
I have mounted the "The Reporter" Wireless Alert System on the bottom of my mailbox to protect it from the high winds and heavy amounts of rain we have here on the NW Oregon Coast here in Nehalem, OR. The swivel mounts allows the electronic "eye" to be at "almost" the stated 45 degree angle mentioned in the instructions. Also, because the sensor is mounted a bit lower than suggested, I angled it slightly upward, again to the allowable range of the factory installed swivel system. I did this to avoid the many cats and dogs walking by at all hours of the day and night. It seems to work wonderfully. However...The distance between the sensor's eye and the first inanimate object is about 22'. I am getting enough false signals, especially at night, that I currently have to turn it off before I go to bed. This, I DO NOT want to do! The instructions, however, state that it is shipped from the factory at its highest level of detection. Because the false readings are mostly on even light windy nights I will turn the sensitivity down TOMORROW! There are only TWO settings for adjusting the sensitivity. Those are the "Factory Settings" which is "HIGH," and the other two "switch" positions, which is "LOW."......So, my hope is that the less sensitive settings are exactly what the doctor ordered. Otherwise, it does do exactly what it is supposed to do. When people walk down my 125' driveway, I'm notified when they are approximately 10' off the street. Same with oh yeah, DEER and ELK too!!! That is NOT what is causing the "False Readings" as I have stared down my driveway and watched as the base unit is beeping when NOTHING is out there at all but a bit of wind! I'm sure the lower sensitivity level are just the ticket. I WOULD recommend this product to others, and have already!