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: Great investment
Summary: 5 Stars
I actually bought several of these units - one for myself and others to give as gifts.
Personally, I initially just wanted to use this to protect our Christmas yard decorations from vandals. I figured if anyone was messing with our expensive decorations in the middle of the night the Wireless Reporter would warn us. Since then though, we now have it protecting our cars and it gives us great piece of mind. As a bonus, it lets us know when other cars pull into our driveway (60 seconds to throw on a robe before unexpected guests ring the doorbell) and the mailman even sets it off letting us know the daily mail has arrived.
We gave two additional units to relatives that live in rural areas with long driveways. This lets them know when guests arrive and their mailbox is so far away it also alerts them to new mail. Additionally, criminals often lurk on these properties trying to steal trailors and lawn equipment. The Reporter is a great way of letting them know when they have uninvited guests.
We added 3-more sensors to protect all four sides of our home from burglars, peeping toms and to make sure our teenagers are not sneaking in/out of the house.
We get a couple of false hits on one sensor. But, we narrowed it down to the cause being the sun hitting the sensor just right in the evening. So. we just adjusted the sensor and no more problems.
I highly recommend these units and they are far cheaper on Amazon than Radio Shack, etc.
The range is great too. I tested ours up to 6 houses down and it did fine!
This means you can leave your receiver with a neighbor when you go out of town to help monitor your home while you are away.
Customer Review: My Advice: Buy at your own risk
Summary: 1 Stars
First just a comment: I read through all of the reviews and I am very surprised at the level of difference in reviews. Most products have a center of gravity and then and few higher and lower. This product seems to either work perfectly or not at all. So I would say buyer be ware. I get very cautious when I see people using all caps or using words like Perfect, Meets ALL my expectations or Works Exactly as advertised. These are seldom true evaluations.
For me personally, I received this as a gift for Christmas 2007, we tried several different locations along my 160' drive with the same results. The alarm would work once and then would continue to ring constantly. I would have to remove the batteries from the transmitter to get it to stop.
I did this about a dozen times and in 6 different locations. I thought I finally had it fixed and placed where nothing would interfer with the sensor and then two nights later we had a little windy weather and off it went again. I muted the buzzer and an hour later it was still going off. I turned off the reciever and over 24 hours later when I got home from work the next day the dang thing was still buzzing. There was no longer any wind. Just so you know there is a difference in tone it makes for a low battery compared to the buzzer noise made when the transmiter sets off the reciever. So it wasn't the battery tone I was hearing.
I have trouble understanding how some people are sooo extremely happy with their units. I have to agree with another reviewer who feels the quality control must be poor. It is the only explination for the vast difference, unless the highly positive reviews are untrue.
Buy at your own risk, it's going to be a gamble.
Customer Review: Does It's Job Well
Summary: 4 Stars
The Chamberlain Wireless Alert System #RWA-300R performs as expected. It is a bit pricey for what it does but it's one of the best options out there. The cheaper versions I have run across are junk. The nice advantage of this particular unit is the relay built in so you can wire it to an external alarm such as a 2nd door bell chime, light, DVR, or buzzer. I have purchased two of these units to date. The first one was for work to monitor when anyone entered the front door after hours. I wired this one up to an external alarm and strobe light to alert people in the plant when someone entered the plant. I am very pleased with the range of this product working at over 200 feet flawlessly. Battery life is very good too. The second unit I purchased for my home to monitor any activity in my driveway at night time. So far it has worked flawlessly.
There are only a couple of negatives to note. 1st is there is no obvious way to disable the light that comes on when the remote sensor detects motion. You will have to disassemble the sensor and modify it yourself if you wish this light to remain off. If a person wanted to covertly place this sensor it's position would surely be given away at night time when it was triggered. The other negative about this product is that it doesn't detect motion coming towards it very well. It is designed to be placed "across" (perpendicular) the path of traffic. If you have no place to mount it "next to" your driveway you may be disappointed with it's performance. Mounting it above your garages may leave you disappointed.
To sum up this product I would recommend it to friends and family and would not hesitate to purchase another one.
Customer Review: Disappointed!
Summary: 2 Stars
Ordering and shipping was efficient, received one system plus and extra sensor on the date estimated. I read all instructions, installed new batteries and set up the sensors for testing. Both sensors would not detect my body unless I passed within about 10'. The base station alarm isn't very loud, but would have been adequate next to my bed to wake me at night. I carried the base station in my hand, powered by installing a 9V battery in it, so range to sensor could not have been an issue. Both base and sensor were outside, direct line of sight, nothing but air between them. Still unless I passed within 10' the unit would not alarm. Am returning the unit promptly. Additional info: There was quite a bit of screwing-assembly required, and the whole system seemed pretty cheaply made but of durable looking plastic. I'm in southern New Mexico, and it's probably 90-100 degrees out so I wonder if background heat interferes with passive infrared detection? I bought a wireless motion-activated chime/alarm from Lowe's manufactured by Style Selections it detects much better, at least 30' for both cars and people, and it was slightly less expensive. However, its signal to base station range isn't enough (about 60') to reach my bedroom from the over-garage-door mounted position. That's why I bought this Chamberlain, but unfortunately it doesn't detect me over 10'! The Lowe's device has trouble sensing the huge mail truck that pulls up side ways to the mail box if the outside temperature is very hot. Maybe object and background temperature contrast is vital to effective detection with PIR sensors? Any engineers out there?Customer Review: Old vs Newer units
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought one of these units about 2 years ago and it has worked fine ever since with the transmitter about 250' from the receiver.
About a month ago I bought another transmitter and placed it about 190' from the receiver but could not get it to trigger the receiver even though I could see the green light in the transmitter window blink as I walked in front of the unit. It was sensing me but the transmitted signal wasn't being received. I did a lot of testing and concluded that about 120' was the maximum range I could get from this second transmitter.
I called the company, now Chamberlain, and found out that after Chamberlain acquired the original company around mid-2007 I think, they made changes in the design which greatly reduced the range. They still advertise a 900' range but in my opinion that is a fantasy. They sent me another transmitter (my third now) but I had the same result as with the second one; unsatisfactory range.
If you look at the dates of all the comments here you'll notice that the earlier ones give decidedly better reviews than the more recent ones when the reviewer was interested in long range.
It's too bad because except for the range limitation, this is a fine unit. The batteries last for a couple of years; you can have up to 4 transmitters on a single receiver; you can put an auxiliary bell on the receiver to ring in another room; you can have multiple receivers on the same transmitters. Lots of good stuff. If your range of interest is 100' or so then this is a nice unit. At 200' it probably won't work.