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: Rarely misses
Summary: 4 Stars
While I cannot give this 5 stars because I have had a few vehicles sneak by it, it rarely misses and could be the sun's glare. It helps to be certain that you have really fresh batteries. When my batteries started to fade, it started missing vehicles like crazy. Now, it maybe only misses 1 out of 20 and that is good enough for me. It really tends to miss if something stops in front of it, rather than continuing on by it.
I really like mine because it lets me know when someone is driving up my driveway or walking toward my gate in my private driveway. Recently, we found muddy footprints around our pool and our pool gate unlatched and ajar. The trespasser has yet to be identified, but I'm ready to be notified if he returns. Also, we have a see-through iron gate to our carport, which you can see the pool through and I don't want unwelcomed kiddos hanging around snooping or thinking of jumping the gate. If they do, I want to know about it and with this, I'm sure I'll know.
Customer Review: Antenna modification made this unit work much better
Summary: 3 Stars
In order to use this product beyond 100 feet, the transmitter antenna on the sensor needs to be replaced with a LONGER wire.
If you have some DIY electronics skills, this may be an option for you instead of returning the unit to the store.
1) Open the base unit by removing the screws and remove the longer antenna wire by unplugging it from the circuit board.
2) Open the transmitter sensor and remove the shorter (6.5 inch) antenna.
3) Make another antenna of the same length as that of the LONGER antenna removed from the base unit. Use similar wire. I reused the connector from the transmitter sensor antenna by cutting it off the old short antenna.
4) Install the new longer antenna into the transmitter sensor.
5) Re-assemble both transmitter and base unit
My base unit can now be located where I want it in the house instead of next to a window.
I hope this helps someone who found this device a bit frustrating and limited.
Customer Review: Fine security addition
Summary: 5 Stars
At first, I was a bit skeptical about "just another PIR" product. Not this one. It has a narrow detection area, which greatly reduces falsing. The nicest feature is the dry contacts in the receiver, which can be used for alarm interconnect to most anything. I connected mine to a wireless doorbell transmitter, and now it signals me throughout the house and back yard. I then connected to my security camera DVR, so any activity in the driveway area starts the recording. Battery life of the transmitter is indeed measured in years, and uses inexpensive AA batteries. It is very convenient to know when the paper, mail, and delivery people are approaching the house, and comforting to know that uninvited guests will be "Reported". My cat likes it, too. True, it will not false on small animals on the ground, but she figured out that if she hops up on the hood of my pickup and sees the green internal light flash (inside the transmitter), the front door to the house will soon open!Customer Review: The OLD Reporters were very good, but the new ones are very BAD
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought the original Reporter in March 2006, 2 of them for 2 houses. They both worked great! One is still working perfectly; the other started giving us problems so we bought a replacement transmitter - it has practically NO range, and works intermittently - it will alert when nothing is there, and ignore vehicles coming down the drive.
It seems like the new company that bought the product, has replaced the board inside with cheap, UNRELIABLE resistors etc. Which is why many many reviews say the product does not work at all, and a few say the product is great. Chamberlain apparently is trying to maximize profit by using UNRELIABLE CHEAP circuit board things. CHEAP CHINESE CRAP I'd assume.
I would not recommend this product as they are building it now. Maybe if Chamberlain concentrated on a QUALITY PRODUCT USING QUALITY PARTS they'd actually have something worth buying. My advice is to stay away from this one, and use another, better manufactured, product.
Customer Review: works great, but took a while to get it working
Summary: 4 Stars
It took us quite a while to find just the right spot for this on our 500 winding, wooded foot driveway (which people routinely drive down, despite "no trespassing" and "private drive" signs)... first it was too far from the house (even though it supposedly has a 1000 ft. range or something -- perhaps the trees were an issue), and then it just didn't seem to pick things up all the time... sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't. So we fiddled with different positions, different angles, different distances from the driveway... and now it works perfectly. No more surprises, or unnoticed visitors.
Our cat sets it off, but that's fine with me, because it lets me know he's headed a little farther from the house than I want him... and of course mysterious creatures set it off in the middle of the night, but I find that kind of exciting. Now I want a camera to see who these creatures are! Very happy with this, though it took quite a bit of tweaking to get there...