Doggy DVR Alarm Sensor

2014-01-05-13.22.20

[Martin] lives in a small village about 25km from his job in a major city. Occasionally his home alarm system will trip and he will rush home to make sure everything is okay. So he decided to buy a DVR system instead… and he turned his dog’s collar into one of the main sensors.

As you may know, DVR’s also have sensor inputs in addition to loads of video cameras. These can be very handy to tell you other things that a small video clip will not, such as moisture, humidity, temperature etc. [Martin’s] DVR has 8 sensor inputs which he has configured to be the normally open type of sensors. By using a Sharp 817 optocoupler and a Funky v3 wireless module he made one of the sensor inputs wireless.

On the other end of the Funky wireless setup is a Kinder Surprise shell attached to his dog’s collar. In addition to the wireless module, it also contains a rudimentary 2-axis shock sensor consisting of a small spring that floats over a metal pin — when moved violently (when the dog is running about) it makes contact and [Martin’s] DVR alerts him by email and sends him pictures from the system.

He suspects he’ll be getting lots of pictures of the dog getting spooked by cats wandering by.

10 thoughts on “Doggy DVR Alarm Sensor

  1. “DVR’s also have sensor inputs” you mean the alarm contact closure. I have never seen a DVR with a sensor input, only 1 or more contact closures to trigger recording when the alarm goes off.

    What models of DVR have actual sensor inputs?

    1. If you look at the first image on the project site you’ll see a spring terminal block with 8-inputs. I don’t know if DVR is the correct name for this as I’m used to hearing that used in home entertainment. But certainly this unit is a Digital Video Recorder for a closed circuit security system that also includes that set of inputs to extend the features of the hardware.

  2. Wow, pretty brilliant to use the dog as primary sensor for an alarm system. Almost don’t need any other sensors. I was lucky enough to have a dog that didn’t bark at all, but he sure was up and focused on any little movement or sound all over the house. Not sure what’s going on with DVR inputs. Maybe it’s a different DVR acronym?

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