TIL a customer's complaint about false alarms changed my panel placement

I had this one client last month who kept getting false alarms every time the sun hit their living room window. They blamed the motion sensor. But after three service calls I finally listened to what they were saying. Customer pointed at the panel itself. Said the blue standby light was reflecting off a glass picture frame and hitting the sensor just right at sunset. I moved the panel 18 inches to the left. Silly fix, no false alarms since. Has anyone else had a false alarm issue traced back to something dumb like a reflection or glare?

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ninah109d ago

Oh man, reflections are the worst kind of headache. I had a similar thing happen at my place with a security camera. The little red recording light bounced off a shiny vase and set the thing off every evening around 5pm. Drove me nuts for two weeks until I finally covered the vase with a dish towel. Customer was probably feeling like they were going crazy, glad you gave them credit for noticing that tiny detail. Sometimes the simplest fixes are the hardest to see through all the gear and wires.