Sensor lighting is one of the few security measures that’s genuinely worth what it costs. It’s cheap, it doesn’t require a subscription, and the deterrent effect is real — most opportunistic intruders are looking for a house where nobody will notice them.
The difference between sensor lighting that works and sensor lighting that annoys everyone in the street comes down almost entirely to positioning and setup. Here’s how to get it right.
Where lights actually need to go
Think about how someone approaches a house, not about where it’s convenient to run a cable.
The front entry. The obvious one, and the one that also stops you fumbling for keys. Position it so it lights the door and the path, not so it shines into the faces of people arriving.
Side access. The gate down the side of the house is how most people get into a back yard. This is often the highest-value position on the property and it’s frequently the one that’s dark.
The rear of the house. Back doors and rear windows are out of sight from the street, which is exactly why they’re attractive.
The garage and driveway. Both for security and for the practical business of finding the keyhole with an armful of shopping.
Dark corners and blind spots. Behind sheds, between the house and the fence, anywhere with cover.
Height matters. Mount sensors around 2.5 to 3 metres. Lower and they’re easy to tamper with and cover too small an area. Higher and the sensor’s detection field is spread too thin to trigger reliably.
PIR or microwave?
Two sensing technologies, and they behave differently.
PIR (passive infrared) detects moving heat — a person or an animal crossing the detection field. It’s the standard, it’s cheap, it’s reliable, and it draws almost nothing.
Its weakness is that it detects movement across its field better than movement straight toward it. So a sensor aimed straight down a path will trigger later than one aimed across the approach. Angle it accordingly. PIR is also less sensitive in very hot weather, because the temperature contrast between a person and the background drops.
Microwave sensors emit a signal and detect changes in the reflection. More sensitive, work through some materials, and unaffected by temperature. The trade-off is that being more sensitive means more false triggers — they’ll happily detect movement through a fence or a wall you thought was blocking them.
For most homes, PIR is the right answer. Microwave is better in specific situations — large open areas, or where temperature extremes are causing PIR to under-trigger.
Dual-technology sensors require both to agree before triggering, which cuts false alarms substantially. Worth it in a position that’s been problematic.
Setting it up so it doesn’t drive everyone mad
This is where most installations fail, and it’s all in the adjustment.
Sensitivity. Turn it down until cats, possums and next door’s washing on the line stop setting it off. Melbourne has a lot of possums and they are extremely good at triggering an over-sensitive sensor at 2am.
Detection range and angle. Aim the sensor at your property, not at the footpath or the road. A light that triggers every time a car passes will be switched off within a fortnight, and it’ll irritate your neighbours long before that.
Timing. One to two minutes is right for most positions. Long enough to walk to the door, short enough that a false trigger isn’t a twenty-minute floodlight.
Lux threshold. Sets how dark it needs to be before the sensor activates. Set it properly or the light triggers on overcast afternoons.
Masking. Most decent sensors come with masks or shields to block off part of the detection field. Use them. It’s the cleanest way to stop a sensor seeing the street while still covering your driveway.
Brightness, colour and not lighting up the whole street
Brighter is not better. A very bright floodlight creates deep shadows immediately outside its beam and destroys your night vision looking at it. Several moderate lights covering the approaches beat one blinding one.
Warm white (3000K) looks far better on a house than the cold blue-white of a cheap security floodlight, and it’s plenty bright enough. The 6000K look is what makes a home look like a car park.
Aim down, not out. Light spill into a neighbour’s bedroom window is a genuine cause of disputes, and in some cases a nuisance issue. Shielded fittings aimed at the ground do the job without the argument.
Consider a dusk-to-dawn layer as well. A low-level landscape lighting scheme running gently all night, with sensor floods on top for movement, is far more pleasant to live with — and arguably a better deterrent, because a home that’s softly lit all evening reads as occupied.
What sensor lighting does and doesn’t do
It does: deter opportunists, remove the cover of darkness, make you aware of movement, and make the property safer to walk around at night.
It doesn’t: stop a determined intruder, record anything, or notify you when you’re away.
If you want the rest of that, sensor lighting is the foundation layer, not the whole answer. Cameras and alarms sit on top of it — and both benefit enormously from being installed alongside proper lighting, because a camera pointed at a dark yard produces footage of a dark yard.
If you’re going down that path, hardwired power and network cabling to camera positions is worth doing properly rather than relying on Wi-Fi and batteries.
Why it’s worth having installed
Hardwired sensor lights need a licensed electrician — they’re connected to your fixed wiring, which makes it licensed work in Victoria.
Beyond the legal position: outdoor fittings need the correct IP rating for exposure, weatherproof connections that stay weatherproof, and cable runs that are protected properly. Outdoor electrical work that’s been done casually is one of the more common faults we’re called to, usually after the first serious storm.
Solar-powered sensor lights avoid all of this and are a reasonable option for a shed or a back fence. They’re less reliable through a Melbourne winter, and the batteries need replacing every few years.
Talk to us
We install motion detector and sensor lighting across Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, and we’ll walk the property with you before quoting — because where the lights go matters far more than what they cost.
Registered Master Electrician. Over 200 five-star Google reviews. Lifetime workmanship warranty.
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