New door sensor mounting brackets (or lack thereof).

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Egon Rinderer

• November 23, 2020 14:00

I've got a tailwind at my existing house and man, what a GREAT system. I bought a complete setup for a new home I just purchased and installed it last night. I was disappointed to see the change in materials for the door sensor mounting. Gone are the old clamp-on brackets for the fixed sensor and the adjustable t-bracket for the door magnet. The former is replaced with double-sided sticky tape and the latter with a straight bracket. The old setup was super easy to get mounted perfectly in order to alight magnets and would stay put through just about anything. The new? Man, what a PAIN. Alignment is really tough. Takes MUCH longer to install. I get that it uses far less materials and therefore reduces cost, but I'd MUCH prefer to pay a bit more and get the old mounting brackets. So, while not a traditional feature request, I would absolutely ask that you bring back the old mounting brackets. 

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• Official comment

  

  Scott Riesebosch

  • November 24, 2020 21:06

  Hi Egon,

  I understand how you feel. The core issue is the way the magnetic reed sensors work. The lobes just don't work all that well when the magnet approaches the sensor from the direction of the original design. It makes it prone to problems when the door does not come all the way down - such as when snow is under the door for example.

  The new design can accommodate gaps of more than 1 inch between the magnet and the sensor and is very robust. It is completely immune to any problems with the door not quite closing all the way due to buildup of material under the door.

  Here is an article on it. You can see on pages 19 and 20 how the "lobes" of sensitivity work much better when the magnet approaches the sensor from the side.

  https://standexelectronics.com/wp-content/uploads/SME_Reed_Technology_Databook_EN.pdf

  As always, we will continue to work on improving our reliability. This change wasn't to reduce cost. In fact it didn't change cost at all because we switched the bracket material to aluminum and switched to a higher performance magnet to increase sensing distance. It was all about reliability and tolerance for a larger gap between sensor and magnet, and tolerance for the door not quite closing completely.

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