Electronic Alarms and Home Security Devices - cheap radio shack alarm system

I have a cheap wireless radio shack alarm system (integrated with X10 if anyone has seen it before) that my parents bought 5 years ago for a new house they were building.

Anyways I have 2 door contacts in the house that work fine and a motion dector in the garage that is causing problems.

Sometimes when it is cold outside the motion sensor will trigger the alarm for no reason, I think it is probably the batteries not giving enough voltage because of the cold but I am not sure.

Does anyone have an experience with this type of problem with wireless alarms. I was going to buy a 6volt transformer if that is the problem but I wanted to see if anyone had any exprience before I wasted my money.

Thanks

Many passive infared motion detectors are not stable in low temperature environments. Even hardwired PIR's that are getting plenty of power from the control panel. My guess is that the problem is the environment and not the sensor. To be sure, take the motion down, bring it inside and let it get completely warm. Put it in a box or paper bag, put it in a closet and set the alarm as normal. If you still get alarms from the motion then you have a bad device, if not, you have a motion not rated for cold temperatures.

Chad

I wired it up to a 6volt transformer this weekend and so far its working good, I have noticed in the past that the alarm only starts giving false alarms after the batteries have been in there for a few weeks so I am going to leave it as is for a while and see if I still get false alarms.