A convo with a client's nephew changed how I wire motion sensors

Last month I was doing a retrofit over in Tacoma and the homeowner's nephew, a kid about 20, asked why I was running separate wires for each sensor instead of daisy chaining them all off one loop. I gave him the standard spiel about voltage drop and false triggers, but he pushed back with this simple sketch on his phone showing a star topology with a powered hub in the middle. I laughed it off, but after I got home I ran the numbers for a 12-sensor job and realized my way uses almost 200 feet more cable and takes an extra hour on labor. I tried it on a smaller 4-sensor install last week and it worked clean, no issues at all. Anyone else ditched the traditional chain for a hub setup and seen better callbacks on larger homes?

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1 Comment

river_bailey21mo ago

Wait, a 20 year old kid actually drew that out on his phone and you just went with it? That's wild... sounds like the younger guys are out here schooling us old timers.