An alarm system called the Mighty Mule FM131 Wireless Driveway Alarm. That’s an unusual name to start. The Mighty Mule FM131 Wireless Driveway Alarm can be purchased from Amazon for $73.99 which is not a bad price for a driveway alarm.  However, the important question is, “How well does it work?”

I ordered this from Amazon and got it 4 days later. Amazon doesn’t have it in stock directly, so it is sold by a third party seller. I have Amazon Prime so I usually prefer to buy directly from Amazon but in this case I could not get it shipped from them.

Setting up the driveway alarm is rather simple. Just put the batteries in, position the sensor where you want it to be and put the receiver where you want it to sit and then test it out. At first, it didn’t seem to be working right. When I walked by the sensor, it was not going off, and I wondered is this thing working?  Then I read the description and it noted that this was mainly for detecting vehicles coming up the driveway and not small children or animals. My wife is a bit small so that explained that part. I got in my car and then had my wife listen by the receiver as I drove the car by and she gave me the thumbs up that it had worked.

I really appreciated that aspect of it. Some of the simplier driveway alarms will detect all motion going off by them. Some of them are just motion sensors with a transmitter on them to transmit an alert of any motion to the receiver. These will pick up the motion of animals and people walking by. They have their place too because sometimes you would want to know if a person is walking by.  Some of those motion detectors can also be used to protect the perimeter of your property as well. However, the tricky part is know which sensor is going off when one does go off.

However, then one day the alarm went off and I went to check on it and there was nothing there. That was odd I thought. Oh well, just a fluke. Then it happened again that day and then the next, etc. After about a week of this I was annoyed. Not so much from the sound but because now I didn’t know when someone was there or not. Too many false alarms.

So I sent this puppy packing and got my money back.  A better driveway alarm is the Dakota Wireless driveway alarm.

 Are you ready to purchase a driveway alarm system or sensor? There are several different driveway alarms you can buy. Here is a review of some of the systems with a cost breakdown. Before reviewing the systems, there are several different ways you can have an alarm for your driveway. They all depend upon what type of sensor you use.

• Driveway alarm with a motion sensor – With this system, someone or something has to pass beside the driveway motion sensor alarm.  The driveway motion sensor alarm will then send a signal to a receiver inside your house.  This is one of the more common methods of sensing when someone is coming down your driveway.  This works for both cars and people who may be walking down your driveway.
• Driveway alarm with a pressurized hose you run over with your car.  Do you remember the self service gas stations that had a hose that you drive over. When you drive over it, there is a ding sound so that the attendent knows to come out and help you.  This type of setup doesn’t work well for long driveways though.
• Camera based motion sensor – This is one of the more expensive options but is also a very good option, which I will discuss below.

Let’s now review some of these options. Here is a driveway alarm with a motion sensor. Personaly, I don’t like to spend a lot of money when buying these systems, so this first option that we will look at only costs $30 dollars. It is the 2 in 1 Motion Sensor Alarm and Chime. It comes with 2 of the systems so that you can have a bit of redundancy or better coverage. Let’s talk about how this system works. This is based off of the same principle as your motion detector for your spotlights. You place the motion detector outside somewhere along your driveway. The chime is installed somewhere in your house where you can hear it. Then when someone drives by the motion detector or someone walks by it, the chime goes off. This motion detector has two options, one which will make a chime go off like a doorbell sound and the other which will make an alarm go off. I like the feature since I would not want the alarm to go off. You don’t want to install something in your house that will be scaring your kids everytime it goes off. It’s better to have a chime and then you can check out who is in your driveway yourself.

I didn’t like this system because it is billed by Amazon as a driveway alarm, but it is not. Effectively, it is a motion sensor that is placed somewhere in your home or outside, but the chime and bells are located in the system.  Now, sometimes it is a good deterrent to let other people know that you know they are there, but I didn’t think this option was very effective in doing that. Here is the link to the product if you are interested.

This might be a better product for another application. I could see some application where you may want to scare someone away from somewhere. That would be effective. One of the reviewers from Amazon said that he used it to scare animals away from his pond. However, for the driveway alarm, this is one that you don’t want to get. Why did I include this in the review if it’s not a good product?  I’m not saying it is a bad product, but not good for the application of a driveway alarm.  It’s important to know though what different driveway alarm applications are out there though so you buy the best application for your particular problem.

Now, let’s go from the cheap solution to a more expensive solution. This next product is the Dakota Alert Wireless Motion Alert Kit-600′ Max Range motion detector. This is a long range motion detection alarm which could have several applications.  This would work well if you have a long driveway. This would work well if you had a long front lawn and you wanted to know about anything that crossed on your lawn. This is a bit expensive though so you really have to want to spend over $100 on this system.

There is a company named Chamberlain that also makes driveway sensor alarms. You can buy one of their alarm systems instead on Ebay and save about $40 dollars.  Look for a product named ” Wireless Driveway Alarm Motion Alert Sensor-DWA-8″.   It is called a driveway observer kit. The nice thing about that system is that it is expandable with up to 4 sensors and you can place it up to 1000′ feet away from the sensor. Most of those are based on line of sight or one some radio transmission, so you need to consider some of those options in placing your sensor.  Here are some key questions to ask when purchasing a driveway alarm system:

Do you have a direct line of sight to where the sensor is. This is important for some systems that have difficulty in transmitting over and around objects.  If the front of your driveway disappears around a bend in your driveway and you can’t see it, that may not work very well. Consider instead in placing the sensor closer to your house.

Can you mount the sensor up a little high to avoid cats, dogs, and other animals from sending false alarms to your system.

How much do you want to spend.

How important is this aspect of security for your property.