Mighty Mule Wireless Driveway Alarm (FM231) (2-(Pack))

For 10 years I struggled with two different models of STI driveway monitors (Mighty Mule's main competitor). The first STI monitor had ongoing issues with moisture intrusion due to its design until it was barely functional. The replacement, for some unknown reason, went through batteries at a prodigious rate and suffered from fits of repeated false alarms only during dramatic temperature swings. I had to reset the sensitivity setting constantly to combat the latter. When STI’s technical support wouldn't respond to my phone and email requests for assistance with my 'less than one year old' replacement, I decided to call it a day with STI and try a Mighty Mule.At the sale price of $59.00 on Amazon, the Mighty Mule FM231 was a good buy and less than either of the two previous STI's. The Mule looks good right out of the box and the quality of materials is above average (considering the quality of most products today). I read through many of the reviews others have left and paid particular attention to individual observations for placement and installation techniques (all of which, by the way, are mentioned in the Mule's instructions. So, pay attention to them.Following are some comments that I have about my installation and (if Mighty Mule is listening) suggestions for improvements.My first observation was that the 'Electromagnetic Sensor Wand' should be more convincingly sealed on both ends, particularly where the cable is attached. Because this wand must be buried directly in the soil, it should have as much protection from water intrusion as possible. So, prior to the installation, I sealed both ends with 100% pure silicon sealant and let it cure completely before proceeding.Next, I used 1" schedule 40 PVC irrigation pipe to house the cable (not the Sensor) that runs between the Sensor and the Transmitter in order to protect it from burrowing rodents, roots, shovels etc. Where the cable exited the PVC leading to the Sensor, I butted the Sensor up to the PVC opening and filled the remaining air gap with silicon to prevent water intrusion into the PVC. Where the cable exited the PVC at the Transmitter end, I used various PVC fittings to adapt to the mounting post of the Mule. (The Mule's mounting post is of a non-standard size, so you'll need to fuss with this a bit.) Note: Even though a smaller 1" or 3/4" PVC pipe will work, the USB style connector on the end of the Sensor cable is too inflexible to make the turn in a 1" or 3/4" 90 degree PVC fitting.The Mulel's instructions tell you to leave some slack in the transmitter end of the cable by pushing it down into the mounting post in order to better facilitate disconnecting/connecting the cable from the transmitter. However, when following this advice, it was my observation that attempting to push the cable down inside the mounting post isn't possible as the interior diameter of the post is too narrow to permit the cable to coil internally. To resolve this, and to provide the necessary slack in the cable, I installed a PVC (silicon sealed) junction box between the end of my PVC run and the Mules mounting post where a loop of the transmitter cable could be stored. This way, cable slack can be easily pulled up and pushed back into the box if the transmitter head needs to be removed for service.My installation had the Sensor placed at 175' from my house, line-of-sight, with no obstructions. I used the entire length of cable which placed the transmitter at about 165'. I used Lithium batteries in the transmitter and the alarm worked perfectly upon installation on the factory default sensitivity settings.My 4 star rating for this product is based on the fact that the sensor should be more effectively sealed, the length of the transmitter cable provided is restrictive and the receiver alarm could be more manageable as it isn't loud enough.I'd suggest that Mighty Mule:- Apply a high quality, industrial grade sealant to both ends of the electromagnet- Offer an optional 10' and 20' transmitter cable extension- Redesign the receiver so the user may select from at least three different tone settings of varied duration and increased volume.Overall, I find this product well made and, so far, highly reliable.Update: May 10, 2017 - To date, it has performed exceptionally well with zero false alarms and zero failures to sound off at the appropriate time. This winter we had torrential rains and the ground was saturated for months. The design of the above ground transmitter held up well with no signs of moisture intrusion or corrosion and, presumably, the buried electromagnetic bar (that I sealed with silicon) has fared similarly.

I bought a house that is set way back in the woods up a long driveway, and worse, it's difficult to see the driveway from the house. It wasn't long before I got tired of being taken by surprise by delivery people and other visitors showing up at my door because I never saw or heard them coming up the driveway. It was also a little disturbing that people could easily come onto my property unseen. I bought this driveway alarm and it worked great at solving the problem--I needed something that would selectively react only to vehicles and not to the abundant woodland creatures, and this does exactly that. Unfortunately, about 10% of the time it would fail to respond to a vehicle driving by it. My solution was to get a second identical alarm and set both of them up at slightly different points along the driveway, so that at least one would always be triggered even if the other missed the vehicle. This did the trick, but it did mean that I had to buy and install two alarms to get the reliability I needed.The battery life is surprisingly excellent. I live in New England and assumed that lithium batteries would be required to function in the winter when temperatures can go below 0F. But it turns oout that plain old alkaline batteries work fine, and they last so long that I replace them only once a year and have never seen a low battery warning!The biggest disappointment I had was when one of the units failed after only a couple years. I quickly determined that the reason for the failure was damage to the sensor, either by weather or by wild animal activity. When I called tech support and asked if I could buy a replacement sensor, they said no, they don't sell just the sensor and I would have to buy a whole new alarm. Really? You sell an electronic product that is constantly outdoors and partly buried in the ground, and you don't sell replacement parts for it?

13 MONTH UPDATE: Replaced the lithium batteries today 13 months after we installed them. The low battery alarm & indicator did not function, but we guessed by it not working all the time that it needed new batteries. So far, so good. Still highly recommend!We are impressed so far, great for the price. I ended up ordering a 15 ft male to female USB cable on Amazon, blessed by the Mule's manufacturer who says don't add more than 25 ft. We angled the sensor about two feet from the intersection of a gravel road where one driveway goes to our rental cottage and the other goes to our house. We dug a 25' trench about 6" deep, ran the USB cable thru 1" gray electrical PVC pipe. I used electrical tape to secure the USB connections. We then buried the sensor in a sealed plastic bag at an angle, then buried the PVC encased cable, then had a curved piece of PVC at the end where we placed the pipe that came with the unit. We staked that pipe and the unit to a small post beneath a tree. Now nothing shows but that short post. Cars have come and gone today, down our driveway and to our cottage and the monitor, which is located near a window on a TV stand in our bedroom, bleeps its alert every time. The only time I got fooled and thought our Airbnb guests had arrived was when my husband was on his mower! Next time he's mowing I will turn down the volume. The distance from the sensor to the monitor is about 150 feet. Distance from sensor to driveway is about 2 ft. Everything is planted 6" deep in the PVC with all connections securely taped. Easy access to replace batteries, and I have ordered some AA Lithiums from Amazon, expected in two days. UPDATE: working great!!! love it, highly recommend! Follow our recommendations!!!! Regular AA batteries last 3 months. The alarm went off LOUDLY in middle of night to alert us to low battery. I unplugged it and it kept beeping! We inserted the lithium batteries and hopefully this won't happen again for a long time. Still works fine after 3 months and lots of rain!

Living on a farm it is nice to know when a car drives up.I had a little trouble getting it working because I turned the sensitivity up too high, after setting it to 45% on the dial, the system it has worked perfectly ever since, no false alarms, even through the cold cold - 30c temperatures we get here in Canada with the transmitter buried in 2 feet of snow.Now 2 years in, it is still running perfectly with the original batteries.Awesome product ! Highly recommended.

Hubby wanted the driveway alarm just like his Dad's which has been in use for several years. Now we know when our country neighbours are driving in, yet we can head out for a walk with the dog without triggering it. We installed in winter, so just taped to a tree rather than dug in as instructed. Had to turn down the sensitivity to accommodate this. Working great so far.

Great driveway alarm. Works great. No more false alarm. Before this one I had one of those wire less motion detector drive way alarm. About the third of the price of this one. But there were always false alarms. Animals (deer, cat, etc), branches moving in the wind and when the clouds keeps on hiding the sun intermittently, this was causing false alarms.Now with this one no more problems. Every time the alarm sound, there is a car in my driveway. I installed it about 30 feet from the road. I live on a very busy road, it is a road that lead to the US border, so there is always many cars and heavy trucks that go by. I happened to have a piece of 3 inches ABS tube with an elbow so I ran the device in the tube. I also happened to have a 4 inches PVC pipe. So I made a sleeve that slide perfectly over the ABS pipe. I just added a cover and put some holes (pointing downward) so there will be a good aeration and the rain will not enter. This way the access is very easy for maintenance and changing the batteries. I also painted it with some camouflage paint. Next summer, the grass will growth around the pipe and will help to hide it.The receptor does not sound very loud nor for very long. If you happen to sneeze while the alarm goes off, you will miss it. However there is a light that come ON and remain ON (until you reset it), to tell you the device have been triggered. Also it is possible to buy more receptors. I bought an extra one. Now I have one in my living / dinning room and another downstairs in the basement.Very handy, now I can be in my workshop in the basement without missing the delivery truck that brings me my Amazon parcels. Before that, I always hesitated to move far from my kitchen window when I expect a parcel. This is very liberating.

I have taken several months before writing a review on this product, since I have had problems with other metal sensor driveway alarms in the past. In principle the technology is wonderful. We live in the country off a fairly busy County Road with our house screened by trees about 75 feet from the roadway. A motion detector does not work in this application because of animals, heavy trucks passing and various other "ghost" positives. We then tried two other makes of metal sensor alarm with mixed results. When they worked they were clearly the right technology for our application, but they ate batteries that were hard to replace, became infested with ants (the sensors were mounted on a tree) and they also gave off false positives from tree motion and especially when the batteries were low. In addition they seemed to be orphans from the start. We were on our own making them work. So, right technology, poor product - which is obviously why they are no longer on the market! Even with their flaws we found a driveway alarm to be very valuable to alert us to vehicles entering our driveway in our rural situation.After scouring the market for other metal sensing alarms for over a year, I finally took the plunge and tried the Mighty Mule FM231 with some skepticism. After 4 or 5 months of use, I can say it is exactly what were were looking for. It uses a sensor that is buried in the lawn beside the driveway (rather than pole or tree mounted). It takes AA batteries that are easily accessible and economical to replace ( I haven't yet had to replace them). It has a sensitivity control that can be adjusted to screen out everything but passing vehicles. My experience wasn't entirely problem free. The transformer unit used to power the house alarm which came in the kit was defective, but even this turned out to be a positive experience. I had no trouble contacting a knowledgeable technical support person at the Florida headquarters of Mighty Mule and he arranged for a replacement transformer to be couriered to me at the manufacturers expense with no fuss or hassle. That is comforting!I should caution other potential buyer that I cannot comment directly on the effective range of the wireless signal from the transmitter to the house since we have a short driveway and the transmitter is less than 20 feet from the receiver in the house, but I have moved the receiver around a bit within the house and there seems to be no problem with fading signals through the triple brick walls. I would have reasonable confidence that it would work over substantially greater distances. So my conclusion is right technology, right product. I hope this helps.

I originally positioned the sensor/transmitter about 300 feet from the receiver, but there were are trees and buildings in in the way that likely interfered with the signal. I moved it to about 200 feet (there are fewer obstructions too) and it has worked fine ever since. I bought this about 4 months ago and am still on my first set of batteries. It'll be interesting to see how the batteries hold up over winter. This has been a very useful product as we frequently receive courier/mail deliveries for our home-based business and we don't have any windows facing the driveway from our shop.

Easy to set up , we did have to turn the driveway alarm a few times to get a consistent notification. After initial set up it has worked 100% of the time .Best part for me is that the ring of it doesn’t cause my 4 dogs to bark . This is great news because if one barks they all bark🙄!!!Love that I don’t have to stand at the window waiting for customers to arrive ,Worth every penny !!

I recommend purchasers may want to stay away from this product unless they have tenacity and patience.My first Mighty Mule did not work for more than one week, so I immediately returned it for a new one.Amazon was great and sent a replacement one to me right away.I installed the second one and it also did not work, worse than the first actually. I lost interest in it and just started to investigate returning it to Mighty Mule today as I have tinkered with it over the last number of months to no avail.I have now been on hold for an hour trying to find out how to return it I have been shunted from dept to dept and no one seems to know what to do because I bought through Amazon.So a long story short... you may be on your own if you buy one of these. They work poorly...I have had two.They also seem to have poor product support and certainly no place to send an email inquiry....your only hope is to hang on the phone for quite possibly hours. Which I did.I was about to give up...and planned to write off my hundred dollar investment as a bad one.But...lo and behold, Finally I got through.The last gentleman I spoke to, Gregory, at Mighty Mule was very nice, helpful and I will be getting a replacement...hopefully third times a charm.

Did not realize how much we would like this type of unit until we installed it. We live on a farm and like knowing when someone is coming into our yard as we do get a few unexpected visitors. This gives us a heads up and we can check to see who is coming into our yard. It's great for safety/security as all of our children know the alarm and will also do a quick check before the visitor is even out of their vehicle to see if they will open the door. Would recommend.

This was a replacement for a motion sensor alarm which gave constant false alarms reacting to birds, squirrels and even shadows. This unit works well 99% of the time, on VERY RARE occasions missing a vehicle. I've not yet figured out why ( our curved driveway or the corner of the garage maybe the cause) but overall we still like having it.

Works awesome! We had a movement activated one before that gave false alarms a lot, this one however doesn't give them. My only issue with it is the "reset" time between when it goes off is long. For example, if two people drive in it only goes off once or if they drive in and out fast it only goes off once.

Easy to install, works 100% all the time! It alerts my dogs to when someone comes up our country drive and they head out to investigate the visitors! If the visitor isn’t to be here, the dogs then scare them off!If it goes off when we are home, we can then check our security cameras to see who’s there!

This Wireless Driveway Alarm is excellent.We've used IR motion detection Driveway Alarms in the past, butwere dissatisfied with the high rate of false alarms. (mostly due to birds)Once we lowered the sensitivity of the sensor, the unit has not had a single false alert.Very satisfied.

Works great after spending the time to tweak it.Was getting false alarms while trying to find a location but their customer service said hot direct sunlight would cause that.Buried as per instructions and not get only the odd false alarm when a double log transport goes down the road. Even with it mounted 20ft away.Range is great for me. 200ish foot laneway through a brick house.Low battery warning is a great additional feature.

I love it, such a good idea . Is triggered only by cars. The problem I have though is the volume is too low even at max . I see ppl here saying it should be loud.I am confused.I don’t want to return it bc I like it but maybe mine is faulty.

The instructions read"Dig a hole approximately 1 ft. deep and 1 ft. long within 2 ft. and parallel to the edge of the driveway. • Place the SENSOR flat in the hole and parallel to the driveway. • Keep the SENSOR and the cable uncovered at this time." What happens if you want to get this going in the middle of a cold winter? We already have snow. I can't dig a ft deep into the earth. Can you attach the sensor above ground on a tree or pole parallel to the road?