Orbit 62100 Yard Enforcer Motion-Activated Sprinkler

The media could not be loaded. The Yard Enforcer for the win! My dogs decided that they don’t like to get their feet wet in the grass so they were poohing in my Colorado River rock by my pool. The rocks have landscaping paper underneath and the Pooh had no where to go. As you can imagine this was no bueno. I had to come up with a solution and this was a great option. I used the included bracket to lower the sensor because I have small dogs. I bought three of these and have set them up in three strategic locations where they were entering the river rock to use the restroom. Needless to say, the dogs have decided they would rather get their feet wet than their entire body Wet. These things make a good amount of noise when they go off and usually startle them. They are learning where they can go and where they can’t. I no longer have a nasty smell and a fly problem around my beds. So far these are working perfectly, and I am very very pleased. It took me a bit of finagling to get them position correctly. I’m pretty handy and felt like I could get them set up without having to read the directions or watch any videos, but I was wrong. A trip to YouTube and 15 minutes later I understood how the motion sensors worked and set them up accordingly now everything works flawless.

I put this together (frankly, it’s in a lot of pieces and requires more assembly than it should) and I used silicone faucet cartridge assembly type grease on all the seals and assembly points. It has not leaked a drop. The plastics are not great quality, so do yourself a favor and use the silicone grease, any hardware store has it.It is very sensitive, and has a wide arc/range- you don’t have to be anywhere near the front to trigger it. I think it’s 80 degrees or so. When it fires, it will splatter you even if you are behind it. Because it apparently needs to sense both heat and movement, such as with a moving critter, it does not fire with waving branches on a breezy day, and that’s very good- my yard is full of things that move in the wind. The intact Tom cat who has drenched my pool screens with foul-smelling pee nightly for months (as well as screaming and howling at 3am routinely right outside my bedroom window) got a face full of water and hit my wooden fence scrambling to escape with enough force that it sounded like an adult person climbing over. He made one more attempt the next night with similar results. I left it up a week and now set it only periodically just in case. The cat has not been back, nor am I hearing the howling in nearby yards, so I assume he was sufficiently impressed to choose new territory.Make sure your hose is durable - cracking the tap just a little does NOT limit pressure, only flow. If your house has high pressure such as mine (pool pressure) buy a reducer. A burst hose at 1am that you don’t find for 8 hours will lose a lot of water. Having the tap on less than full will reduce what you lose if it bursts, but again, simple physics dictate that it won’t reduce the pressure and make a burst hose less likely. Make sure the tap is on enough that you get a good strong and long firing- you want distance since the sensor will pick up the critter quite a ways from the unit. A good soaking is most likely to help the critter find another yard to prowl, rather than water that doesn’t reach them at all and just makes a lot of noise. If you are looking for an intact male cat to ruin your screen enclosure and wake you at 3am, I no longer have one to loan you.

*Update: Has been 10 months of use. Leakage is very minimal and we haven't noticed a big change in our water bill. However, two months ago we had to move the sprinkler from next to the garage door to about 8' down the driveway because of the unreliability of the "NIGHT" setting. Delivery drivers and we were getting sprayed when the sun was fully up or the light was still bright (cloudy at 4pm...you're getting sprayed; 8:30 a.m. as the sun peaking through but still bright light...sprayed). Moving it meant we could alter the direction, so that even when you pull into the driveway, you can pull up near the garage and access the sidewalk from the garage to the front porch without getting yourself wet. Your car however will get sprayed. The new location is inside a flower bed 30' from the road and set to spray 180 degrees with the sensor still pointed Eastward at the driveway/road to get any dogs or cats (or nighttime trespassers-which is great when you're on vacation or work trips) walking onto our property. The trick is that at 30', every vehicle that passes sets off the sprinkler. So our water usage is up. That's not good. I'm not sure what the solution is. And with holiday deliveries, the drivers are coming well after dark, and if they park in the road and run a package up, they are getting sprayed, so we may just have to turn it off until after the first of January. The sprinkler has cut down significantly on nighttime visits of off leash cats and dogs.I just wish the nighttime sensor was more accurate for "darkness". And I wish that vehicles were not setting it off. Note: we have not yet changed our original batteries from February and it does go off at least once a day, numerous times with the new location-that's a good thing.If only folks would respect their neighbors and obey the leash laws (and picking up poops!).****************************Have been using this product about a month on a set of new batteries. Have it set to operate at NIGHT. We have rude neighbors who do not follow the leash laws and allow dogs and cats to roam free. This purchase was to prevent dogs and cats from pooping and peeing all over our driveway and adjacent landscaping. Although they come at all hours, we cannot have this triggering during the day as it will "shoot" all delivery drivers, guests and us coming and going. So we chose NIGHT. Unfortunately, the night sensor doesn't work well. For example it is 8:30 a.m., the sun is fully up, and the sprinkler is still activating. The sensor is pointed EAST to get the first light of day. Just this morning, it went off with the garage door, my dog and I were sprayed twice-coming and going, "something" was sprayed before our walk because everything was wet so I am anxious to check the Wildlife Cam footage. So far only one delivery driver has said he was scared when it sprayed him for a morning delivery. It was a cloudy morning before storms so it goes off then too. There is no way to set the device to, let's say, run for 8 , 10, or 12 hours after dark. If it had the capability to be hooked up to electrical then it would be easy to have it connected to a timer such as we use for our landscape lights.You'll also need a heavy duty hose. Our first hose blew the side out after 1 day. The shortest heavy duty hose the home supply had was 25'.I have been very worried about water pressure build-up causing a leak at the house or the hose end. We have the water pressure turned on "just" enough to allow the sprinkler to operate. So far it is okay, once we double checked our gaskets in the hose. We have a double head connector at the house. One side goes to the Yard Enforcer. The other side allows us to wash the car or water the flowers, etc. HOWEVER, if you use your water outlet to do anything else other than the Yard Enforcer, then you have to try and remember how far to leave the water spigot "on" when you are through so that enough water operates the Yard Enforcer. If there isn't enough, the spray comes out a big flaccid and won't go far. Too much "on" and you risk leaks at the house spigot or hose end. I would like to hope we can change the behavior of the cats and dogs that are using our driveway, car tires, landscaping as their daily toilet and eventually put the Enforcer away for a while.Of course, the BEST option is that people wouldn't be so lazy, rude and un-law abiding as to just let their "pets" run free. We've spent over $1000 on devices and fences (as allowed..we are restricted) and this is just another attempt to save our sanity.