I have an office waiting room which is remote from the office I am
usually in (approximately 100 feet away). I need some kind of wireless
notification system which will alert me when a client enters the
waiting room. However, it needs to be a silent alert since I do not
want to be disturbed when I am with my clients.

It would be great if motion or a broken photoelectric beam in the
waiting room could activate a small light (even an LED would work) in
my office which would remain on until reset. My budget for this
project is $150 or less, but I might be willing to go slightly higher
if an ideal solution was found.

Here are some of the things I have considered:

1. I once came across a motion detector with a vibrating wireless
alert which was designed for people with hearing problems but I have
been unable to locate it again. I am not sure if it would be suitable
since I am not sure how much noise the vibration makes.

2. Someone at a Radio Shack store told me that something should be
able to be rigged up using an x10 controller (see x10.com) but I don't
have the time to sort out how x10 works (is it independent of a
computer?) or what it would take to accomplish this.

3. Because it featured a volume control, I purchased a door alert at a
hardware store which plays the Westminster chimes remotely when the
door is opened. However, the volume control does not have any affect
on the sound level as far as I can tell. This would be very annoying
if the door happened to be opened and closed a few times in
succession.

It would be alright if clients were required to perform an action
(i.e. pushing a button or flipping a switch) to activate the alert as
long as I could reset it for the next client.

Muchas gracias.

Hi there,

Our search returned the following results:

There is a website for the hearing impaired that produces all sort of
devices such as this one:
http://www.beyondhearingaids.com/Product%20Catalog/Products.asp?Product=signalers

The devices that would best suit your purpose here are the door/window
access transmitter and a receiver (the site does not specify that only
a specific receiver will work with this unit so it seems that you can
choose any of the receivers at the link above. Here is the brief
description of the door/window access transmitter:

"This door/window access transmitter consists of two parts mounted on
the door or window and the frame. When the connection is broken, it
signals the receiver."

This next link has a similar product with a transmitter and receiver.
There doesn't seem to be very many details about the products here,
but the price is somewhat better than the other unit:
http://www.phone-tty.com/PAGES/Orderform2.htm
(See "Alerting Devices" model NU204 and NU204R)

These above units are just a few devices of this type...many more are
listed here as the result of a Google search:
://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=silent+wireless+signaler&meta=
Search terms: silent wireless signaler

Also note that my colleague has found another similar device at:
http://www.marilynelectronics.com/products/signalers/index.htm

I don't want to suggest the "best" one as I do not have extensive
knowledge of these types of units, but the above information should be
more than enough for you to find the most suitable device(s) for your
environment.

Hope this helps! Please post a clarification if you need help with any
of the information above :)

answerguru-ga

While the response was somewhat helpful, I specified that the two
rooms were aproximately 100 feet away and this information was
basically ignored in the answer -- a crucial omission. Also, a direct
link to the door-window transmitter would have been appreciated.
Thank-you.

Sounds like a job for a friendly local handyman! I could rig something
up for you for within your budget out of assorted parts, for example,
if I happened to live nearby. The X10 solution sounds like serious
overkill for what you need (i.e, expensive).

if you don't mind it not staying on, you could try a door alert
designed for deaf people, such as
http://www.marilynelectronics.com/products/signalers/index.htm which
is about $35.


You plug your favorite lamp into the bottom of the 'receiver' unit and
it flashes it a few times when the button's pressed. They do a more
expensive unit (click the link at the bottom of the page for the
deluxe unit) which will send a remote signal to other units so you can
flash more than one unit at a time... that way, you could set it up so
people in the remote lobby area know you got the message!