topic Re: Covering Arlo Pro PIR sensor in Arlo Pro

Covering Arlo Pro PIR sensor

Goody1926 — Tue, 01 May 2018 02:36:14 GMT

Has anyone had any luck partially covering the Arlo Pro PIR to reduce the sensitivity area?

I am getting really frustrated with my Arlo Pro picking up vehicles at very fringe angle of the viewing field. Yet the Arlo cannot consistently pick up a person moving across the field of view. My camera is mounted about 8 feet above the ground parallel to the side of my house and pointed along a parallel line to the front door step about 20' away. I have a somewhat busy 2 lane city street that runs parallel to the Arlo on it's right side and about 50' away. I have turned the camera in towards the house as much as possible and even then I only see 1/2 of my driveway. Yet the Arlo will trigger motion detection as a northbound vehicle passes from the back to the front of the field of view 60'-70' away. For some reason it never triggers a motion event if a southbound vehicle travels from the front to the rear of the field of view. I have tried the sensitivity level at various points and set in the 70% range right now just to pick up a person every once and awhile approaching the front door.

The only thing I figure I can do is try to tape over a part of the PIR to block it seeing these vehicles 70' away. That will probably somehow negatively impact a person walking up to my front door but it can't be much worse than it is right now. No other mounting position options either to aim at front door instead of along it and completely eliminate the street somehow.

Re: Covering Arlo Pro PIR sensor

Paul_FCCL — Tue, 01 May 2018 04:06:07 GMT

Cut out a small piece of velcro, enough to stick around camera edge covering the PIR area (botton/sides of camera). Shape it like a hood, adjust lenght based on how much view you want to block (have mine set at 1/2”). Stick it on camera around its edge (about 1/4”).

You will also need to invert/rotate camera.

I have two of my outdoor cameras setup like that.

Works great!

Re: Covering Arlo Pro PIR sensor

Paul_FCCL — Tue, 01 May 2018 05:24:47 GMT

@Paul_FCCL wrote:

....... Shape it like a hood .........

Sorry......meant more like a “visor”.

Re: Covering Arlo Pro PIR sensor

Goody1926 — Tue, 01 May 2018 12:41:39 GMT

Thank you Paul_FCCL! Sounds like you have had great success in doing this! This sounds pretty straightforward but I was wondering about the inverting of the camera once the velcro is on. It is certainly not a problem to flip the camera over on its mount so I was just curious.

Hopefully in the next day or so I will take some time to fashion the visor and maybe get the view of my driveway back without the inconvenient triggers!

Re: Covering Arlo Pro PIR sensor

Paul_FCCL — Tue, 01 May 2018 14:15:55 GMT

I will upload a pic of one of my cameras later, you’ll be able to see how the velcro visor does not affect or interfere with any type of camera mounts. Only a matter of rotating camera upside down and apply “invert on” in app video settings.

Re: Covering Arlo Pro PIR sensor

Paul_FCCL — Tue, 01 May 2018 21:20:14 GMT

Here are a couple of pics of camera with velcro visor on.

Re: Covering Arlo Pro PIR sensor

Paul_FCCL — Tue, 01 May 2018 21:24:30 GMT

Pic 2

Re: Covering Arlo Pro PIR sensor

Goody1926 — Wed, 02 May 2018 00:23:22 GMT

As they say a picture is worth a thousand words! Thank you! Next stop, velcro purchase!

Re: Covering Arlo Pro PIR sensor

storage_man — Thu, 10 May 2018 22:17:02 GMT

Now here is an enhancement that Netgear needs to see. I'm new ARLO owner and have some of these same problems. My RING Door Bell has "Motion Zones" which you can turn on or turn off. I've had a problem where the city refuse trucks would come down the street and set the RING off, not no more ! I reduced the distance that RING can use to detect Motion. Works.