topic Re: Activity zones set and no audio but alerts all the time in Arlo Pro 5S 2K

Activity zones set and no audio but alerts all the time

retitamas — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 08:01:20 GMT

Dear Community,

I have set activity zones and no alarm for audio but against these settings, there are a lot of alarm outside! the zones (nőt in the edge) and audio also... It is quite annoying and of course battery draining too.

What van be the problem?

Arlo Pro 5 cams.

Re: Activity zones set and no audio but alerts all the time

jguerdat — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 14:11:12 GMT

A screenshot of your camera rule may be useful. By "alarm", are you referring to the camera siren or to notifications sent due to audio detection? Have you disabled audio detection or do you need it? I'm not sure audio detection has anything to do with activity zones since it just uses the camera's microphone, not the video.

Re: Activity zones set and no audio but alerts all the time

retitamas — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 17:47:46 GMT

As you can see there is no audio alert set. No siren at all. Not related with motion detection of course, that is another problem: there is activity zone set for motion, but no effect. The motion detection is from all of the camera view...

Re: Activity zones set and no audio but alerts all the time

StephenB — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 19:16:48 GMT

FWIW. I believe the activity zones set for the camera are applied for both audio and motion triggers. And also when the recording is cross-triggered from a different camera.

Re: Activity zones set and no audio but alerts all the time

retitamas — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 21:23:08 GMT

OK but how can the camera distinghish or locate a noise/sound is coming from the activity zone or not?

What is the audio detection OFF for?

And as I mentioned, there is alarm off from the zone too...

I am really confused, the settings are correct, but not the required result is coming.

Re: Activity zones set and no audio but alerts all the time

StephenB — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 22:25:58 GMT

@retitamas wrote:

OK but how can the camera distinghish or locate a noise/sound is coming from the activity zone or not?

Activity Zone processing when on battery power is done in the Arlo Cloud, not the camera. The Pro 5s will do activity zone processing when it is on AC power (not all Arlo cameras will).

But to answer your question: The system doesn't ever attempt to locate the sound. And it doesn't attempt to locate what actually triggered the PIR sensor either. All it does is look for motion in the zone when the camera is triggered (no matter how it was triggered). If it doesn't find motion inside the zone, then the recording and notification is suppressed. The location of the actual trigger doesn't matter.

@retitamas wrote:

What is the audio detection OFF for?

It disables audio detection. That doesn't seem to be working with your camera.

I suggest going into the smart notification settings for the camera, and see if CO/Smoke detection is enabled. That also uses audio - the system has no sensor for CO or smoke, instead it is listening for chirps from a nearby smoke alarm. If you have that enabled, then disable it, and see if that makes any difference.

Also, look at the camera rule in all three modes, and make sure audio detection is turned off in all of them.

If you are still getting audio alerts after those checks, then I suggest removing the camera from the account, doing a hardware reset, and then adding it back. Reset the camera by
removing the camera from the shell
pressing the sync button inside until the camera flashes amber (about 15 seconds)