topic Multiple alerts for shadows in Arlo Ultra

Multiple alerts for shadows

Tech-D — Thu, 07 May 2020 13:47:32 GMT

Not sure what changed, but my camera for the past week has been going nuts. I had to turn off the alerts for the front camera because it's picking up shadows on the porch as movement. Not sure why this is now being picked up because it hasn't in the past. Now I'm getting non-stop alerts to the point where I have to turn off the camera.

Re: Multiple alerts for shadows

jguerdat — Thu, 07 May 2020 13:51:57 GMT

What changed is the sun's angle, causing the sun's IR to be reflected off leaves, branches, etc. into the camera. Many of us use custom modes with lower motion sensitivity settings for the daytime because of this. Perhaps a better solution could be to reposition the camera to remove the offending areas from the camera's view.

Re: Multiple alerts for shadows

StephenB — Thu, 07 May 2020 14:43:26 GMT

@jguerdat wrote:

Perhaps a better solution could be to reposition the camera to remove the offending areas from the camera's view.

If that isn't practical, then you can also turn off "all other motion" notifications - assuming you have a paid subscription.

Re: Multiple alerts for shadows

Tech-D — Thu, 07 May 2020 17:26:10 GMT

Thanks for the suggestion, I'm going to try that.

Re: Multiple alerts for shadows

Tech-D — Fri, 08 May 2020 01:51:56 GMT

Sorry StephenB, tried that and after just 4 short hours I find that I have 71 alerts on my phone for "motion detected", and now the battery of the camera is down below 50%.

Stuff like this is getting annoying, I even have a 5min video that I will upload to YouTube so maybe someone can answer what motion is being seen in my activity zone?

Re: Multiple alerts for shadows

StephenB — Sun, 10 May 2020 12:02:36 GMT

@Tech-D wrote:

Sorry StephenB, tried that and after just 4 short hours I find that I have 71 alerts on my phone for "motion detected", and now the battery of the camera is down below 50%.

Turning off "all other motion" in the smart notifications of the camera should have prevented the alerts (unless they are classified as something else).

But it wouldn't improve the battery life, since the camera is still streaming a lot of video to the cloud.

Re: Multiple alerts for shadows

Tech-D — Sun, 10 May 2020 15:40:58 GMT

That is my main issue with the Arlo Camera System. All the online reviews and my research prior to my purchase didn't say if you have an active area your battery is going to drain quickly.

Also I'm going through all my video for the past month. I still believe that something changed in the motion alerts, because I have had days in the past where it was sunny and windy that shadows and items moving outside the activity zone should have been caught. Not until recently have I had all these alerts.

Re: Multiple alerts for shadows

StephenB — Sun, 10 May 2020 23:17:15 GMT

@Tech-D wrote:

my research prior to my purchase didn't say if you have an active area your battery is going to drain quickly.

It seems pretty clear that the more video your camera streams, the quicker the battery will drain.

@Tech-D wrote:

Not until recently have I had all these alerts.

Other folks are saying that activity zones are working for them right now (and they aren't working on my video doorbell either). So it's quite possible that something got broken somewhere in the system (likely the arlo cloud) that resulted in the flood of notifications.

Though a couple of my cameras go have a sharp uptick in motion recordings in the spring and summer due to the change in position of the sun.