topic Re: Activity zones still not working in Arlo Ultra

Activity zones still not working

Glennny — Tue, 05 May 2020 13:08:36 GMT

I’m still having issues with the activity zones not working correctly on my arlo ultra camera. I’m getting alerts outside of my set activity zones which is leading to 50+ alerts a day.

I see this was a problem back in December but I have all of the latest software versions and it’s still doing the same here!

Re: Activity zones still not working

Retired_Member — Tue, 05 May 2020 13:35:50 GMT

Activity Zones have an issue for almost two years now. I had multiple tickets opened. All they make me do is reset my Arlo Base Station and re-program and redo everything but it never resolves the issue. I cancelled my subscription because it was useless. Looking to replace the system by another brand as it's giving me too many false positives and is now useless since I ignore the notifications now (since I was receiving over 50 of them per day when I had a subscription).

Re: Activity zones still not working

Oldblade — Wed, 06 May 2020 02:40:09 GMT

I was on Chat for 3 hours to be finally told this is a Known issue with Issue number

Here is the issue number ISSUE-11218.

Very Frustrated

Re: Activity zones still not working

Pat71 — Fri, 08 May 2020 07:52:11 GMT

Same problem here: got my first Ultra + Hub yesterday (new Arlo customer speaking here), updated all firmware to the last version and... well, activity zones pretty much useless. Other features have also major issues (activation sensibility levels both audio and video, Zoom & Tracking, Spotlight Pulsate) but that is a for a different topic I guess...

As per Activity zones, in fact it seems not to like zones being re-sized or moved at all. Will basically work if you just add one new zone, leave it at its default location/size on the top left hand corner and you assure the actual activation zone will be triggered at 20% beyond the limits. In other words: the whole upper left quater of your monitored zone will be the actual activation zone.

The camera video and audio quality are outstanding, and the whole system is pretty good altogether. I hope the fix the activity zones eventually as this is one of the main reasons to pay for a subscription.

Re: Activity zones still not working

Themovyman11 — Wed, 27 May 2020 15:56:32 GMT

Same issue here - submitted a ticket. Love this system but the activity zones are not working as designed (I tried to keep them squared off and everything, does not help). Should be noted that this has to be a system issue because my door bell (Arlo Video) also ignores the zones. Crazy amount of alerts coming through!

Re: Activity zones still not working

JamesC — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 19:26:40 GMT

Arlo recently deployed a cloud update enhancing Activity Zone accuracy. This should improve the experience for users reporting symptoms of motion detection alerts and recordings occurring outside of their defined Activity Zones. We are continuing to monitor Activity Zone behavior and will provide additional enhancements in the coming weeks.

Re: Activity zones still not working

Themovyman11 — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 20:25:51 GMT

Thanks James! I hope it works, I will continue to monitor. Is there anything we need to do on our end (reset base station or upgrade firmware)? Appreciate the response.

Re: Activity zones still not working

JamesC — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 21:23:14 GMT

Themovyman11,

If you're still experiencing an issue after this release, rebooting, deleting and recreating your zones is a good first step. Try creating one at a time to see if you get the desired results.

This was a cloud release, so there is no firmware or software changes from your perspective that need to be updated.

JamesC

Re: Activity zones still not working

Pat71 — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 07:39:20 GMT

Thanks for the efforts James. I have deleted & recreated the ActivityZone, as well as reset my SmartHub, but I regret to have to say there is no noticeable improvement.

To further describe my setting, I basically have two doors side-by-side on the camera frame, the ActivityZone is set on the middle of the left door. As soon I enter the frame on the right hand side, headed for the right door, the alarm/recording is triggered (audio trigger is turned off).

By reading you it seems this feature is cloud-based and using image analysing, so no local SmartHub/Camera local processing. I guess the once the cameras motion sensors triggers recording (full-frame) your back-end servers start analyzing the images and seek for motion inside the ActivityZone, which is probably challenging.
Here is an idea for your development team: have the SmartHub capturing a still image on a regular base (say every minute) and storing it on its local memory, then send it along the video flow once the motion sensor triggers the live recording. This way you will have a recent reference image (same lightning) to which compare the live stream inside the ActivityZone.

Re: Activity zones still not working

Oldblade — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 09:34:20 GMT

I am still having the same issue Cloud Zones not working an Activity Zone throws the AC power issue

Re: Activity zones still not working

Oldblade — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 21:56:31 GMT

Tried restarting my smarthub but prior to that i deleted all zones

on restarting it now states prior to creating the zones that you need AC power

note i have a subscription and should have cloud zones but this still does not work

very frustrating being woken up at night every time a car drives past our home.

I have Ring Doorbell and they do a 10 times better job wish i bought Ring cameras as well

the feature states

"Note: every time motion is detected, the camera will need to send video to the cloud for processing, to determine if motion occurred within the defined zone(s). When the camera is operating on battery power, you may notice your battery level lowering over time, even though you may not have many recordings in the library."

And yet as soon as you create it it says you need AC power. What is going on Arlo ? I bought the new Arlo Ultra due to a good experience with my Arlo Pro.

Re: Activity zones still not working

n1976jmk — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 02:42:49 GMT

Hi Oldblade,

One important feature to note when receiving notifications outside of your defined activity zones.

If you go to the Arlo and then open up the settings on one of your cameras. Then go to 'device utilities' then 'camera positioning'. That is SO important, you want to ensure you point/adjust the camera in a way that the black shaded area is covering the area that you would like no motion detection notifications or recordings to take place.

That has helped me immensely with making sure I do not receive notifications from vehicles driving down my street.

Re: Activity zones still not working

Oldblade — Thu, 18 Jun 2020 11:40:43 GMT

I hope this helps I have put up a video of the issue I am having here is a link

Please get this sorted the notifications are driving me crazy

https://youtu.be/bfUeElwdPnc

Re: Activity zones still not working

JamesC — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 22:41:55 GMT

A recent update was deployed to the Arlo cloud that should address the accuracy of Activity Zones. This should improve accuracy by more reliably sending notifications only when motion occurs within defined zones. More work is being done to improve the behavior of Arlo Smart notifications and to fix the Activity Zones error that some users are seeing when not using an AC adapter (battery only). Stay tuned for future updates.

JamesC

Re: Activity zones still not working

n1976jmk — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 21:47:11 GMT

Hi @JamesC

Thanks for this update about activity zones and smart notifications!

A serious question, what can be proactively done by Arlo so this does not continue to occur?

I’ve seen this repeatedly for as long as I owned (14 months) these are both very reoccurring issues. Additionally, searching these very forums I can see you and other Arlo staff replying about the same topics time and time again.

Is there anything planned so this can stop happening?

I appreciate your time on this response!

Jonathan

Re: Activity zones still not working

Oldblade — Wed, 24 Jun 2020 00:06:39 GMT

James same issue I uploaded another Video to youtube this has not fixed the issue

https://youtu.be/K-B_NLu0SLk

Re: Activity zones still not working

Oldblade — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 23:32:38 GMT

I can Now say the issue is mostly Solved Thank You.

No more AC power error

Activity Zones working for People, Animals and Vehicles But still getting notifications and recordings for Motions outside of my Activity Zones

I have disabled Notifications on Motions and my Life is a lot better now

Keep improving get the Motion part sorted and I'll be a happy camper

Re: Activity zones still not working

JamesC — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 21:12:17 GMT

For those still experiencing issues with Activity Zones, please take a look at the following KB articles for best performance and troubleshooting tips:

How do I troubleshoot problems with Arlo activity zones?

What are activity zones and how do I create them?

JamesC

Re: Activity zones still not working

AmberJeremey — Wed, 29 Jul 2020 23:05:59 GMT

This doesn’t sit right with me...this clearly is an issue, posts about this problem going back years. Is it just me or does it seem it should be more simple than it is. Activity Zones should send you a notification when something crosses into the zone. Boom. Period. Should be pretty cut and dry. But the only answers we get are oh adjust your sensitivity setting, oh there’s been a firmware update, oh their working on it, change the position of the camera to exclude the area you don’t want notifications. blah blah. Then what the heck are activity zones for!?! I don’t understand how programming engineers can’t get it right, just exclude what is outside of the box drawn on the screen. I have a brand new system, I’m seriously considering returning the 10 cameras and outdoor mounts, and solar panels I have because I’m very disappointed about being misled. I have a house which is close to the road and the cameras in front and the side of the house have no other option but to include portions of the road in their field of view. It’s impossible because of the angles to exclude them. Nor do I want to. Nor should I have to because they’re are ‘activity zones’!! to handle this issue!!! I was sold on activity zones being able to draw a line on the edge of the road along my front yard and driveway/parking lot so that it wouldn’t send me notifications on traffic passing by but should someone pull off the side of the road into my driveway they would trigger an event. If the town ever wants a traffic study done on my road all they need to do is ask. I can tell them exactly how many cars come by in a day. I’m highly annoyed at what seems to be a lack of interest in Arlo engineers actually fixing the issue. Don’t get me wrong I appreciate the suggestions from customer service but the bottom line is none of these suggestions solve the problem. End rant.

Re: Activity zones still not working

KB33803a — Fri, 31 Jul 2020 03:32:55 GMT

Just installed the system this week and I'm experiencing the same issues as others seem to be having with Activity Zones. It seemed to work kind of OK when I first set up the activity zone. But, when I resized it to eliminate cars going by, it seems to have gotten worse. I've tried changing it to only alert when people are detected and that changed nothing. As it is, I disable the camera except at night now...it's worthless in the day for my front yard and porch.