Newbie Frustration

[MRW1480]

I have three cameras, and each behaves differently. The one on the back porch has two activity zones (I do have a Secure acct); leaves and such rustle in both zones, but nothing is recorded perhaps because I set it to only alert on Animals and People. The one over the driveway is set to alert on People, Animals, and Vehicles, and the activity zone is the entire field of vision; yet I go get into the car, drive off, drive back, get out of the car - and nothing triggers a recording or alert. The front porch camera continues to detect any motion outside of the very restricted activity zone, and has recorded so much in two days that it needs recharging already; it's set to detect People and Animals; it does detect me when I walk on the porch, but there have been no other people or animals on the porch in two days.

All three are armed and on a midnight-to-midnight schedule to stay on all day and night at this point. Geo-fencing is set to monitor whether home or not. Been over the manual and settings again and again, and I can't figure out what I'm missing. Am I misunderstanding activity zones? Are the zone settings conflicting with some other settings?

[StephenB]

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@MRW1480 wrote:

 The one over the driveway is set to alert on People, Animals, and Vehicles, and the activity zone is the entire field of vision; yet I go get into the car, drive off, drive back, get out of the car - and nothing triggers a recording or alert.

How far away is the camera from the spot where the car is?  Is there motion across the field of view, or is the motion down the center of the field of view?

Have you tried the motion detection test (walking along the path the vehicle takes)?  https://kb.arlo.com/41/How-do-I-change-the-motion-sensitivity-on-my-Arlo-camera

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@MRW1480 wrote:

The front porch camera continues to detect any motion outside of the very restricted activity zone, and has recorded so much in two days that it needs recharging already; it's set to detect People and Animals; it does detect me when I walk on the porch, but there have been no other people or animals on the porch in two days.

One aspect:  Activity zones don't help battery life.  When you are on battery, the activity zones are processed in the arlo cloud.  The camera continues to stream every time it detectes motion - so it uses the same amount of power whether the zones are set or not.  Similarly, smart notifications only affect the notifications you receive.  They don't effect the amount of recording, and they have no effect on power use.

Not sure what is going on with detecting outside of the zone.  One thing to try is deleting the zone and recreating it.  Though if there are video artifacts (or even slight motion) outside the zone, the camera might still record.

Is it possible to re-aim the camera, so that more of the unwanted motion is outside the field of view?  In my experience, that is the best way to improve battery life and reduce unwanted recordings.  You might also want to try reducing the motion sensitivity on this camera.  Both of these techniques will improve battery life.  One related trick - the camera is more sensitive to motion at the bottom of the field of view.  Sometimes inverting the camera (and using the invert setting in the app) is helpful.

[MRW1480]

The driveway camera is 7-8 feet from the front of the parked car. I did a motion detection test, and the yellow light began blinking as soon as I was under/in front of the camera; I walked backward until I was more than 10 feet behind the car before the yellow light stopped blinking.  Earlier today (aside from my car activity), I walked around in front of the camera; no recording was triggered, but if I looked at my devices and tapped the driveway camera, it would come to life and show a live picture in which I could take a snapshot. The activity zone covers the entire field that the camera sees. However, this afternoon Amazon drove up with a delivery, parking directly in front of the camera. Never triggered an alert or recording. Modes on all cameras are set to record on detection of motion.
I will try your tips on the front porch camera when I remount it after it's finished recharging.

Appreciate your help.

[MRW1480]

FWIW the back porch camera works as it should. I walked out there and immediately received an alert that a person was detected, and the camera started recording.

But I'll be danged if I can see any difference between how the three are configured.

[StephenB]

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@MRW1480 wrote:

The driveway camera is 7-8 feet from the front of the parked car.

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If the camera is aimed straight up the driveway, then the cars are likely driving straight up the center of the field of view.  The camera is actually more sensitive to motion across the field of view.

Note that the image isn't used to detect the motion - there are Passive IR (PIR) detectors on the camera face that do that. 

[MRW1480]

The driveway crosses from upper right (furthest) to lower left (closest to the house) in the camera's view, so that should be a beneficial.

Since I had to take down the front porch camera to recharge it, I removed it from the system and recreated it. And following the suggestion above, I created an activity zone that was small and focused on the front door. 

I also noticed all three cameras were on my trial account and while that should not have made a difference as I understand, I removed them and put them on my paid account.

Now the front porch and back porch are working as they should; the front porch is no longer reporting and recording every whatever but still picks up a person being on the porch.

I'll do the same with the driveway camera tomorrow and see if that resolves its challengs.

Thanks

[MRW1480]

The back porch and driveway cameras are fine, although both have activity zones that include the full view of each camera. The deck camera (added a 4th one) has two zones focused on the two stairs; the front porch camera has one small zone focused on the front door. Yet both continue to report and record activity when there isn't any in the activity zones. There are flags mounted in the fringes of the view areas on both cameras, none of which reach into the activity zone (even their shadows don't hit the activity zones). What am I missing about recording only when there's activity within the activity zone?

[StephenB]

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@MRW1480 wrote:

Yet both continue to report and record activity when there isn't any in the activity zones.

How often is this happening?  A couple times a day?  Or a lot more frequent than that?

[MRW1480]

The deck camera is about 2-5 times a day. Pesky false positive alerts. The front porch goes on all day, seemingly the breezier/windier the more frequent. It's so often that I have to recharge the camera every 2-3 days and spend a lot of time deleting those worthless clips. (Also noticed that the front porch clips vary in length from just 2-3 seconds up to 15 seconds. Haven't investigated that part yet, but maybe a clue?)

[StephenB]

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@MRW1480 wrote:

The deck camera is about 2-5 times a day. Pesky false positive alerts. 

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Maybe just disable "all other motion" notifications (assuming you have a subscription) for this one.

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@MRW1480 wrote:

The front porch goes on all day, seemingly the breezier/windier the more frequent. It's so often that I have to recharge the camera every 2-3 days and spend a lot of time deleting those worthless clips. (Also noticed that the front porch clips vary in length from just 2-3 seconds up to 15 seconds. Haven't investigated that part yet, but maybe a clue?)

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Wind can trigger the PIR sensors.

The only ways to reduce the recharging is to

• change the camera positioning to reduce unwanted motion in the field of view
• reduce motion sensitivity

[MRW1480]

Thanks for the suggestions. I've reduced sensitivity on both Front Porch and Deck cameras, and will reposition the Front Porch tomorrow.

FWIW the Back Porch camera caught a bear in the backyard last night, and the driveway camera recorded it walking past later. Exactly what I wanted to see (apart from unauthorized people of course).

[MRW1480]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Dropping the sensitivity on the Front Porch and the Deck seems to have significantly reduced the false positive recordings and alerts.