External Sensors w/o Cameras (External Motion Detection/"Tripwire")

[tboon]

Because of Arlo's excellent video quality and excellent field of view I am able to see most of a large room/outdoor area with one camera. Unfortunately this tends to minimize the effectiveness of the motion detection as the camera tends to be more centrally located and so it does not detect something/someone until it is halfway or more across the room/area if it detects it at all.  This leaves users with the undesirable options of either compromising their camera placement to accomodate motion detection or using an entire camera exclusively as a motion detector with little to no useful function as a camera. This latter scenario is a situation for which the camera is over-qualified and overpriced.  A separate motion sensor that would trigger the camera to start recording when someone enters the room/access point would alleviate this issue. It could also help with the issue that myself and others  are having with lag in recording start time. The sensor could be placed further out from the camera when necessary so that it could trigger the camera to start recording earlier, accounting for the lag time and recording what users actually wanted recorded.

An additional sensor would not be something that would be required of all cameras and placements, but it would be useful for specific scenarios and even having two sensors at opposite inds of a room/area triggering one camera could be a useful setup. As it is though, it is relatively cost prohibitive to expand your system to do this as the cameras are the only sensor option and cost too much to be wasted on being merely a sensor. Additinally these "wasted" cameras eat into your allotment under the current subscription you have and could create additional cost to the user for an upgraded subscription. As it is, I am hesitant to expand my system (currently at 4 cameras), even though I would like to have greater coverage, because of the up front cost of the cameras not being used to their full potential combined with the monthly cost of the upgraded subscription. I would be far more willing to expand my system and upgrade my subscription if there were external sensors that would allow me to use my system effeciently and effectively like I want to without the inflated up front cost.  

I could see how this could be achieved either through hardware development of sensors exclusively for Arlo or through software development of integration with already established systems which perform comlementary functions. With either one, if the price is right I'm in, if it stays as it is my expansion is stuck.

[jlogan]

To capture a clear frontal view of the subject(/perp), one would need to point the camera towards the subject's path of motion. But for a motion sensor embedded in the camera, this may not result in a trigger. Instead a physically decoupled motion sensor placed on the side could trigger the recording. It would be good if a standard api/protocol allows third party motion sensors to be integrated.

[jblust]

I have one camera pointed down my driveway towards the street because that's the view I need to record. However, most motion is head-on so there's either poor motion sensing for activity I want to record (people coming up the driveway) and unnecessary motion sensing (people driving by on the street). I would like to be able to set up a separate motion detector on the side of the driveway to trigger the camera to record.

[steveluk]

This is to address the recording lag. I read through the various explanations on the trade off between battery life vs pre-recording/fast trigger. How about selling simple inexpensive tripwires that are sound/motion/ir/ etc triggered? Then. I can place these devices further away from the house and activate the cameras to start recording.
True that I can buy one more camera as a tripwire device, but it is an expensive way for the customers to pay for design gap. :-). I think $50 would be a fair price point for such devices.

[danramos]

I know this has been commented before along with other "wanted" features but wanted to emphasized the need for it.

I have placed a camera on one corner of my courtyard so I could detect people walking towards the main door (left side) and/or people coming over a patio sliding door on the right side of the rectangular space. https://arlo.netgear.com/#/viewShared/66089F439B9DC22F

However, the camera is very sensitive to cars passing by the street in front of my house. The street is at 60 feet from the house. Even if I lower the sensitivity percentage to like 92% to make it less sensitive, it still gets activated by large vehicles like delivery trucks or SUVs but it won't detect a person walking towards the main door on the left at around 15 to 20 feet far from the camera. If someone comes in, I want to be able to see the car where they came in just for security/tracking purposes. That is why I don't want to set the camera looking back facing the door. I plan on adding another camera to just do that and set a rule to trigger my existing camera to start recording. That way I can achieve my objective and avoid continuous motion triggers due to cars driving by. Having separate, wireless, battery powered motion sensors for cases like this would make more sense as they would 1) cost less, 2) run longer on a set of batteries than a camera. 

What do you think? Please kudos if you agree.

Thanks.

[jeff_757]

Having separate motion sensors could allow the system to track a moving person from one camera to the next. It seems like it would reduce the record time lag. They could include an infrared-illuminator on the sensor to light up the area better.

[Showguy]

I would buy remote motion detectors the minute they came out. It would solve the biggest complaint everybody has about this system. Although there would still be camera lag a remote motion would start the record process earlier. 

[MommysACreeper]

I agree. I set up my first camera tonight on my driveway On a busy street. I constantly get notifications of cars driving by (even with the sensitivity set to 1!) If I set my camera any further it won't get a close enough photo or the right angle photo. I set up my second camera inside the car to try to get a close-up of the car stalker but by the time it goes on its already going to be too late. 😞 I wish there were motion sensor add ons to help this issue and that they were inexpensive enough to put in locations they might get compromised.

[heathg]

agree as well, i would love to have a 2nd motion detectin and create rule to a camera.  this would avoid the sensitivity issues, as well as, triggering a camera so it has time to actualy capture some useable footage. 

I know this is not a 24/7 system. but I think with just some small sensors this system can be the greatest thing since sliced bread

H

[Calypsi]

It would be nice if netgear could sell a motion detector only device that could be used to trigger the cameras and have it be ~$50 or so.  Sometimes the motion detecting seems narrow to the way the camera is facing and catches stuff late.  If I could put out a stand alone motion detector with no camera and link cameras to it I think it could be helpful in getting more complete recordings.

[TomMac]

yes it would!

 request has already been posted so please add kudos at

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Arlo-Idea-Exchange/Motion-detectors-separate-from-camera/idi-p/3009

the only option now if your floor plan allows is to use one camera's motion sense to start record on another cam...