Pro 2 - Help Setting Up Intermittent & Regular Activity Recording?

[c_clendenen]

Our youth center is closed during the day and most nights, but we have 5+ hours of activity a couple nights a week. We want to be alerted when there's activity during off hours, but also want to record during our open hours.. Can we set something like that up?

[jguerdat · Accepted solution]

Yes. Read the FAQs here on creating custom modes and the schedule. You would have at least 2 modes with rules for your cameras. The difference between the two modes would be whether notifications are enabled. When satisfied with your modes, edit the schedule to place them in the appropriate time slots to automatically switch between them. Note that you can't span days through midnight so set a start time of 12AM to, say, 8AM for your mode with notifications and again from maybe 9PM to 12AM.

For your specific situation, I'll use Monday and Friday as the days when open. Your schedule would be:

Sunday - 12AM-12AM notifications

Monday - 12AM-5PM notifications, 5PM-11:30PM no notifications, 10:30PM-12AM notifications

Tuesday - 12AM-12AM notifications

Wednesdayday - 12AM-12AM notifications

Thursday - 12AM-12AM notifications

Friday - 12AM-5PM notifications, 5PM-11:30PM no notifications, 10:30PM-12AM notifications

Saturday - 12AM-12AM notifications

[c_clendenen]

Thanks - that makes sense!

Would something like that (5+ hours of non-alerted activity) require CVR and the associated subscription?  Or would it just result in a bunch of 300 second clips?

[jguerdat]

CVR can be useful so you can see before and after a recording or to see something that didn't trip a recording. However, the cameras have to be plugged into AC power for this to work.

I would try positioning the cameras for best motion detection (across the FOV, not at the camera - read the FAQ here on camera positioning) and see how that works before subscribing. Also, since you mentioned 300 second recordings, that will only work as long as the camera can detect motion or the recording will be cut short due to lack of activity. Just because you can see motion doesn't mean the camera can detect it. If that's the case, fixed time recordings up to 2 minutes may be a better solution. You may have to try both to see what works for you.