Pro 2 Quick Battery Drain - Minimal Video Recordings

[Cory1]

I set up a Pro 2 system (4 cameras) for outdoor monitoring.  I noticed my front door camera battery life was just getting killed due to the busy traffic on my street.  I was able to stop all of the traffic video recording by setting up a zone that excluded the street, however I'm still mowing through the battery to the tune of greater than 10 percent a day.  I assume that the camera is still picking up the motion outside of the zone, even though it is not recording and the motion is draining the battery?  I only record two or three twenty second videos each day so I'm not sure what else could be creating the drain.  I've started to reduce the camera sensitivity to see if perhaps that might help, however I haven't seen a noticeable improvement. 

I assume I need to move the camera to completely exclude the street field of view but figured I would pose the question first before making the change.  Any feedback/advice would be much appreciated.

[TomMac]

Since the PIR only picks up people to a max of 25 ft, I try to recommend all to 1) avoid the roadways 2) don't cover an area bigger than the actual range for people 3) angle down a bit... then you can adjust the sense level a bit higher without all the false triggers. 

Zones have been flakey a bit recently

[jguerdat]

Also, if the camera is unpowered (battery-only) the zones are being set for Smart which requires a video to be recorded, sent to the servers for post-processing and then deciding whether the motion falls outside of the zone. Thus, recordings are still being created, likely the source of the battery drain.

As Tom suggests and you've suggested, repositioning the camera would be the best solution.

[Cory1]

That makes a ton of sense- thank you for the speedy response.  Aside from the street traffic, I have a garage window in the field of view that is catching headlight reflections at night.  I think that is also triggering the camera to record (had zoned this out along with the street) and might have a tough time moving the camera to avoid the window.  I think excluding the street will probably be enough to dramatically reduce the battery drain.

Time to go move the camera- what's one more trip up the ladder, huh?