Feature request - Activity Zone Modes

[Retired_Member]

Hi folks,

I have a suggestion for improving how the Activity Zone features work.

Like most of your customers, I love that most of the video clips that appear in my library are relevant.  I don't have to wade through dozens of clips each day of insects, trees blowing in the wind or heavy rain and that is very good.  Unfortunately I'm finding that the 'threshold' of movement required to count as activity inside a Zone is, in some circumstances a little too high, and in other circumstances much too low.

I like not having to wade through irrelevant clips, but I *need* my cameras to function as a genuine security system.  Failing on a regular basis to capture video of a person who enters the property is unacceptable to me.  Such instances must be rare in the extreme.  Ideally I'd like a measure of both convenience and security.

In my case, what this means in practice varies from camera to camera.  Some of my cameras are perfect just as they are now, others less so.  I suggest implementing two or three 'modes' for Activity Zone to make them more versatile, for use in different situations with different cameras.

The existing level of Zone sensitivity is perfect for cameras which do not have a view of a large area and for suppressing video recordings of trees and shrubs moving in the wind.  Ideally what I'd like to be able to do is overlay a smaller 'High Sensitivity' Zone on top, on some cameras, covering specific areas such as paths and more distant areas of my driveway.  I would happily accept the inconvenience of seeing extra video clips of fallen leaves blown by wind across a path in return for a high level of confidence that if a person walks on that path I will have video of that event at least 99% of the time.  I do want to see if a person is creeping through vegetation on my property so I want Activity Zones with an appropriate level of motion sensitivity to cover those areas, but I need 99% certainty that if a person steps out of the vegetation onto the driveway or path that person will be caught on camera and I'll get an alert.

For a measure of convenience though it would be excellent if there was a way to 'snooze' the 'High Sensitivity' feature on an Activity Zone, either manually or automatically.  On one camera I have a recurring problem with light wind-blown rain confusing its motion detection features.  That camera has, on three separate occasions, alerted me that a large flower pot within its field of view is a person.  I assume the chaotic motion of rain blowing back and forth in a blustery wind makes it more difficult for the person detection feature to work well, and that this problem would become worse if the Activity Zone covering that area were more sensitive than it is now.  Ideally, during severe weather, I'd like to be able to reduce the sensitivity of motion detection for a few hours.  Obviously I need to be able to detect people entering the property when it's raining, but if the sensitivity were to drop a little in extreme weather that would be acceptable in order to avoid 'flowerpot detected' alerts.

A truly amazing improvement on this feature would be if the system could do this automatically.  If there was say, three levels of sensitivity I could apply for Activity Zones.  If the Arlo system could detect severe weather automatically (if perhaps two or more cameras on my system were being repeatedly triggered by 'horizontal' rain). If the system could automatically drop the sensitivity for all Zones on my system by one level for an hour or so.  I would have a system where any given camera is capable of detecting very small movements in critical areas in good weather, while ignoring the movement of shrubs blowing around in a storm within view of that same camera.  Automatic mode changes would be excellent, but even an option in the Arlo app to 'snooze high motion sensitivity' for a few hours would be excellent.  This would only be workable if I could snooze the trees and shrubs, not so much the paths and driveway, but I'm sure I would sleep better knowing for certain that there's no leprechaun living in that flower pot 😉

[Retired_Member]

For clarification on why three zone modes would be useful - see attached.

Red Zone - the path.  I need the system to be much more sensitive to a person moving in this area, regardless of what they're wearing or whether they enter this area a few seconds after a bus or truck passes in the area marked in blue, which is outside my existing activity zones but often causes this camera to activate.  I can't adjust the camera angle much more without impacting the camera's sensitivity to motion toward the end of the path.

Green Zone - the wall.  I need the system to capture video of anyone who climbs over this wall.  The system works fine in it's current form to do that (mostly) - the contrast between the wall and whatever a person might be wearing would make it very difficult for a person to pass through this zone without being detected.

Yellow Zone - the shrubbery.  I'd like the system to record a person moving through this area, but as this is also where the plants are, a lower level of sensitivity to motion is acceptable.  Desirable even, in bad weather.  I currently get 'motion' recordings of plants blowing in strong wind in this area, when the camera is activated by a bus, truck or occasionally by sunlight reflecting off car windshields in the blue area.

If it were possible to configure my Activity Zones like this, and if it were possible to 'snooze' the sensitivity of all Activity Zones on my system in bad weather, reducing their optical sensitivity to the next lowest level for a few hours, then this camera would record video of a person 99% or more of the time while not creating too many irrelevant video clips.  If I could snooze sensitivity on a specific camera for an hour, if for example a cloud of insects is buzzing around it, all the better.  If the system had the option to do this automatically by detecting when motion in high-sensitivity zones is caused by bad weather, then that would be excellent.  On the server side, I imagine tagging all video from a camera as 'windy' for a few hours and performing a less intensive analysis on all video from that camera would be more efficient than performing the same level of analysis on every individual video clip.

This house has been robbed three times in the last 25 years or so.  On two of those occasions, the burglars entered the property by climbing this wall and walking along this path.  The Activity Zone system as it currently exists does not give me confidence that I would almost certainly get a 'Person Detected' alert if it were to happen again.  Please consider this suggestion, or improve the system by some other means to provide me with that confidence.