Pro 4 Camera - Not reliably detecting motion and spotlight blinks.

[Bob-A]

I have a Pro 4 camera pointed at my driveway and wired to charge with a solar panel.  For over a month in winter cold using the optimized setting it stays charged between 50-80% depending on temperature and cloudiness.

The camera is mounted about 12 feet high.  I have 3 overlapping activity zones set all within the proper camera positioning area.  One activity zone is directly under the camera and covers up to 25 horizontal feet away.  Another is slightly to the side covering about 10 to 25 horizontal feet away.  The third is looking at the driveway entrance a bit more to the side and covering about 20 to 60 horizontal feet away. 

Motion sensitivity is set to medium, field of view to wide, auto HDR, default brightness, auto zoom off.
It does not reliably detect motion. 

It only detects motion when I am moving in the activity zone directly under the camera, close to and directly in front of the camera with larger movements.  It does not detect any motion in the activity zone as cars enter the driveway.  If I walk across all the closest activity zone at night the spotlight blinks on and off.

I have tried setting the sensitivity higher and lower and adjusted the activity zones.

Can anyone help me with what settings I might try?

How does sensitivity work?  Is greater sensitivity going to make it detect smaller movements or is it going to make it blink on and off more?

Should activity zones be overlapped of separated?

Is there a distance beyond which it will not detect motion?
Why is the spotlight blinking even when I do not stop moving?

[StephenB]

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@Bob-A wrote:

Is there a distance beyond which it will not detect motion?

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The motion detection spec is "up to 25 feet".  It will sometimes pick up larger objects (vehicles) at longer distances, but generally not reliably.

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@Bob-A wrote:

How does sensitivity work? 

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Higher numbers are more senstive.  The cameras are more sensitive to motion across the field of view than directly towards the camera.  They are also more sensitive to motion at the bottom of the field of view than the top.

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@Bob-A wrote:

Why is the spotlight blinking ?

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Do you want it to blink?

If you go into "low light settings" is the spotlight set to "constant"? Or is it perhaps set to "flash" or "pulsate"?

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@Bob-A wrote:

Should activity zones be overlapped or separated?

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Either should work.


 

[jguerdat]

Another note is that the "up to 25 feet" is from the camera to the subject, which normally is not the horizontal distance since the camera is mounted at some distance above ground level. It may be a small difference but that may be enough.

[Bob-A]

No, I do not want it to blink and no, it is not set to blink.

I think the camera is screwed up.  I can walk around right under the camera, well within the 25 feet, and the light blinks on an off.

[Bob-A]

That makes these cameras pretty useless as driveway security cameras.  If mounted at the lowest possible height over a garage door (about 9 feet) it can only see a horizontal distance of 23 feet from the garage.  That is only 2 car lengths, quite useless.

And I walk around well within the 25-foot distance from the camera and the camera does not detect motion reliably.  It only occasionally notices motion and records.

In addition, the spotlight blinks on and off.  I think the motion sensor is not working, otherwise, it would turn on the spotlight and keep it on until the motion stopped and it would record every time and record until the motion stopped (or the 5 min. max).