UK

[benvendetta]

I have a Pro 4 camera and a video doorbell.

With the camera, I find that there is a delay of 4/5 seconds between people or vehicles entering the activity zone and the start of recording. I would like the recording to start almost as soon as the activity is detected but cannot see how to change this in the app. Any ideas would be most welcome.

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@benvendetta wrote:

With the camera, I find that there is a delay of 4/5 seconds between people or vehicles entering the activity zone and the start of recording. 

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How far away is the camera from the activity zone?

If you test this yourself (by walking into the zone), are you seeing that this delay is consistent?

To clarify how this works (I am assuming the camera is on battery or solar power):

The camera detects motion using a passive infrared (PIR) sensor.  It is not processing the video, so the camera starts streaming to the cloud whenever the sensor triggers.  The cloud then looks at the video, and if it finds motion inside the zone it keeps the recording and notifies you.  If it does not find motion inside the zone. then the recording is discarded and it does not notify you.

The sensor has limited range (25 feet), and it is more sensitive at the bottom of the field of view than the top.  It is also more sensitive to motion across the field of view (as opposed to motion directly towards the camera).

One consequence is that while activity zones can control unwanted notficiations, they do not help battery life.

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@benvendetta wrote:

I would like the recording to start almost as soon as the activity is detected but cannot see how to change this in the app. 

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If you can power the camera with AC (for instance: https://www.arlo.com/en-us/accessories/VMA5600C-100NAS.html ) then that will improve motion detection and reduce the delay.  There are two reasons for this:

1. The camera will use pixel detection for motion detection (as well as the PIR sensor) when AC powered.
2. The camera has a pre-roll feature ("Arlo Foresight") when AC powered.  This will start the recording three seconds before motion was detected.