Cannot trigger motion based recording

[rjth]

I've read through 12 pages of posts and cannot find an answer that resolves my issue.

One base station, one camera.  Camera is mounted on a steel door on upper deck of two-story home.  The deck is not enclosed, so there is no attempt to record through a window.

Live view shows the back yard and garage doors as desired.  However it will not record people entering or leaving the area.  It will record sound.  Audio detection is set to 3 and motion detection is set to 100.

It will take a manual snapshot but that was done just in case the motion detection failed.

Moving this camera to the lower enclosed patio is not an option due to the windows.  There is no location on the ground floor level that captures both the back yard and the garage doors with one camera.

What changes are needed?

[StevenL]

Even on the highest setting for motion detection, it will only detect motion out to 15 feet.  Is the motion within that range? 

[rjth]

No. It is more than 15 feet away.  I read another related post where somebody else said in detail they were disappointed about the short distance.  The reesponse to that person gave a detail of triggering at 40 - 65 feet.

Is there another Arlo product that motion detects at a distance greater than 15 feet?

[TomMac · Accepted solution]

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rjth wrote:

No. It is more than 15 feet away.  I read another related post where somebody else said in detail they were disappointed about the short distance.  The reesponse to that person gave a detail of triggering at 40 - 65 feet.

Is there another Arlo product that motion detects at a distance greater than 15 feet?

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The Arlo cams are good to detect PEOPLE out to a MAX of 20 ft or so...The Arlo PRO adds a few more feet to a max of 25ft.

This cameras are really meant to cover the area of their trigger zones ... Now and then you may read about detecting cars further out but that is due to the large IR refective surface of the car ( which is out the Arlo detects motion ).

The only camera that may work for you is the Q cameras...they detect much further out and also use pixel change to detect motion ( over the PIR device on the others ). It will also detect motion thru glass where the Arlo/Arlo Pro do not.

Downside is 1) not outdoor rated 2) when used thru glass , you can not use the night vision ( but at that range it wouldnt cover anyway ) as it reflects off the glass ans washes out the picture.

[jguerdat]

The Q easily exceeds the wireless cameras for detection distance but they're indoors-only (although detection works through glass).

I wonder if being mounted on a steel door is part of the issue since steel could be causing a connection issue with the base.  Also, check the running man for that camera (all cameras actually) in the Devices tab - they should be black, not gray, to be able to detect and record.

You can try swapping cameras around to see if the issue stays with the camera or location. Check firmware versions - old firmware can do weird things.  Perhaps remove the camera from Settings, My Devices and resync.

Any luck?

[rjth]

Thank you TomMac.

I think we can use the ArloQ+ to capture activity in the back of the house with the camera placed inside the house and behind glass.   Night Vision might not be an issue since the area we want to capture has flood lights.  The rest of the area has motion detected lights. 

I think we can use the Arlo pro camera as an outdoor video doorbell.  Hopefully we can auto trigger motion of walking up to our door and entering our drive way.

What is the difference between the Q and Q+?  What do you have to add if the Q/Q+ is not near your router and running an extremely long Ethernet cable is not feasible?

[rjth]

Thank you jguerdat.

Mounting to steel door is not the issue because we also mounted it to a metal/steel pole and it detected motion and recorded.  However the motion was not behind glass.

I think the solution is Q/Q+ camera for the outside back of the house and a Pro camera for the outside front of the house.