One of five cameras not recording motion...

[Wired64]

Folks, 

I've had some issues with recording where my schedule was set in an odd way.  However, that's been fixed.

I have 4 cameras that work great - they record squirrels that are running across the yard based on motion.  However, the 5th camera that's pointing at the driveway for the house records nothing based on motion.  Sensitivity is set to 100, the camera is active, but it simply does not record cars.  It sometimes records people, but almost never for cars. The Hardware version for the camera is indicating H4 and the firmware version is indicating 1.125.13.0_31717.  

Anyone have any idea why this camera doesn't work for recording motion?  If I need to replace the camera, I can - would obviously prefer not to, but if some cameras just go rambo and need to be replaced - is there an approach to "reset" the camera, then rejoin it to the base station?

Let me know the best option to resolve this issue!

Cheers,

SK

[StephenB]

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@Wired64 wrote:

However, the 5th camera that's pointing at the driveway for the house records nothing based on motion.  Sensitivity is set to 100, the camera is active, but it simply does not record cars.  It sometimes records people, but almost never for cars.

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How far away is the camera from the driveway?  The range for motion detection is about 20 feet.  

Also, is the camera positioned so that the motion is across the field of view?  https://kb.arlo.com/000051462/How-do-I-position-my-Arlo-Pro-2-camera

[Wired64]

The Camera is more than 20 feet from the primary area it's recording.  It's about 10 feet up in a tree and it's pointed at an angle to the driveway.  I didn't expect that this would matter - isn't motion detected by what's seen in the video field of view?  

Changing the location of the camera is a bit problematic due to the constraints at the location and the desired field of view that I would like for the camera.  

If I can ask, why is the distance an issue as opposed to the motion happening in the field of view?  

Cheers,

SK

[StephenB]

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@Wired64 wrote:

 isn't motion detected by what's seen in the video field of view?  

If I can ask, why is the distance an issue as opposed to the motion happening in the field of view?  

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Actually it's not detected by analyzing what's seen in the field of view.  Doing it that way would use too much power for a battery-operated camera.

Motion is detected by PIR (passive infrared) sensors.  These have limited range.  There is a description of PIR here:  https://learn.adafruit.com/pir-passive-infrared-proximity-motion-sensor/how-pirs-work  Note the description of the lens is specific to the project in the link - the PIR sensors in the camera are smaller, and the lenses are different.

Once motion is detected, you can set up cloud activity zones which will suppress recordings and notifications that are outside of an area of interest.  Those activity zones do analyze the video.  That requires a paid subscription - and won't improve the motion detection range.

[Wired64]

Stephen,

Thanks - I had wondered how the battery lasted so long - now I understand.  The article was interesting and brought up some additional information I was unfamiliar with.

I'm not entirely certain that in this case, it's a distance issue.  In fact, not tracking motion that's more than 20 feet would be beneficial - the road is in view and it's certainly further than 20 feet.  The driveway, however, is about 14 feet from the camera (with decreasing distance to the camera as the car approaches the house).

Interestingly, I've tested further and the camera more reliably records motion if an individual is walking up or down the the driveway, but very rarely captures cars.  

I'll see if there is an alternative location where the camera can be mounted and still have decent connectivity with the base station...  

Thanks for the info - allows me to adapt the system to use it as it was designed rather than how I assumed it was designed.

Cheers,

SK

[EOSJOE]

The 20 feet specification for motion detect has always puzzled me. I have three cameras. Two of them have the sensitivity set to 80% yet they detect motion WAY further than 20 feet. In fact, the one on the porch will sometimes fail to detect a person coming up the walkway yet depending on the sunlight it will detect my neighbors car moving over 100 feet away!!   Same with a camera at the front door. It will pickup vehicles in my driveway that are about 60 feet away even though the movement occurs in a tiny corner of the screen. It baffles me how the cameras will sometimes fail to detect movement right in front of them yet detect objects 60-100 feet away.