arlo pro motion detection issue

[johndegraff]

Just got and installed my Arlo Pro wireless syatem and I am having a problem - The camera at my front door has to be turned so far towards the door mounted under the proch that I am losing a great amount of area I could view live and the reason it has to be turned so far towards the door is to avoid it going off and recording everytime a car drives up the small road. It picks up motion so easily at a long distance and even with sensitivity turned down I still have to turn the camera almost facing the door to avoid it going off all the time (door is on side of townhome and camera to catch walkway and stairs to front door would need to face more towards the road). this causes a very partial view of person coming to the door and mainly back of head because facing off the other side of the porch was impossible without having the camera face towards the ground to avoid picking up all the cars.  Is there any grid type system I just haven't found like what I had on my other camera system where I can black out area I do not want motion to activate the camera but want to view - if not this is a real big drawback to this camera. Does anyone have any suggestions please let me know.

[jguerdat]

A screenshot may help as well as a general shot of the whole area.

[johndegraff]

Maybe I didn't describe the situation properly - where I can place the camera is not the issue which I think a screen shot would help with camera placement - I only have 2 locations where it can go to allow me see the front door, stairs to door and walkway to the stairs and previously had a camera in one of the locations which worked fine and have replaced it with this Arlo Pro camera. I  have tried both locations with the same results of constant triggers of events because it picks up road traffic- the problem is controlling the event trigger area. I have tried lowering sensitivity and it still picks up car traffic close to 70'+ away from the camera even set below 50% sensitivity in the software for that camera and in either position I have available so my only alternative was to turn camera more towards the front door and to take the cameras view away from the side of house leading to the door and road view which means I also lose the stairs to the house and walkway to the house view. Given what seems to be the lag in cameras triggering events and actually starting to record I need to have a wider area of view on the walkway to the door otherwise by the time the camera starts to record someone is already ringing the doorbell and turning the camera to get a wider view starts it triggering every time a car drives by. Is there any grid setup for blacking out areas you do not want to trigger events for recording? With a grid I could black out the road so it didn't trigger events and allow me to use the camera as I wish to and really as they are meant to. I have looked and searched for this grid overlay and have come up empty, all I have found was the sensitivity control which does not seem to help. I replaced my much less expensive defender camera system with these Arlo Pro cameras and the cheap defender cameras  had a grid system where you went into the program and clicked on blocks on a grid overlay of the camera view to black out areas so they would not trigger events but you could still view these areas when looking at the cameras live.

[jguerdat]

No grid or other zoning is possible with the wireless cameras like it is with the Q cameras (different detection hardware). I have used tape on my original wireless cameras to cover areas of the PIR to block unwanted detection but haven't come up with how to do that on a Pro since the PIRs are behind a cover and I'm not sure where to place the tape.

If there's truly nothing else to mount the camera to get what you need, perhaps some creative mounting like others have done could be useful.  I can think of being hidden in bushes, birdhouses and fence posts being mentioned - perhaps there are others.  A small piece of plastic or cardboard could also be attached to the camera to act as a shield as a last resort - I'd think that if it blocks the camera view of the road it would also block the PIRs.

[johndegraff]

Thanks jguerdat       It is unfortunate they have not added grid block flexibility and wish I had realized that before purchasing. I thought of some of your suggestions but they still left me unable to view some areas when I tried them besides looking horrible sticking things to the camera and such. Not sure what I am going to do here but they should really think about doing something to update this software and allow grid blocking or let people know in descriptions the cameras can't do it so they know before purchase. It would be nice to hear if they are at least working on this from the company.