Using multiple activity zones does not alert correctly

[dlombardi]

QUESTION - Is it possible to have multiple activity zones on one camera and still receive motion alerts?

I just added the Arlo Smart plan and when setting up activity zones for one of my cameras (Arlo Pro on battery), I found that when adding more than one, I do not receive alerts.

Due to the placement of the camera and not being able to create a custom zone shape, I need to use multiple zones for the coverage area and when using mulitple activity zones on the same camera, I do not get alerted. When I remove all but one zone, alerting works correctly.

Attached is a picture to describe my situation;

Picture - Area in red that I do not want alerted on, i.e. cars driving by the house

Picture - Activity Zones added to get alerts for people or vehicles coming onto my drive way - Had to add multiple becuase there is not a way to create a custom shape

[dlombardi]

Arlo Support, if you want some really good troubleshooting data, please have your L2/L3 support contact me.

I have done a ton of troubleshooting and have data which may be useful to fix what is not currently working as advertised.

Cloud Activity Zones do not limit alerting to only those zones

People Alert do not stop recording from showing up library

Combining these features do not work as advertised, etc

I am hopeful but right now, addtional work is required to make work as advertised.

[jdubbs413]

They aren't advertising that if you use the cloud zones that it doesn't record.  It will always record ANY motion but only alert you if it is a person or looks like a person and it's in an activity zone (in theory).

[dlombardi]

Actually your understanding is incorrect. Here is what is advertised.

Your battery powered Arlo cameras now have the cloud activity zone feature. Using the Arlo app, you can create custom activity zones to highlight areas of interest in your camera’s view. When using cloud activity zones, your Arlo camera only records and notifies you when it detects motion inside of the activity zone. This feature ensures that you see what’s important and reduces the amount of unwanted alerts and recordings.

[jdubbs413]

Ahh I did misread.  My system seems to be working properly however for the most part.  I don't have any recordings for things that occured outside my zone and am only getting alerts for people.

[JamesC]

dlombardi,

I ran this topic by the QA team and they weren't able to reproduce the issue as described. Try rebooting your base station and see if you still experience the behavior.

JamesC

[dlombardi]

Interesting James... The overlapping activity zones not alering is a known issue apparantly with support. 

Additionally, although I am no longer getting alerts for activity outside of the zone, it is still recording to the library which according to support and the FAQ, is not supposed to happen.

As a side note, my base station has zero to do with recordings being deleted from the Cloud. Once motion is detected, it sends the recording the Cloud which is then processed by Arlo in the Cloud. If it sees motion in the activity zone, it will send an alert to the device you monitor with and or email. If it does not have motion in the activity zone, it is suposed to delete the recording and do nothing more. That is the part that is now not working.

Can you update the QA team as such? FYI, I do have an active case opened that is being worked on now by Support.

Thanks!

[st_shaw]

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@dlombardi wrote:

Additionally, although I am no longer getting alerts for activity outside of the zone, it is still recording to the library...

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It's very possible that the FAQ and Support are wrong.  This is precisely how the cloud activity zones worked during the beta trials. This was disappointing, but the product team confirmed this was the intended behavior at the time. I hope they changed the behavior to also exclude recordings outside the zones, but it would appear not.

[dlombardi]

If you review the Facebook Live / YouTube recording, the Product Managers also mention the intended behavior is for the recording to be deleted if outside of the activity zone so that gives me optimism but interesting that it was not present during the beta tests.

Hopefully this will get fixed very soon.