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Activity Zones do not work

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Exergon
Guide
Guide

After defining a zone, the sensors always continue to pick up motion outside the zone, and everywhere in frame.

One camera is triggered hundreds of times a day, each time a car passes in the street about 50 feet away, even though the cars are outside the right of frame(?). Turning sensitivity down has no apparent effect. Have tried rebooting the base and both cameras, and after pulling batteries out of both, but no change.

 

Does anyone get the Activity Zone to work?  And why is the sensor triggered by motion that is not even in frame?

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jguerdat
Guru Guru
Guru

These can happen if the action is close to the zones (the zones are not absolute) or if it's due to IR reflections from objects outside thew zone but are bounced by objects inside the zone. A passing car easily can reflect the sun's IR to trigger a false recording. Reposition the camera to eliminate the street from view may help a lot.

Exergon
Guide
Guide

Thanks for reply!  I wondered how a reflective surface may have something to do with it, which is probably occurring with the most problematic camera and a window at an angle to one side of frame.   I cannot repo that camera that much without omitting much of the area I need covered.   Oh well.  I have to keep it plugged in, otherwise the battery drains in 3 days from all the undue recording. 

 

But Zones also do not work with my second camera, not triggered by cars, and no particularly reflective surface is in frame.  I tried to get zones to work over the 3 years I've had these cameras, to no avail.  So I guess they work for other users.  Will take up with support.  

Fresty
Aspirant
Aspirant

It happens the same case for me.

The cameras do not view any street or other location in witch any accidental movement may occurs. 
In most cases the camera captures every movement; the alert happens because of cats that across my ground and definitely out of the zones that I set.
I have also disabled the smart recognition of animals but it doesn’t work: the camera captures every movement in any zone within the frame. 

StephenB
Guru Guru
Guru

@Fresty wrote:

I have also disabled the smart recognition of animals but it doesn’t work: the camera captures every movement in any zone within the frame. 


Smart Notifications just affects notifications, it doesn't change what is recorded.

 

Sometimes even slight motion inside the zone will result in a recording (even if what triggered the motion detector was out of zone).

 

If you are using the zoom & tracking feature, try disabling that.

 

If the camera is zoomed in, it might also be worth zooming it out and resetting the zones.

 

Fresty
Aspirant
Aspirant

I don't have zoom and tracking feature.

if I have to be honest I did,'t find the feature in the App. I navigated every option of the App and I did't find the option.

jguerdat
Guru Guru
Guru

It's in the camera settings under Video Settings. 

Fresty
Aspirant
Aspirant

Ok Thank you very much I found it.

I confirm that it is disabled.

Regards.

Francesco.

Exergon
Guide
Guide

If I disable IR, the camera stops triggering by every passing car during the day.  So it seems that IR is always active even when NightVision is not?   Maybe a feature request is for IR to activate only when NightVision kicks in in the dark.  

jguerdat
Guru Guru
Guru

By disabling IR I assume you mean deselecting Black & White which disables the IR LEDs used for night vision instead of the spotlight. That should have no effect at all on triggering since the trigger itself is what would turn on those LEDs. If you can see them glowing a dull red all the time, that's a problem.

StephenB
Guru Guru
Guru

@jguerdat wrote:

By disabling IR I assume you mean deselecting Black & White which disables the IR LEDs used for night vision instead of the spotlight. That should have no effect at all on triggering since the trigger itself is what would turn on those LEDs. If you can see them glowing a dull red all the time, that's a problem.


@Exergon:  To (hopefully) clarify.

 

There is no control labeled "IR", so we aren't clear on what you mean.

 

The cameras have an passive infrared (PIR) sensor that detects motion.  There is no specific control to turn that sensor on or off.  You can set the sensitivity for that sensor in the rules for the camera, and there is a motion detection test you can use to help you find the right setting for it.  You can of course also disarm the camera, or disable motion detection for the camera.

 

There are also IR LEDs in the camera that automatically come on when the camera needs to use NightVision.  Again, there is no specific control for those LEDs.  But if Nightvision is turned off, then those LEDs would remain off.

 

Though both of these are IR, they use different frequencies (that is, they would be different colors if you could see them).  So they do not interfere with each other.  

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