Ultra 2 keeps recording after motion stops

[Prolixium]

Hi - 

I've a few outdoor Arlo Pro 2 cameras and recently I replaced 2x of them with Ultra 2s.  The Ultra 2s work fine but there's one quirk that I haven't been able to figure out yet - sometimes they detect motion and then record for the full 5 minutes.  I haven't been able to narrow down under what circumstances this happens and it feels random, but definitely happens to about 1 in every 4 recordings from both cameras.  They're set to stop recording when motion stops.

For example, I'll have a squirrel scurry across the alleyway behind my home.  The motion itself lasts about 5 seconds - but the Ultra 2 records full 5 minutes of footage.  Sometimes there are trees in the vicinity that are moving around in the wind but sometimes not.

I never had this problem with the Pro 2 and the other Pro 2s that I still have continue to work fine (even attached to the new base station that came with the Ultra 2 bundle).

Any suggestions on what to try to fix this?  Is anyone else experiencing the same issue?

It's not a /huge/ deal but it shouldn't be happening.

Thanks!

- Mark

[StephenB]

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@Prolixium wrote:

Any suggestions on what to try to fix this?  Is anyone else experiencing the same issue?

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My Ultras aren't doing that (I don't have any Ultra 2s).  

One workaround is to set them to a fixed recording time.  

You could try reducing motion sensitivity.  I don't know if activity zones would help - it seems like a long shot.  But maybe worth a try.

[Prolixium]

Just to follow up on this, I ended up moving from the USA west coast to east coast and put up the same Ultra 2 cameras in the front & back of our new townhome.  The one in the front still frequently (actually much more frequently now) records for the full 5 minutes even if there's just a short amount of motion.  So, uh, new location, new home, different weather, etc. and the same odd behavior 🙂

I did play with some of the settings awhile back but I wasn't really satisfied with the results (setting static recording time just cut off events and I got mixed results with motion sensitivity, etc.).  I do like the defaults even if I get frequent unnecessarily long recordings.

One thing that I did notice that didn't happen in the old location is that pretty much every time I start live view on the front Ultra 2 that action itself will trigger motion and cause the camera to record for the full 5 minutes.  It's as if when the camera is activated the motion detection method is different than when the camera is sleeping.  This happens during the day or at night, all times.  Oddly enough, I sometimes find it useful because it's fewer taps on the app to start a manual recording.  The one thing I can think of is that where I have the camera it might be able to see a sliver of its own reflection at the corner of the viewable area via glass - I can see that possibly triggering motion detection from the live view at night due to the IR LEDs but not during the day, so it's still puzzling.

Anyway, it seems like there's quite a bit here that I don't grok about how the Ultra 2 detects motion vs. the other cameras I use (a few Pro 2 & orignals).  Not a huge deal but it results in more battery charging since these are not connected to mains power.

- Mark

[Prolixium]

I'll reply again to myself just in case this is providing value to someone 🙂

I ended up swapping out one of the Ultra 2s with a Pro 4 (used same mount and position) since I wanted to repurpose the Ultra 2 for something where 4K is more desired.

After doing the swap I realized that the Pro 4 does not have the same problem as the Ultra 2 as described above.  It records when there's motion and ceases recording shortly after the motion stops.  I haven't seen any full 5:00 recordings like I did when the Ultra 2 was in place.

I suppose the platforms are sufficiently different so it could be a wide variety of reasons why the Pro 4 works correctly vs. the Ultra 2.

- Mark