Activity zone not acting as expected, or ignored

[Seth809]

One of my cameras is set up at the front gate of my property looking toward the road.  Its a county road so probably only one car per every few minutes.  The road is 60ft from my gate so i need to utilize the activity zone to capture only gate movement and movement on my land.  I have tried different size zones down to about a 2ft by 2ft box 100ft away from the road.  I have also adjusted the sensitivity down to 5%.  With both of these settings its still going off with cars driving by. 

I read on the Arlo website you have to either have a Smart Subscription or the camera must be wired to power for activity zones to work.  Since this camera system is only 1mo old, I show to still have the free Smart 12mo Subscription.  I meet one of the requriements for Activity Zones to work yet they dont.

[n1976jmk]

Thanks, I been an Arlo owner for one year so far. What I’m used to is a lot of promises. Let’s see what actually happens is another story.

I am an optimist but Arlo does not keep the customers in mind when it comes to their updates and resolving their own issues they’ve creating with their not tested enough updates they force out.

[dcfox1]

My zones were working even when some had problems and other were not. Now it does not in the last week or so.  Even when they were it was hit or miss. 

[n1976jmk]

@JamesC 

@ShayneS 

hi James and Shayne!

Hope you both are well.

Can you please help the community out on this issue?

I would greatly appreciate if you could help us!

 Thank you!

Jonathan

[Bubbagump1952]

OK I might have a stupid question I’ve read all the questions and answers that are out there on the problem that I’m having. when you set up an activity zone it says highlight areas in your cameras view where you want to receive motion alerts OK so I do that and it still picks up the blowing trees that aren’t highlighted so it’s so confusing and all these posts that are out there are so confusing right now I have the area where I want to receive a notification highlighted but it’s picking up the trees around outside that Highlighted area. How do I fix this or how do I get help to fix this I have five of these cameras. I do have the smart subscription so that’s not the issue somebody please help

[Gaxor]

Just to add to the list of dissatisfied customers.

I swapped from a Nest cam for a 2 camera Arlo Ultra system, because it seemed to be a more up-to-date system, and specifically was wireless.

I have set-up an activity zone, and am now told it will not work unless the camera is hardwired. So WHAT IS THE POINT!

Arlo advertise the wireless cameras as having zone detection, which they clearly don't.

[Tech-D]

@Gaxor  I am going to suggest if you can, return the system now for a full refund.  I had the activity zone issue from day one, and I figured I would give the system a pass and figured it was just a small bump.  Those bumps haven't stopped since that day, I'm lucky if I get 30 days where I don't have to worry about the camera system not functioning properly.

I purchased the camera system to give us piece of mind, but all it does is cause frustration.

[JamesC]

Arlo recently deployed a cloud update enhancing Activity Zone accuracy. This should improve the experience for users reporting symptoms of motion detection alerts and recordings occurring outside of their defined Activity Zones. We are continuing to monitor Activity Zone behavior and will provide additional enhancements in the coming weeks.

[JamesC]

Arlo recently deployed a cloud update enhancing Activity Zone accuracy. This should improve the experience for users reporting symptoms of motion detection alerts and recordings occurring outside of their defined Activity Zones. We are continuing to monitor Activity Zone behavior and will provide additional enhancements in the coming weeks.

[JamesC]

Arlo recently deployed a cloud update enhancing Activity Zone accuracy. This should improve the experience for users reporting symptoms of motion detection alerts and recordings occurring outside of their defined Activity Zones. We are continuing to monitor Activity Zone behavior and will provide additional enhancements in the coming weeks.

[n1976jmk]

Hi @JamesC 

i definitely see a difference today!  Thank you for your update!

[Tech-D]

@JamesC  Thanks for the update, I can say we just had a storm come through and normally with the flag flying that is when we would get a bunch of false alerts and recordings.  That is not the case.

[dcfox1]

Yesterday I saw such a drop off I wondered if they were working on it compared to what  I got recently. 

[photoflea]

Last night It mistook a cat for a person. So there’s that.

[dcfox1]

@photoflea Are talking about the wrong labeling under smart notifications or being out side your activity zone?. 

[n1976jmk]

Hi Dcfox, after reading JamesC recent response today he said that the work was to fix motion detection and recordings occurring outside of our defined activity zones.

[n1976jmk]

Hi photoflea, based off of what JamesC just wrote the fix was for receiving notifications for motion detection occurrences and recordings happening outside our defined activity zones.

So I don’t think it applies to mistaken smart notifications (which I receive sometimes too).

Lastly he said the change went into affect recently so that probably means just today sometime.

[dcfox1]

Yes that is what i was trying to clarify with him. They are two different things. I get some mixed labels in notifications here and there also. 

[photoflea]

I was referring to the upgrade notice talking about enhancements, so now cats are people. 😐  Hopefully, it keeps getting better. 

[dcfox1]

@photoflea Yea that was for Activity zones not smart notifications. That's  never been perfect. The problem was for activity  zones that were really bad. 

[n1976jmk]

I normally see the smart notifications mix up happen when Arlo smart is identify the object when further away from the camera view.

When it’s close up, less than 10 feet, it works fine.

Part of it I believe is limitations since at further away the pixel count is lower per object hence a harder time identifying.

[dcfox1]

Yea same here.

[-Hammer-]

I re-positioned my camera back to facing a busy street, reconfigured the Activity Zones and can confirm its working as expected. I will monitor and let you know if there are any changes

[-Hammer-]

Ok it was fine for a few hours and i'm now getting alerts for motion outside the activity zone again.... I'm regretting switching from my old Ring cameras...

Also I've switched off 'All Other Motion' in my Smart Notifications and still getting notified for other motion...

[kgilchrist]

Hi @JamesC 

Thanks for the update. I am NOT seeing any changes on my end. I took the additional step to detect and re-add my Zone. Right now, on my Arlo Ultra (shown below) and my Arlo 3, I am still getting recordings outside of the zone area. Cars that pass by on the street are still getting recorded. Of course I'm on the corner, so it's double time.

Suggestions?

[Tech-D]

@JamesC 

I saw a noticeable improvement for a short time, but as of today it had a major hickup between 11:46am - 12:59pm EST.