Arlo Ultra and Ignored Activity Zones

[Goodoltom]

Hey there! 

I’ve looked at previous threads referring to what seems to be an issue for others around activity zones, but it seems that the suggestions don’t solve my issue. 

The Problem: Excessive alerts and notifcations despite activity zones. 

I’ve attached a photo of the Activity Zone along with a clip of a truck that’s clearly outside of the zone. In other posts, I’ve read that I need to use a different mode outside of the “Armed” mode which I’ve done. I’ve also turned off Vehicles and All Other Motion Smart Notifications which have resulted in the same issue. 

Looking for any other suggestions

[RSC1]

Now I’m really confused. My cat lives on our back deck. The activity zone boxes everything above the rails and includes the top of the back door. Every time that cat moves, I get a notification. No wonder I’m confused.

[Russ3ll]

So I just last night got my activity zones to work correctly. My library is still full of clips of cars going by but i am not notified unless activity happens in the zones I specify. That will continue until I get back on the ladders and try and position only the top 1/3 of the field of view in the street.
All I did was set my zones and after everything was configured how I wanted it, I reset my Hub. this solved the problem of excessive and unwanted notifications. I believe I also have the Smart thing checked to ignore vehicles. I would suggest getting it all set how you want it and then try restarting the hub though the app.

The only other thing I've done was what a few people suggested and under Mode I created a new mode, called it Activity zones, and set this mode up for use with my custom set activity zones. I am not sure if this is also necessary, it does not allow me to schedule my system by date/time while doing this but its worth it if it allows me to only be notified when I want to be. Let me know if this works for you. If not we can go through my settings piece by piece and find out what works. Good luck.
Hope this helps.

[srandall25]

If all activity inside the frame is being sent to the cloud for analysis (regardless of activity zone setup), does that mean that all those recordings will still be visible in the library, but only the recordings that meet the criteria per the activity zone will alert the user via a notification? If so, how would one person then filter all the video clips to ensure they're only looking at videos that resulted from only motion within the activity zone?

[JamesC]

Late last night , a back end fix went out to address this issue. Please test activity zones again to see if you still experience the same behavior.

Thank you,

JamesC

[goap]

As of today (August 21st ) it is still ignoring the zones on my Arlo Ultra. Perhaps it has not fully rolled out though.

[JamesC]

goap,

Try recreating your activity zones to see if you still experience the same behavior.

JamesC

[goap]

Still didn't work I'm afraid.

[Pguich]

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@JamesC wrote:

Late last night , a back end fix went out to address this issue. Please test activity zones again to see if you still experience the same behavior.

Thank you,

JamesC

---

Hi James,

many thanks. Took me a while to test, for some reason it took my battery almost two full days to recharge. But my initial finding is that it really seems to work. I tested by walking through the activity zone, and the camera recorded it properly. More importantly, so far none of the cars passing through outside of the activity zones have been recorded. These made up 99% of the 1000+ recordings daily that drove me mad. 

I did delete the activity zone and created a new one before testing, and it seems to work as I hoped for. 

I hope my battery issue was just a fluke, but I appreciate that the fix was rolled out. I think i will start enjoying my Arlo ultra again 😀

Pascal

[shdwkeeper]

Just got my Ultra cameras yesterday and can't figure this out. Setup my zones and I get notified on all the street traffic which is completely outside of it. Any ideas? Here is my screenshot

[srandall25]

Is that the only zone you have? If you hit back from the screen, do you see other zones? Also, do you have smart notifications enabled? Go to settings and then under 'Arlo Smart->Smart Notifications, enabled People, Animals, and All other motion. Leave vehicles off. Then under 'Mode' click the arrow next to 'Armed' and click 'edit' for the effected camera. Enable Push Notification. You should now only get notifications for the activity zone videos where motion is detected inside your activity zone. If this doesn't work, then try disabling 'll other motion', leaving only 'People' and 'Animals' checked.. You should then only get notifications to your phone where the Arlo Server side evaulated your video and determined that a person or animal inside your activity zone was present.

[charith]

I am confused by the previous reply from  srandall25

What's the relationship between turning off Vehicle notifications and Activity zones?

My impression is all the notifications should be ignored by the system if they are outside of the Activity Zone. You don't have to turn off Vehicle Notifications.

If you turn off Vehicle notifications, it wouldn't send notifications regardless of the activity zone.

[srandall25]

The relationship would be if the shadow from nearby moving vehicles in the daytime or lights from vehicle at night shine in the activity zone then you could get a false notification. Also if your activity zone doesn’t have a need to identify vehicles then best to turn it off to avoid a additional false positives since the technology in identifications isn’t perfect.

[charith]

But then the issue is I don't get actual Vehicle Notifications within the Activity Zone. I don't want to skip notifications if a vehicle come right infront of the house.
Vast majority of users are trying to setup Activity Zones, just to get rid of vehicle notifications passby. If we turn off Vehicle Notifications, Activity Zones are not needed at all for that purpose.

[srandall25]

If you want vehicle notifications then leave it on. I was just making a point that if you don’t need it, then turn it off because it may mitigate false positives if it’s something you don’t want. The vehicle notifications was only one of a number of issues I addressed in helping resolve ones issue on this.

[shdwkeeper]

But why is the system identifying any motion that far out of my activity zone? I mean it's not even close to being in my zone to have that big of a false positive range. How did some folks fix this as previously mentioned. Disabling vehicle is kind of a lame way of making it work.

[goap]

My zones seem to be working since the new Android app was launched a couple of weeks ago.

[411TTWB]

I have tried all of the suggestions in this thread, essentially turn everything off, reboot, delete, re-establish, un-select - you name it. For my Ultra 4 pack the activity zones have never worked. I have a similar case of a long drive way, and I have cut the activity zone down to half of the driveway (yes a picture helps, but other have already posted in essence the same thing) and I have only people selected . There is nothing "smart" about " notifications! Vehicles set it of in daylight and at night with either scatter IR or reflected light  or none of that. The object is out of the activity zone, in the "shaded area" of the camera (upper 1/3 of what is being viewed)[see page 16 of 79 in users man "The lower two-thirds of the
camera’s field of view is the motion-sensitive part of the image. Aim the camera so that any motion you wish to detect appears within this part of the image", and not a person (I only select person others are off)and I get the recording, notification and battery power consumption. Neither the activity zone nor being out of the "motion detect zone reduces false alarms.  

Result: False alarms; battery drain; and the opportunity to climb the ladder and replace the battery after ten days.

Solution: . Assume the motion detect zone is smaller than the stated 2/3 and just for the bottom 1/3; remove activity zones so the camera does not have to send stuff to the cloud for the "smartness" to try and figure it out. Results: I don't have to climb the ladder as much, I don't have false alarms, data is recorded for post analysis , and Arlo has created a new definition of "Smart"!

With all the comments in the support community on "activity zones" "alerts" and not one common published solution for these systems, one would think that the suggested approach of "Easter Egg hunting" solutions (try this or that; then this and then that) for this well know and respected company would be refuted. Arlo! Please solve the problem(s) without the speculation of too many variables. Cause and effect, not reboot and see what happens. The volume of messages in these relate threads suggest "We have a problem, Houston!".

Yes, I would still recommend Arlo; but I would also state there is nothing really smart about these devices yet. Grin and bear it.  When the other manufactures solve this problem with in a cost point, then I might change my recommendation.