Ultra recording outside of activity zones

[RB4]

Records outside of zones! Resized zones squared them, it doesn’t matter, keeps recording everything on street. Cameras are upside down 180 view to help hide cords. We don’t want to lower cameras view, we want to be able to view street. Why is it recording outside of zones?

[JamesC]

RB4,

Could you post a screenshot from the cameras perspective, showing the zones you've created? This might help us better understand your specific environment.

JamesC

[mmuy888]

 i have the same problems too. i will attach some screen shots on my activity zone and cars are still being captured outside the activity zone. 

[bangboi]

JamesC 

Do you know if activity zones works properly when connected to power? I am considering buying cables because it does not work at all with premium sub. on battery. 

Cheers 

[bangboi]

Here i send 2 pictures. One showing activity zone and one showing recording. Settings: Only animal, powered connection. It is very clear that activity zone does not work even og power. What a disappointment. 

[mikejd1]

This tripped me up for a while but I’ve finally figured it out. This is by design. Activity zones are meant for smart notifications only. Outside activity zones the camera still records motion, vehicle, people, etc but simply does NOT send you an alert.

[bangboi]

are yon on ac or battery?

[mmuy888]

im on AC power

[bangboi]

So if i understand you correct. When on AC your motion outside of activity zone does not send you a notification? Correct?

[bangboi]

Why would arlo choose to record outside of activity zone when it allready knows that the points of interest are in the zone? 

[mikejd1]

Cause this company is stupid. I’ve had so many issues with this arlo ultra camera that I’m ready to smash them
On the ground

[bangboi]

Does your library fill up with motion outside of the zone? But notifications are only received when motion in zone? So arlo is actually throwing money out the window by saving thousands of files on their servers and at the same time producing ton of co2 emissions. LOL 

[bangboi]

Right now im testing my ultra with activity zones on battery. And it seems as if motion outside zones does not record and end up in library. Has there been som server processing update newly?

[mmuy888]

Same with battery powered. Keeps recording all zone

[RB4]

Thank you for uploading your photos, mine looks just like yours but my photos wouldn’t upload. I have the exact same problem as you. Still waiting for a solution or fix from Arlo. I do not want recordings outside of the zones

[RB4]

It’s so frustrating 

[RB4]

Aggravating that Arlo won’t fix this

[mmuy888]

I have arlo pro 2 as well, when i setup the activity zone it wont record anything outside it until some motion is detected in the specific area. will be returning my arlo ultra to bestbuy. 

[jguerdat]

You do understand that's exactly how zones are supposed to work, right? You are eliminating detection outside of the zone so you only get recordings/notifications for motion inside the zone.

[mmuy888]

Yes I understand it 100%. As you can see in my previous post it is still recording outside the boxes. I tried to tell the camera not to record anything passing on the street. Thats why its going back to bestbuy

[RB4]

Yes, if only it worked that way! It’s recording everything inside and outside the zones.

[crriserjr]

Hey everyone ... 

I posted this in another thread, but wanted to add it here as well.  Based on feedback from Arlo support in the other thread, I found a solution to this:

So I have been fighting this very same thing for a few months, including spending over an hour on the phone with tech support.  Everything worked fine when I originally installed, but when I took my camera down the first time to charge the battery, after putting it back in place, I could never get this to work right.

I just gave up.  Notifications were fine, but recording EVERYTHING when motion happened outside the zone, especially since the camera faced a street, would burn up my battery charge too quickly.

SOLUTION:  as the tech team noted above, changing the zone from the convoluted, follow the contour of the shape perfectly, zone, to one that was essentially a tall rectangle (less geometric) solved this for me immediately.  I even had to increase sensitivity again to trigger the recording faster.  The Arlo support team says this is a known issue ... if the zone is too "geometric" it will cause the software to not recognize the zones so there solution is to make it more "box like".

Now, I think this stinks.  After all, the benefit of the Ultra is the higher number of "points" that you can use to shape your inclusion zone to make it more "exact".  Turns out it did the opposite and made it useless.

I still need to experiment with just how "crazy" you can make the shape and still have the camera function right, but for now, making the zone a rectangle worked well enough.  What I ended up doing is creating multiple, overlapping square/rectangle zones that covered my area that I wanted to trigger in.  That seems to have solved this for now.

[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

[crriserjr]

JAMESC (and anyone else on this thread):  well tentatively I have to say that this seems to have done the job.  I spent the last 24 hours trying different shapes and getting as close to the street as I could with my “zone” to see if traffic would trigger.

Its pretty darn good.  There will occasionally be a recording of a car going by outside of the zone (well, only two in 24 hours) but I don’t get notifications of those because the system correctly ignores anything but something tagged as a PERSON (vs just MOTION).

In any event, if anyone is reading this, I believe this “fix” that you guys pushed to your own system worked.

THANK YOU.  I sincerely appreciate Arlo working on a solution for this.  It will save my battery life and help extend the usefullness of my system.

[n1976jmk]

Hi Crrisserjr

I have experienced that sometimes in the past as well.

Even though a vehicle passes outside of your activate zone it records to the library but doesn’t notify you.

If there was strong enough of a breeze in the activity zone of my camera and at the same time a vehicle passes by on the street which is outside of my activity zone as well but I think it’s recognizing it because the breeze was strong enough to trigger a motion and it saw the vehicle.

Thanks!