Arlo|Smart Home Security|Wireless HD Security Cameras

Arlo Doorbell Activity zone not working.

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Pritammazumder
Guide
Guide

Constantly gives false movements when i have activity zone set up.

44 REPLIES 44
Darkmatter83
Guide
Guide
Nothing has worked to solve the problem so far. This issue has been going on for over 5 months now. Come on give me a break figure your activity zoned out already or I’m asking for a refund and leaving Arlo. And the worst part is I am paying for being bombarded with notifications
Darkmatter83
Guide
Guide
I couldn’t agree with you more on your response. Your work around are stupid Arlo! Take ownership of the issue, don’t give us stupid work arounds. The feature did work properly when I first bought the camera. Then you sent a update and bricked the feature. Fix what you messed up and make this right for PAYING customers
Darkmatter83
Guide
Guide
Please fix the activity zone issues already. None of the updates you’ve sent have worked. This feature did work properly several months ago. Why can’t you get this right and fix it. It’s really making me mad now as I am paying for a feature that doesn’t work which makes the camera usable as you have to turn off the notifications as your bombarded with useless notifications! Really sad I’ve been waiting for so long and you guys can’t fix it.
KachinaShadow
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

JamesC,

 

I find that I can enable People, Vehicles & Animals for the Doorbell Camera, in Arlo Smart, and none of those will be detected (or notifications sent) unless they're within the Activity Zone that I have set...that's good!

 

However if I enable All Other Motion, in Arlo Smart), it then detects any movement within the field of view (including outside of the Activity Zone), records it to the library/cloud and sends a notification...not good!

 

Note that my Doorbell Camera is not connected through my Base but rather direct via my WiFi and that the doorbell was installed first, prior to the rest of the system.

 

Also note that from the time of install, in June, with the same parameters set (All Other Motion was not set) the Doorbell had also been recording (to the cloud/library) any movement outside of the Activity Zone but without sending a notification...however that changed two days ago when I removed & reinstalled the Doorbell Camera (I was testing some other issues) and that phantom recording stopped and I have not since been able to recreate that unusual scenario but it still detects, records & notifies any movement outside of the Activity Zone if I set All Other Motion in Arlo Smart.

 

Paul

Darkmatter83
Guide
Guide
Wow James I tried what you suggested and to my amazement it’s been working so far! Thx so much for this. It still amazes me you solved my problem and countless calls with Arlo and they couldn’t suggest a fix that actually worked! I’m in shock. Thx again.
KachinaShadow
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Darkmatter83,

Were you replying to James or to the post that I addressed to James about NOT setting the All Other Motion in Arlo Smart?

Paul

Darkmatter83
Guide
Guide
Oops sorry I meant to say you. I just read it back and mixed that up my apologies. Ya your post worked perfectly for me! I really Appreciated the help as I was about to return both my cameras.
KachinaShadow
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Not a problem...I just hope that James or some other moderator picks up on this so that they can fix it so that it pertains to motion ONLY within the Activity Zone(s). After all they have stated that they are continuing to monitor this issue.

 

And this line is for Arlo...YOU'RE WELCOME ARLO 😁

Paul

Darkmatter83
Guide
Guide
Oh your 100% right on that. That’s the way it should be. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve been on the phone with them looking for an update. Not once was I suggested to do what you said. How do they not know there own product!! It’s asinine!!!
dfwarlo
Aspirant
Aspirant
Activity zone now working. Okay, so I had similar issues with vehicles even after setting the zone to the front yard with yard sidewalk. Well, after setting sensitivity to 50%, I’m good. I get what I need now so try setting both for your own situation. Thanks
yacko2000
Tutor
Tutor
Haha I fixed the problem by switching to ring. Their software and capabilities are way beyond what Arlo can do. I almost never mess with my settings anymore, It's much better
Darkmatter83
Guide
Guide
Thx for the tip I already tried that and I even have mine set to 20 and I’m still getting notified of stuff outside my activity zones.
Darkmatter83
Guide
Guide
Wow really! So the motion zones work as intended without notifying of stuff outside the zones? Arlo really needs to work on this. They are trying to tell
Me shadows are triggering my cameras with my sensitivity set to 20. Come on.
yacko2000
Tutor
Tutor
I don't get the shadows triggering, but the car lights ( I live on a corner and car lights come across my yard) do trigger the recording. Each camera, even the wireless ones on ring) let you set custom motion zones that actually work so you only get recordings if motion crosses that defined zone
marcostgs
Tutor
Tutor
Arlo support told me that the doorbell doesn’t support activity zones unless you have an active subscription. It doesn’t matter if the camera is connected to power or not.
I had to reduce the sensitivity to 30% to reduce the number of false positives (cars driving by).
Unfortunately for me it would be expensive to replace with another brand, but going forward when it’s time to upgrade for sure I won’t buy Arlo anymore.
Pro-666
Apprentice
Apprentice

@yacko2000 wrote:
Haha I fixed the problem by switching to ring. Their software and capabilities are way beyond what Arlo can do. I almost never mess with my settings anymore, It's much better

Lol, good luck with that one. I got Ring right now. It loves my car lights and the lens flair that they cause (lights not even physically in the Zone mapping). My Ring also loves spider webs blowing across the camera at night. It also loves quick cloud covering over the sun, sees it as motion.

 

Oh, and good luck with the delayed notifications to your phones. All of these video doorbell companies really do suck in more ways than one. The only thing you can really do is make your own reliable system.

 

Buy a button, buy a camera, link them together, connect to a local wifi via Raspberry PI, and there you have it. Make an app for your phone with the many tools out there. Now your only point of failure for these important phone notifications would be either your home internet, or your phone's internet. No more trusting a 3rd party with this critical information.

 

Where's the free opensource doorbell camera software? And the free opensource phone app? Why haven't the software gurus in the world made it yet? LibreDoorBell?

djskyhawk
Star
Star

Here's something that is easy to overlook, after you set activity zone hit the "save" button.  I've been frustrate, with other features, because I forget to hit save.  May not work, but worth a shot.

Darkmatter83
Guide
Guide
Thx for the suggestion. But no that didn’t help unfortunately.
Darkmatter83
Guide
Guide
Ya I totally hear you on that. I’ve reduced my sensitivity as well. Still not perfect. But ya kinda stuck as well don’t feel like shelling out more money for till this one craps out. Advising people not to buy Arlo either. So sad.
Darkmatter83
Guide
Guide
Ahh good to know. What I don’t get about the car lights triggering the cameras is I have person car and animal set. Clearly car lights don’t show as any of those. Very frustrating there AI doesn’t work very well on these cameras.
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