Disable Low Light Sensing on Video Doorbell

[KachinaShadow]

Is there any way to disable the low light sensing on the Video Doorbell?

Since my porch light is mounted above and behind the front surface of the Video Doorbell (where the ambient light/motion sensor is located) there is not enough ambient light on the wall surfaces in front of the doorbell to keep it from reverting to black and white. 

If I stand in front of the doorbell long enough then I can hear the Video Doorbell click when it reverts to color due to the ambient light sensor seeing enough reflected light, from my body, to come out of low light mode and display a nice sharp color image. Enabling Night Vision, which I know would only help the black and white image, does nothing but make everything darker except for anything close to the IR field (hand, arm or persons belly)...in fact it is basically useless.

I can however force the doorbell out of low light mode by shining a dim light at the ambient/motion sensor (dimmed by filtering a small flashlight with blue masking tape...I find that too bright of light prevents the motion sensor from seeing any movement) and even so much as a lighter held a few feet in front of the doorbell and held out of the field of view (without me standing there to reflect the ambient light from the porch light) will revert it to color and display a brilliant color image of the surrounding area that is being lit by the porch light.

It appears that if I want color I then have three options...either to somehow disable the low light sensor...find a way to power and mount a mini pinpoint LED spotlight out of the field of view and shining on the ambient/motion sensor...or put an unbelievably bright bulb in the porch light. 

Any thoughts???

[StephenB]

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@KachinaShadow wrote:

I find that too bright of light prevents the motion sensor from seeing any movement

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The motion sensor is a passive IR (PIR) sensor.  It's not clear to me whether the light is creating enough IR to interfere with the sensor, or if it is your body (assuming you are holding the light).  

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@KachinaShadow wrote:

 Enabling Night Vision, which I know would only help the black and white image, does nothing but make everything darker except for anything close to the IR field (hand, arm or persons belly)...in fact it is basically useless.

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I'm finding this rather unusual behavior as well.   Nightvision is IR (rendered as black and white, but not black and white).  It's a different part of the IR spectrum than the part used by the motion sensor.  When is it used, the doorbell turns on IR leds - so it should be illuminating the scene.  

Here's what my own doorbell typically shows with Nightvision on (and the porch light and house lights off):

For comparison, this is what it captures with the porch light on:

While it's hard to know if the other lights in the scene are generating enough IR to cover the yard, it is clear that the IR LEDs on the doorbell are illuminating the porch in first shot.  

FWIW, The doorbell has brightness set to 0, Auto HDR set to on, and Nightvision set to on.

Can you share similar snapshots of what you are seeing?  Also, your doorbell settings. 

[KachinaShadow]

@StephenB 

Thanks for replying to my post.

I'm tied up for the next few days but will have a response w/requested info then.

Paul

[KachinaShadow]

@StephenB 
Before you review the images (taken under various conditions) you should probably review the following two posts since they have led me to try different scenarios and arrive at the same conclusion as those posts.

https://community.arlo.com/t5/Arlo-Video-Doorbell/Night-Vision-Bug/td-p/1741821

https://community.arlo.com/t5/Arlo-Pro-2/Night-Vision-white-reflection-from-nearby-wall/td-p/1622794

Below are pics of where and how the doorbell is mounted...

As you can see the porch light is mounted behind the doorbell so there is no light shining on the front of the doorbell in to turn off the low light sensing in order to provide color images.

Here's the images (taken under various conditions) with brightness set at 0 and HDR off (HDR didn't noticeably change any of the results)

These are with porch light OFF...1st with Night Vision (NV) OFF...2nd w/NV ON

These are with porch light ON...1st w/NV OFF...2nd w/NV ON

These are with a small LED flashlight shining across the light sensor to take it out of the low light setting. Note that blueish white light on wall is from flashlight.
These are with porch light OFF...1st w/NV OFF...2nd w/NV ON

These are with porch light ON...1st w/NV OFF...2nd w/NV ON

Next I tried a little experiment by taping (w/black electrical tape) half of the lens in order to prevent the camera from seeing the wall where the IR light was saturated and therefore throwing off the Night Vision (I did not include any with the flashlight, for color, as it's pretty much the same as the above pics).

Here's a daytime shot before and after the tape so you can see what has been blocked by the tape.

These are with porch light OFF...1st w/NV OFF...2nd w/NV ON

These are with porch light ON...1st w/NV OFF...2nd w/NV ON

As you can see, by getting rid of the IR saturation, on the wall, the Night Vision shots are no longer dark.

I guess my next project will be to find a place to mount a small LED spotlight to provide light to the sensor thus turning off the low light function and giving me NICE COLOR IMAGES...

@JamesC can maybe forward this to engineering so that they can try to make this an option in the settings for any of the cameras.

I'm going to order one of these 12-28 volt LED spotlights and a PWM dimmer from Amazon and power it off of the 18 volt doorbell transformer...links below for anyone else who wants to try this.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IOESEXO/?coliid=I3BC2D2U942HON&colid=1WCWEG7H3LGAS&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0170OK7RO/?coliid=I3MGZ6YMMCTPT9&colid=1WCWEG7H3LGAS&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WVCHR74/?coliid=IFL0I89EBOIRT&colid=1WCWEG7H3LGAS&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it&...

Paul

[KachinaShadow]

Looks like the inserted images, in the previous post, have to be reviewed before displaying. I had assumed that when an image is inserted it shows up when it is posted...I apologize for that 🤔

Paul

[jguerdat]

If you attach the pics using the little paperclip icon below the text box they will show up directly. Using the camera icon above the text box is the issue. We'll get to see the images soon.

[KachinaShadow]

@jguerdat 

Thanks for the heads up on the camera icon.

I was going to use the paperclip until I saw the camera icon...figured since it says "insert photos" that it would be the best way 🤔

Only forum I know of that makes a mystery out of inserting photos...they should actually remove it and put the paper clip in its place.

Make sure and check out the post when the pics are up as it's something that might interest you 😁

Paul

[StephenB]

It can take a little while for embedded photos to be manually approved, but you can only add one photo if you use the paperclip method.  In this case, I think embedding the photos was more practical, given the number you were posting.  Note they are visible now.

Thx for posting them, they are quite helpful. I agree the IR LED reflection combined with auto-exposure in the camera is causing your particular issue.  This is more common with the cameras than the doorbells (since in most cases the doorbell doesn't have a wall immediately next to it).  So I wasn't thinking of that possibility.

I'm not sure if you have the AVD1001 or the AVD2001.  The AVD1001 ("wired") model has 2 IR LEDs, the AVD2001 ("wireless") model has only one.  If you happen to have the AVD1001, you could also try putting tape over the IR LED closest to the wall.  That might eliminate the need for the project. If you livestream with nightvision on (at night of course) you should be able to see the location of two LEDs.  

[jguerdat]

Frankly, the pics show that you don't gain anything by using NV - I would simply turn it off. That way you don't get the wall reflection and you don't have to modify anything. Am I missing something?

[KachinaShadow]

@StephenB @jguerdat 

"If you happen to have the AVD1001, you could also try putting tape over the IR LED closest to the wall"

I do have the ADV1001 but now with the tape on half the lens taking care of the IR oversaturation on the wall (and since I don't need to see the wall anyway), I think I'll just leave it at that.

Actually the original intention of this post was to see if there was a way to turn off/disable the low light sensor in order to get a nice color image. As you can see in the first color picture, taken with the small not very bright flashlight forcing the low light sensor/function OFF, and even with the porch light OFF and the NV OFF it has a good color image with just the ambient light.

I got started on the whole IR thing after seeing the pics from @StephenB and after reading the two posts (previously mentioned in my post with the pics) from people with the same issue of having a wall causing the oversaturated IR and making the picture dark.

So I guess if I want color I'll either have to add a small light to target the low light sensor, causing it to turn off, or persuade @JamesC to talk the engineering people in to adding a setting to disable the low light sensor.

I hope this post will help anyone who is having issues with the IR oversaturation or getting a color image without having enough forward light to turn off the low light function.

Paul

[jguerdat]

Gotcha. The issue with any camera sensor is the ability to capture enough light in low-light conditions for a useful color rendition. That's why the camera switches to B&W (I'm sure you know this). Given the small size of the sensor in these cameras and thus the pixel size, the light gathering capability is very limited. 

However, you obviously have sufficient ambient lighting out past the camera to cause the camera to switch to color without the use of your porch light. If that light remains on all the time at night there's no real reason to turn things on or off. I'd leave NV on in case that light fails but you would still need to work around the wall reflection.

ANyways, disabling the automatic light level switching would be of limited use to the vast majority of folks and just adds complexity (and support issues). Yours seems to be a (mostly) corner case in the first place, looking down a "tunnel".  We've seen this before as well as from cameras in open spaces but close to a wall or roof overhang. Those cases are easier since repositioning the camera helps but not with a doorbell.

Just a random thought that popped into my head - what about using the angle bracket to rotate the doorbell a bit?

[StephenB]

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@jguerdat wrote:

what about using the angle bracket to rotate the doorbell a bit?

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It already appears to be angled in one of the photos.  Not sure that would be enough, given how close the wall is to the doorbell.

[KachinaShadow]

@jguerdat @StephenB 

You are correct, there's an in ground light that shines up on the stone work on the wall just outside of the porch which provides that additional ambient light...you can see, in some shots, the light shining up on the eaves. Unfortunately it's not enough ambient light to activate the color image...that was done by shining a small cheapo mini flashlight across the face of the doorbell's light sensor (not directly into it) but it does provide enough ambient light to provide a good image, either color or black & white.

Currently the doorbell is angled about 20° out from the wall by using a 90° adapter mount along with the Arlo angle adapter (see pic in post w/pictures)...any more than that and it gets into saturation issues from the other side of the porch and angled too far out it starts to have reflection issues from the widow across from the porch light/doorbell (it doesn't look like it in the picture of the front door but the walls on both sides of the door are parallel). It's kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario 🤔

Right now with the tape on the lens blocking the IR oversaturation, along with the porch light and NV turned on, it produces an acceptable B&W image that I can live with. Although, since I do prefer the color image and love a challenge and problem solving, I am going to fabricate (I used to build and drive alcohol dragsters) some kind of small, somewhat inconspicuous, dimmable LED light (powered off of the 18 volt doorbell transformer) that shines enough light on or at the low light sensor to enable the color image...I'll post shots of what I come up with.

Thanks,
Paul

[KachinaShadow]

@StephenB 
@jguerdat 

Just thought I'd update you guys on this thread...
I added a small 12 volt LED light (like the black one shown in post #4) along with a PWM dimmer so that there would be enough ambient light on the face of the doorbell to keep the low light sensor from switching to IR and I now get nice color nighttime images (image attached) of the doorway but still leave the porch light on to illuminate the persons face since the additional LED light is mounted behind the subject and only used to disable the IR.
Since the small LED is 12 volt I was able to tap into the feed from the timer to my landscape lights which are on during hours of darkness.

Paul

[StephenB]

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@KachinaShadow wrote:

Just thought I'd update you guys on this thread...

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Thx!  The photo looks great.