Video doorbell activity zones not working

[Elboydo]

I have activity zones setup on my new video doorbell in an attempt to stop cars going by sending notifications. However the app keeps flagging motion in the non-active area. Is there an update or a work around for this issue?

[Clendinning]

I think I have finally identified the problem. It seems that if a butterfly flaps its wings on the other side of town, my Arlo video doorbell triggers a video event.

I’ve literally lost track of the number of times my doorbell sent a trigger notification today.

Kirk

[Spatman]

Mine was doing ok for a month or so, now it’s back to ignoring activity zones again.

This is getting really frustrating.

[Jsmitty66]

I had 129! recordings outside of the notification zones yesterday between the hours of 1:22 am and 11:17 pm.  A few made it through as notifications even though I have selected notification only for movement of persons.  

This is the definition of broken in my book.

[astinton]

I'm just adding my two cents. Activity zone is set to exclude the passing cars and it triggers constantly. There's construction across the street so this is sometimes hundreds of triggers per day. The triggers all say motion and it's almost always a passing vehicle. I have shrunk the zone and lowered sensitivity. This is very frustrating.

[Clendinning]

I'm still convinced that a firmware programmer, probably on a contract, since most technology firms don't believe technical expertise has any value these days, enabled the microphone for triggering video events. However, the system programmer upstream who was supposed to handle those events at the server level, got his project cut short by a manager wanting a promotion, who cut all of the project development time estimates in half to make his numbers look good. So, all of us users have a system that doesn't work because evidently, no one still at the company has any idea how it all works.

I think I'm going to put some chewing gum over the microphone hole and thank Richard Dean Anderson for the suggestion.

Regards,

-kirk-

[Clendinning]

I'm going to have to walk back my sound trigger idea for the version of firmware on my doorbell currently. I put tape across the camera to avoid motion triggers. Even in the presence of loud sounds, I got no false triggers. Sadly, I'll have to admit that my doorbell is triggering exclusively on motion.

On a bright note, I have been in contact with a product representative for the video doorbell within Arlo. I have sent them data for my doorbell. I hope to be able to work with someone directly to solve the trigger issue, or at least bring a better understanding to the user community. I'll keep you posted.

Regards,

-kirk-

[Dobefan2]

We are having the same issue!  It does appear to be activating off of sound and/or the activity zone is completely ignored?  Hen we first got the video doorbell it was fantastic and functioned perfectly.  We then started having issues in January for about a month or so and then all of a sudden it appeared to start working properly again.  Now, it’s back to having the same issues.  I turned off notifications and then we delete the recordings throughout the day.  I’m hopeful they come up with a solution soon!!!

[Clendinning]

I hope to have the issue fixed soon as well. I have been sending videos illustrating the false triggers as well as allowing Arlo to track the logs of my doorbell. Hopefully, working closely with them will help them find the problem.

Regards,

-kirk-

[Clendinning]

Here is Arlo's explanation of how triggering is supposed to work. There is an infrared sensor that sets off the local doorbell trigger to capture video. The sensitivity of that can be set in the Motion Detection Test.  The lower the number the closer to the doorbell a heat signature must be to trigger a local video capture. Once a video is captured by the doorbell, it is sent to the Arlo servers. There it is analyzed against the activity areas. I think that the movement detection is fairly generic, so that really almost anything in an activity area can cause a notification event. I have been sending in videos via the 'Donor' button. Since I have an active support case, my videos are sent for analysis. My understanding is that in several videos, along with a car, or some other object that triggered the local infrared, there were small movements in the activity areas, such as birds, shadows etc. 

My suggestion to Arlo has been to use Sequential Event Triggering rather than cumulative triggering. The current notification triggers if _any_ of the activation areas have movement. I think that there would be less false triggers if the movement filters also included a sequential even requirement. In other words, more than one active area would need to be triggered within a short window of time in order for a notification to be sent. 

So the current advice for trying to reduce errant notification triggers is this: 

1.  Set the Motion Detection Test setting to about 25 or less. This will reduce local triggers. 

2. Only choose activity areas where there is a near field background, not areas that include sky, scenes in the infinite distance, etc. In other words, your porch walls, floors and ceilings should yield better notification trigger results.

Please let me know if this helps. My system is set for the porch floor and wall, near my door and the Infrared detector is at 30.

I will post my progress and continue to converse with the Arlo representative.

Regards,

-kirk-

[Jsmitty66]

Bottom line is these are all workarounds which highlight the many failure modes of this system - it does not work.

I have an Arlo Pro 2 on my driveway hard wired which gives FREE activity zone functions without a monthly charge for the Smart notifications like the Video Doorbell.  I have pasted the image of my activity zones on the Arlo Pro 2.  I have zero false notifications.  Why are the two products performing differently?

I have asked for a refund under warranty and Arlo is slow to respond to this request.

[StephenB]

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@Clendinning wrote:

The lower the number the closer to the doorbell a heat signature must be to trigger a local video capture. 

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This bit isn't quite accurate.  Reducing the number means that more IR (what you call a "heat signature") is needed to trigger the recording.  That doesn't necessarily mean that the IR is from something closer.  A larger object that is further away will also trigger the detector.

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@Clendinning wrote:

 Once a video is captured by the doorbell, it is sent to the Arlo servers. There it is analyzed against the activity areas.

So they are telling you that the doorbell is using cloud activity zones.  @JamesC : Can you get confirmation on this point?  I think it's important to get confirmation on this, since the implication is that you need a paid subscription to get activity zones with the doorbell.  Some here have asked about that, but I haven't seen a clear answer.

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@Clendinning wrote:

1.  Set the Motion Detection Test setting to about 25 or less. This will reduce local triggers. 

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Yes it will.  But setting it too low means you will miss recordings that you care about.  So there is a balance here:  Too high and you get too many recordings you don't want.  Too low, and you miss too many recordings that you do want.

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@Clendinning wrote:

2. Only choose activity areas where there is a near field background, not areas that include sky, scenes in the infinite distance, etc. In other words, your porch walls, floors and ceilings should yield better notification trigger results.

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The activity zones in my own doorbell are set that way - covering just the porch.  But they aren't being properly applied.  I got over 650 recordings yesterday with the default motion sensitivity of 80.  About 5 of them were in the activity zone.

One complication is that there is also more video corruption than there should be - which will generate false results with the cloud activity zones (since the corruption shows up throughout the picture, including inside the zone).

What I'm doing to mitigate the problem is 

1. turn off all other motion and vehicles in the smart notifications.  I still get the recordings, but not the flood of out-of-zone notifications
2. use the filter to select people, packages, and animals when I browse the library.

And of course I have reported this (more than once).

[Clendinning]

@StephenB   I work in IR...  I'll not argue the terms with you. The point is that users can expect less triggers with a lower number. I gave a simple explanation for a complex subject, probably shouldn't have done so.

Whether or not data is analyzed and stored on Arlo servers does not dictate whether or not a service is free. That is a simply a policy decision.  From an architectural standpoint, most IoT companies want a connection to their system to monetize services, so very few devices, such as doorbells are keeping large amounts of data.

Clearly, there is a balance to where one sets sensitivity. It is user and location dependent. The point here is that users become aware of how that setting works and what it does. It is a gross trigger like an IR driveway light.

When you say that the activity zones just cover the porch, do they cover the porch area, but with a background past the porch?  That is what I am trying to establish for Arlo. I have my activity areas only set on a wall and the floor of my porch, no other place where motion could be incorrectly interpreted. 

I assume that Arlo uses some sort of recognition algorithm for triggers. Apparently it is not well trained at this point and is triggering on unwanted targets. By removing any 'background' images, we can establish whether the boundaries of the activity areas are being used or ignored. Once that is established, we can begin to include imagery from 'real world'.

I agree, it is not reasonable to only trigger on walls and floors. One should be able to trigger on the entire view and the algorithm sort out the targets, with some exceptions, aided by the activation areas. A smart algorithm should easily be able to recognize video noise.

You might contact service and inform them that you will be 'donating' aberrant triggers. I have forwarded your letter to my contact at Arlo.

Regards,

-kirk-

[StephenB]

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@Clendinning wrote:

Whether or not data is analyzed and stored on Arlo servers does not dictate whether or not a service is free. That is a simply a policy decision.

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That is true of course - and Arlo's policy is that cloud activity zones require paid subscriptions. 

Another aspect (technical) is that the streamed video is of much lower quality than the local video in camera, and sometimes the streamed video is corrupted in transmission.  Processing in the cloud also adds delay - which can be a problem if another camera is cross-triggered.

The general approach Arlo has taken is that they will do local activity zone processing when the cameras are powered.  And of course the doorbell is powered.  So it would be consistent for them to provide local activity processing in the doorbell.  But that doesn't mean they did.  Several have asked, but I haven't yet seen an answer from Arlo.  So I asked again myself (hopefully @JamesC will respond).

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@Clendinning wrote:

When you say that the activity zones just cover the porch, do they cover the porch area, but with a background past the porch?  That is what I am trying to establish for Arlo. I have my activity areas only set on a wall and the floor of my porch, no other place where motion could be incorrectly interpreted. 

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They cover just a bit of the approach (e.g., the front steps).  But not anywhere close to the road or town sidewalk.  No sky, etc. 

I have done a test where I placed a chair a couple feet in front of the doorbell, and set the activity zone to only cover the back of the chair.  So there be no possibility of motion.  That did not supress the motion recordings.

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@Clendinning wrote:

You might contact service and inform them that you will be 'donating' aberrant triggers.

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I have reported it to them, and provided samples.  I'll continue to do that.

[JamesC]

StephenB,

Q: "So they are telling you that the doorbell is using cloud activity zones.  @JamesC : Can you get confirmation on this point?  I think it's important to get confirmation on this, since the implication is that you need a paid subscription to get activity zones with the doorbell.  Some here have asked about that, but I haven't seen a clear answer."

A: Arlo Video Doorbell utilizes cloud Activity Zones, which require a subscription to Arlo Smart or an active Arlo Smart trial plan.

JamesC

[StephenB]

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@JamesC wrote:

Arlo Video Doorbell utilizes cloud Activity Zones, which require a subscription to Arlo Smart or an active Arlo Smart trial plan.

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@JamesC :  Thx for the quick reply.

[slopes0213]

Holy smokes, this has been going on for months?! I just bought mine today and it's coming off the house and going right back to Best Buy. I went through this horrible support and function nonsense with Skybell, not again.. More power to you guys that actually tolerate this stuff from this device. my motion zones in my cheap little blink camera work perfect.. Peace out..

[aporringa]

Activity zones are not working. I keep getting notifications for vehicles.

[GregTR]

This is the **bleep**tiest way to implement the motion detection. I'm having the same problem that had been described in detail here since the latest firmware.

You're essentially forcing people to use the subscription service and force the device to use cloud compute to find motion, causing delay, and obvious bad trigger/notification, but more money for Arlo. I am a subscriber and have no problem with paying for the service.

For users that do pony up for the premium subscription the local IR motion sensing alarm should not be triggered, unless desired by the user directly. The problem is that I also have two doorbell speakers that will ding on every IR motion and every recording, regardless whether I set smart zones or not. Before the last firmware update this was not the case.

Stop breaking stuff and please fix it!

I opened a support ticket that went nowhere other than poor speaking outsourced workers in the third world who could not resolve the issue, claim they have escalated the case but neither them, nor I will have insight into the acknowledging of the problem or its upcoming fix. As a software engineer, I find this pathetic. You should take one of Amazon's tenants to heart "Customer Obsession". You, Arlo, have seriously failed at it over and over again.

[Clendinning]

As a software engineer, I've been frustrated with this as well. I don't know what the technical situation is at Arlo. I do find it odd that it is taking so long to fix. To help with that effort, I have been in contact with a company representative and trying to provide them with data from my doorbell.

The things I have done to reduce false triggers are these:

1. Set the active areas where background movement will not be common. For instance, my active areas have the walls and floor of my porch.

2. Set the proximity infrared to a low value, something like 20. (gear) Device Settings->Device Utilities->Motion Detector Test.

3. Set the activity area sensitivity to a low value, again, something like 20.  Bottom of the screen... Mode->(your device name)->Armed  (click on the pencil)  There is a title like "If motion of (your) doorbell". Click on the pencil.  At the motion is detected icon, click on the pencil.  Set Motion Sensitivity. Yes, the user interface leaves something to be desired. I would have never stumbled upon that setting without guidance from the Arlo Rep. It might be in the user instructions, but I didn't see it.

My understanding from Arlo is that the system is triggered with a typical gross infrared motion sensor on the doorbell.  (#2 sets its sensitivity). Then a video capture is triggered. The video is analyzed for motion. If that is detected then the selected events are executed. I have suggested that Arlo add a sequential trigger feature so that more than one active area must be engaged before a video a notification is sent. I think it is find to record lots of video, but false notifications are irritating. I have noticed more than once that there is an infrared trigger and apparently nothing in the active areas. However, upon closer inspection, I find that there are moving shadows, insects or lizards. Since reducing the general sensitivity in the active areas, the false triggers from my doorbell have been drastically reduced.

I agree, Arlo has some real work to do on the video algorithms and customer service. However, by adjusting the parameters I have listed above the doorbell can be made functional.

Regards,

-kirk-

[GregTR]

Kirk,

I red your earlier and current very detailed solution and it makes the camera marginally usable again. However, it still uploads excessive videos to the cloud only for the active zone analysis, there is still excessive number of videos saved and logged into my Arlo account that are unnecessary and, most importantly, the Active Zone setting does not work for the Arlo speakers, meaning they "ding" every time the IR sensor captures motion which makes them useless.

I bought the speakers to "ding" when there is motion on my front door in the active zone so I can get a chime even if the person/animal does not push the button on the doorbell. I just liked to get a notification that I could hear in my house during the daytime hours for motion on my front door. Unfortunately this feature stopped working with the latest firmware as now any IR movement triggers these "dings" and given that there are hundreds of cars that drive by the house every day I can't have this feature on.

While your solution did reduce the push notifications on my phone, it does nothing to eliminate false dings on the Arlo speaker. This is a half baked solution tailored to maximize profit and it does not work.

[ArloUltra83]

Activity zone not working for me either... I had to set motion detection down to 25% so I get less false notifications outside activity zone settings.

[CrimsonLynx]

Noticed today the arlo app doesn't allow for activity zones to be setup for this product, must be something on the horizon, hopefully good news coming soon.

[Spatman]

Activity zones are available for the video doorbell.

Device Settings > video > activity zones

[Spatman]

I opened a support ticket several weeks ago regarding the ineffective activity zones and numerous resulting motion notifications. Arlo’s support team has been doing a terrible job following up on it. Each time I’ve been contacted it’s been by a different representative and some have been asking me for information and screenshots that I had already submitted previously. I’m losing faith in this company and will likely switch to a different service and device if this poor customer service continues.

[Jsmitty66]

I submitted a case to the Better Business Bureau due to Arlo's refusal to admit that this Video Doorbell does not function as intended in regards to activity zone notifications.  It seems Arlo responds to BBB cases.

I received a response from a new customer service agent informing me that Arlo does not offer refunds under warranty, only product replacements when they deem it's warranted.  I replied that I'm fine with a replacement device if they feel it will solve the issue, but that I am certain that this is not a hardware issue (while I type, I get a false notification as a car passes in front of my house) but instead a failure of video processing.

This person again requested a sample video and screenshot of my activity zones and committed a response to me within 48 hours after consulting engineering.  This time has come and gone without a response from Arlo.

I am insisting on a refund at this point and I have ordered a Eufy doorbell.