Arlo Second system, non stop triggers for nothing.

[LousyHardware]

As the subject implies. Second system, non stop triggers for nothing. On top of all the other reasons this system isn’t worth 200 bucks, it’s sole purpose to trigger on motion, is useless. Second setup here and a repeat problem. Arlo is trash with no calibration.....

It be nice to have something to show for the 800 bucks required to buy it, and then I’m scrolling through and you don’t give support past 90 days without being on a pay plan? Pretty damned lousy if you ask me.

Just got another alert while typing all this....

Netgear could have implemented several things like
No repeated alerts in a specific window.
Software based motion detection or the choice to use one or the other (because frankly 15 foot notice on my front door is barely enough time for me to get my app open much less wait for it to load the trigger for me to confirm I have a threat or unwanted guest at my door, provided the trigger wasn’t a false alert 🧐......

[LousyHardware]

Here’s the fantastic repeat triggers I had when the sunlight moved across the house.... nothing else was triggering it. I even went and cut up the bush beside the camera and the issue still persisted. This issue cause me to send back the first set

https://youtu.be/o6T60ApNd6c

[LousyHardware]

Some triggers while I was making this account

https://youtu.be/uhwND7HbB14

[Scott2ya]

I can sense the frustration. I'm not sure what all you've tried, but looking at the video, I am guessing those are leaves in the back yard. I know they set my Arlo's off in my yard as well. It takes Arlo about a second before recording starts so it never actually catches the culprit (leaves) What I do is turn the motion sensitivity down by 5 until I find that sweet spot. Ive never had to go below 65. You could to rake the leaves as well. If you think it might be the camera, try swapping one of the others and see if it follows. I know it's frustrating. Hopefully that will help. Good luck

[Johnny290]

I think you need to try to be more patient. No system is perfect personally I love the Arlo Pro System I think it's great and I love the pro 2 cameras when they're plugged, I like the extra features .you may have to move your cameras two different locations and adjust sensitivity.

[brh]

@LousyHardware

I hate that this system is not working out for you as you had planned. But first you must understand how PIR motion detectors work. Here is an article explaining how they work.

https://learn.adafruit.com/pir-passive-infrared-proximity-motion-sensor/how-pirs-work

IMHO most people who purchase camera systems for security purposes, want to mount them so that they can see their while yards and get notified when something moves out there. Sunlight and reflections, such as automibles that reflect a lot of energy will set the motion detectors off. The cameras are doing exactly what they were intended to do. Getting the correct motion detection that one wants without getting many false aerts is very difficult to achieve. It takes adjusting the sensitivity and mounting the cameras so that they work within the hardware parameters. 

Might I suggest that the most important thing that you want to monitor for security purposes are your doors and windows, especialy when you are away from home. Someone breaking into your home will take enough time to break the windows and break in or smash the door, to allow you to get good videos of the crime and will override any delays in the recordings.

Facing the same dilema as you I decided to mount my cameras under the eaves of my house pointing along the exterior walls of my house. I will get a good video of any movement of anything that gets near my doors or windows. The motion detection is peaked as the people or animals will have to move across the field of view, and I get no false alarms.

Brian

[Johnny290]

very good information thank you. How does the Zone detection work is it the same way?

[brh]

@Johnny290

I am not sure how the zones work technically. I haven't seen an explanation.

Brian

[Johnny290]

Okay thanks

[TomMac]

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@Johnny290 wrote:
very good information thank you. How does the Zone detection work is it the same way?

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TBMK, the Pro2 with zones ( which means it's on ac ) uses a combo of PIR and Pixel detection for the zone areas

Combining both types allows zoning.

[Johnny290]

Good info thanks

[LousyHardware]

As I’m refitting my house with the cameras I’m recalling another issue that I had before. Your software should only make one clip and one alert or at least have the option to.

If you go out, say to your porch and sweep it off, and that takes 3 minutes, you’ll have upwards of 40 alerts. That’s obnoxious. It needs to be all in the same clip until motion is no longer detected, and needs to record up to five seconds after. If Netgear really wanted a better product to offer they would observer the “FREE” option of manything where you use your old phones as a camera unit. All the features there are amazing. They just rolled out options to include security cameras if you needed one outside. However this camera would need to be hardwired in..... but at the same time, you don’t get the useful features unless your hardwired in on arlo(most likely for battery life)
Other units incorporate software detection and these units should too.

By now you may have noticed, I haven’t had a chance to read the reply’s in my post yet but I will. My apologies there.

[LousyHardware]

Edit::::Responding to luminary: too bad the reply function in the forum is mediocre at best.....

sensitivity sir? That particular option has been found by me yet. I’m quite interested to find it

[LousyHardware]

Found it under motion detection test for anyone following.

[brh]

@LousyHardware

You covered a lot of ground in your posts so I will try to answer a couple of items.

Firstly, the sensitivity in the Motion Detection Test only gives you a number to use when you do set the sensitivity for each camera.

I am not sure if you are using a Smart phone as you said something about Arlo and older phones, so I will walk you through this on a PC.

Log into your account on your PC. https://arlo.netgear.com/#/login

After you have found a satisfactory number in the Motion Detection Test, click on the Mode icon at the top of the page.

On the next page there should be an arrow that looks like this: > to the right of the the Armed Mode. Click on the arrow.

On this page look down to the Rules section. Each of your cameras should have a Rule already created by Arlo an all you have to do is to edit the rule for each camera to whatever settings you want for that camera.

Here you have several sections. So, where it says If The Following your the camera that you are adjusting the settings for will be shown.

Underneath that the box for Motion Is Detected should be checked and there should be another arrow to the right of that text. Click on the arrow.

Use the Sensitivity slider to set the sensitivity to the number you got in the Motion Detector Test. Don't worry, later you can adjust this slider up or down to suit your needs.

Now go back and make the adjustments for each camera.

The next section on the Edit Rule page should also have the same camera listed unless you want to fire another camera when motion is detected and not this one.

It should have a circle already filled in with green, (selected), that says Record Video and another arrow to the right of it.

Click on that arrow and adjust how long you want the camera to keep recording after motion has been detected, ( up to two minutes).

The next section on the Edit Rule page is to set up how you want your notifications.

Just a note: Because the amount of sunlight will vary depending on the time of day or weather, you may never find the optimum setting. That is why I recommended changing the locations of the cameras. 

I will look at the other complaints you mentioned and see what I can do to help you.

Brian

[LousyHardware]

Thanks BRH & scotty2ya- I’ll make some camera placement adjustments and fiddle with the sensitivity.

On the last set I bought, the motion sensors were picking up sunlight as it moved across the sky, cooling and heating the leaves, yet wouldn’t trigger me until I got within 8-10 feet of the unit. I’ll search for the video I used and share what I mean. How can it catch sunlight changing leaves or see leaves but not see a person thousands of times larger than a leaf. I think those parameters are what’s most frustrating.

Currently, I’ve mounted one on my garage eave facing my driveway. The street is about 40-45 feet away and the new unit is detecting vehicles passing. Perhaps the previous IR in the returned camera was performing poorly.

[LousyHardware]

TomMac

That’s good to know that on AC it has software detection. I wasn’t aware of that and I currently will be exploring avenues to get power to my devices. I believe that software Detection is a far superior detection than arlos ir method.

Can you tell me if while connected to AC if arlo is able to collect video from before and after a trigger? That’s the most useful feature I need to feel like I’m receiving 800 bucks worth of programming IMO


BRH I will look over what you’ve covered in the 15th post shortly and share my outcome. I currently have only been using a mobile device to access the settings. If PC provides more flexibility, I will definitely trying that

[Johnny290]

If you have the Arlo Pro 2 and it's plugged in ,then you will have a 3-second look-back feature. As far as software detection not sure about that you can setup up zones, when plugged in

[TomMac]

Yes , on AC the Pro2 does have the 'look back feature' of about 3 secs.... as the cam is recording all the time and will  add recorded data to the front of the triggered clip

As to zones, you can only use them on ac power

[brh]

@LousyHardware

I am a photographer and you would be surprised how much energy these leaves and automobiles are radiating, even though your eyes don't capture it as they can automatically adhust for that.

My cameras are under the eaves of my house pointed so as to see the whole front or back of my house, so the light stays pretty consistant all the time. I don't get any false alarms. I installed motion activated porch lights so that at night the cameras have plenty of light. I turn the Night Vision off.

Brian

[brh]

@LousyHardware

As far as the camera facing the driveway is concerned, you will probably want to mount it downwards a little so that the cars don't trigger the sensors or try to zone the street out. Remember that the best placement for motion detection is for objects moving from left to right or right to left across the face of the camera. That is also one of the reasons that the cars are triggering the sensors. You want to angle the camera some so that objects coming down the driveway are moving somewhat across the face of the camera.

Brian 

[Paul_FCCL]

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@TomMacwrote:

TBMK, the Pro2 with zones ( which means it's on ac ) uses a combo of PIR and Pixel detection for the zone areas

Combining both types allows zoning.

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Tom, is that same motion detection method as with Arlo Q?

In one of my previous posts, I said I wasn’t aware of cameras working with such a system (combo IR/pixel based). Obviously there are (to my defence I did say “I may be wrong about this...”, I would like to find out more about it. Do you know of any write-ups explaining how this works, even more so from the AP2 perspective?

Thanks.

[jguerdat]

No, the Q works using only pixel-based detection. As I understand the AC-powered P2 detection, it's PIR-based (which is why it has problems looking through glass) but also use pixel-based to enable the zones.  As such, it doesn't work like the Q, much to my frustration.

[LousyHardware]

I’m happy to report, that the system is working better than the last time after some thorough evaluation, and attended to some over seen settings. Worth 800? Maybe not. More like 6 especially since we only get support for 30 days. I reiterate it’s been working better than before. I don’t mind the cars passing causing triggers. A previous placement down the side of the house wouldn’t elicit a trigger until someone was within 15 feet of it (the one that triggered for heated leaves) and now I have another placed in a position very near some branches (leafless currently) that doesn’t trigger any where near as often when the wind blows, thereby confusing me with the leaves causing triggers before. Anyhow, conclusion, if the cameras are making you pull your hair out, look for settIngs regarding the problem and even try moving the camera. Here attached “I hope” is a real trigger! Arlo is offensive to the trigger culprit.....

Thanks for the help, community.

Edit: it would take the video clip..... 🤷‍♂️

[jguerdat]

Support isn't limited to 30 days.I still get support after a few years and it's not because of the superuser status.