Nesting Rules

[Fort_Knox]

I've searched for more information about how the cameras behave but havn't found what I'm looking for.

Sínce the system is a little unreliable at the moment there is no point in testing the behaviour. Hopefully someone knows the answer to my questions so I can finetune the setup.

My setup is four cameras outside.

A is overlooking the front door/front porch.

B is overlooking the carports inside.

C is overlooking the backside of the carport and guesthouse entrance.

D is overlooking the back porch.

My original rules where like:

A senses motion -> record on A

A senses motion -> record on B

B senses motion -> record on B

B senses motion -> record on C

C senses motion -> record on C

C senses motion -> record on B

C senses motion -> record on D

D senses motion -> record on D

D senses motion -> record on C

Then the problem with recordings not showing in the library appeared. I thought my rules where wrong so I changed to "all cameras trigger each other".

After some thinking maybe this isn't the best solution. If I understand correctly, once a camera is busy with recording it can not detect motion and trigger another camera? Only after recording has finished the camera is ready for another event of motion sensing and or recording?

If so, I believe my original rules are better if recording time is short (10-20s). With longer recording times, the "all cameras trigger each other" might be the best, although it will obviously drain the batterys much quicker.

Any guidance would be much appreciated.

[Schorschi · Accepted solution]

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to achieve and what you are asking.

One rule of thumb I have figured out for myself whenever I program criss-cross (or one-to-many) rules (I wouldn't call it nesting, that's when one thing embraces or surrounds another) is to make sure that all cameras involved have the same recording length.

This is because, if you were to program the following:

1. Motion on camera A triggers 30-second recording on camera A.
2. Motion on camera A triggers 60-second recording on camera B.

and motion is sensed on camera A, when camera A stops recording after 30 seconds, it is still blocked, because camera B hasn't stopped recording. So, an additional motion event after camera A has stopped, but while camera B is still recording would not cause camera A to record again, because camera B must stop recording before camera A is ready to sense motion again. So, you should have camera A record the same length as camera B to avoid this dead spot situation.

What I would do, and this goes beyond mere programming of rules, is to play burglar on your own property and play through several scenarios. Play someone breaking into your car(s) by pretending to smash a side window and taking something from a seat. Play someone approaching your house and checking or breaking various windows where they might enter. Play someone taking a deck chair from your back porch or whatever else you might have out. Make sure to play these scenarios at night too to see if the lighting from the cameras and/or any other light sources you have on during the night are sufficient.

I think that might be more valuable and give you more insight into the positioning, orienting and programming of your cameras than we could ever provide in this forum based on some vague descriptions.

Oh, and one other thing: Videos recorded from one-to-many rules do not all show up in the library in the apps (this is a current and known issue), but they usually do when viewed in the browser, so make sure to use the browser interface when doing your testing until this bug has been fixed.

[Fort_Knox]

Thanks for your ideas Schorschi!

I did the sneaking thing outside, thinking like a burglar (what do I know...) but then the problem with notifications and recordings not showing up in the library arised making testing quite useless. Now I understand that some of my problems are due to how the cameras act when a rule has been triggered. Many thanks again, this was what I was wondering about!

/Jan

[Fort_Knox]

When I reprogrammed my missing mode (see other post) I changed back to my original rules above and then tested the system sneaking around my property. Now it works as intended - very happy indeed

Hopefully the cloud service and apps stay stable from now on, then I would say that this system is almost perfect for my needs.