Arlo's big motion detection flaw...

[devotchko]

After much troubleshooting, repositioning cameras, tweaking sensitivity settings, and logging failure occurrences, it seems clear to me that when movement originates from an area of the camera's field of view with bright sunlight, Arlo fails to detect motion, regardless of how much or little of the frame is overexposed by bright sunlight. If even a corner of the frame is overlit, then any movement that comes from that corner is not detected, even if the rest of the frame is in the shade. I sincerely hope they can find a way to fix this flaw, as it severely impacts the main and only function of this product. Hopefully this will save others much aggravation in trying to work out why their camera's detection seems capricious and inconsistent. Arlo, please fix this!  

[jguerdat]

It's not a perfect system but maybe a few other steps could help.  If possible, try positioning the camera where natural cover (i.e. a roof) helps block the sun. You could try a temporary sun shield made of cardboard to see if that helps.  If so, that may give you some clues for repositioning or even make it more "permanent".  I'm lucky that I have a Dutch colonial house with a lower roof that allows me to put the camera directly under for shielding but I've had to be creative when even that wasn't sufficient.

[Hula_Rock]

did you keep the reciept ?

It certainly does not not help that we see camera positons on the Arlo web site and on the twitter feed that these cameras can be placed "ANYWHERE"

---

[devotchko]

It would not be possible to aim the camera into a position where bright sun light is never within the field of view in my front porch (earth's rotation and such) and I would never consider taping a piece of cardboard to my house to bypass the camera's flawed motion detection (this was a joke, right?), because it would look like crap, and even if I did not care about the look of my porch, putting a shield to block out sunlight would also shield the person coming to the porch from view, which means that by the time they are detected when they enter the shade and Arlo starts recording, they would be gone (deliveries take less than a few seconds, and I'm sure you are aware of Arlo's lag between detection and recording) so this is not a working solution.

[Hula_Rock]

Ya "shielding" the camera is a little extreme.  I have my camera installed under an eve in the front of my house so that it is always under shde and it STILL performs very poor.  A FedEx or UPS delivery man can walk 20-25 feet to my door step, back down the driveway, and arlo only records his backside a couple feet before he leaves the frame of view.  Netgear will not address this issue, they have been dodgeing this since DAY ONE....

[jguerdat]

Oy vey. It was a suggestion to help troubleshoot. You don't have to do it and, like I said, it's just temporary. I wouldn't add it to the house, I'd make a small shield for the camera. Do you really need full upwards vision? There's almost no shielding on the cameras so why not try it? All the idiots with cell phone and even DSLRs run around with the sun raking over the lens because of no lens hood and then wonder why they're not good. Same principle here.

No one is making you do this but if you can do something relatively simple to at least try to fix the issue, you're on your own.

[devotchko]

It seems you keep misunderstanding the issue here. The problem is not that sunlight is hitting Arlo's lens. The camera is inside a porch under the shade pointing downwards. The problem is that when sunlight shines on the steps leading to the porch, and even though this area occupies less than 10% of the frame, any movement that passes by the sunlit steps is summarily ignored by Arlo, even when the movement continues into the 90% of the frame that is not sunlit. Applying a piece of cardboard or any other device to block the sunlit portion of the steps from Arlo's view would not work, because sunlight travels throughout the day (I explained this previously) and even if I applied a shield just for the amount of time sunlight hits the steps, then the recording lag would also come into play and not record whoever came into the porch, defeating the purpose of the motion detection. Using a shield is not a solution because of the way Arlo detects motion. 

[devotchko]

You are describing the same exact issue I have. My camera is also permanently under the shade of the porch.

[Hula_Rock]

I was reading through some older messages with Netgear and found this.  (Operative word:  Global Level )

From Netgear.....

"we are continuing to investigate this issue along the other reports of what sounds like a similar issue on a more global level"...........

I HOPE YA'LL KEPT YOUR RECIEPT !!!!!!!!

[bkerensa]

There are many posts about this they are either away or ignoring it

and yes motion detection is pretty terrible and needs lots of work.

[Showguy]

Hey I have one better.  For the last couple of days (bright sun light) I have had a total of 25 false recordings from 2  outdoor cameras. All I get is a flash of bright light and 30 seconds of wasted batteries.  I have come to the conclusion that this system was designed in an air tight room with perfect climate control at 72 degrees and all the lights off.  Very disapointing as time goes on the quality gets worse.

[Matty83]

I been Trying to get this unit right for about a week now. I think i might just return it.

I have a camera set up the front door and while a little bit of the road was in its view, it would pick up a car thats 25+metres away yet it wont pick up someone walking to the door thats less than 6 metres. Go Figure. 

I have realised that motion sensor only works on the edge of  view instead of whats in the middle. Drivying my car all up the driveway which stops at about 3 metres away wont pick up anything yet, a car thats further away it will pick up.    

                     EG..        |----------------------------------|                    Whats in the inner box wont pick up but the outer box

                                    |    --------------------------     |                      will.

                                    |   |                               |    |

                                    |   |                               |    |

                                    |   |                               |    |

                                    |   |________________|   |

                                    |____________________|

If you want to have an area that you want to pick up make sure its on the edge of your view.

Stupid but thats how i have learnt to figure it out.

What Netgear needs to update is have day time sensitivity levels and night time sensitivity. As they arent always the same. 

Have a block out function, swann cameras have this where you can have block out boxes so if a tree is moving alot on a windy day you can add blocks to block that area of the tree.

I notice aswell that sometimes the app will tell me that its picked up movement but hasnt recorded anything.

Takes ages to stream to something from a camera. Will never work on the first shot either the 2nd or 3rd. Bad connection issues even though i have NBN fibre, Its a hit or miss even though the cameras have full wifi green bars.

I think im just going to return it. The idea of Arlo is good but its not smooth at all, issues, issues, ,issues.

[Showguy]

We all fell your pain. Your lucky you can still return. I have 1500 bucks invested in this POC and have watched it degrade on a daily basis for 6 months. I'm done climbing up ladders to get the perfect angle. I'm done getting false alerts. I'm done trying to stream and waiting waiting waiting for a stream to start. I'm done loosing 5 seconds of video to delays. I'm done loosing 5 seconds of video to blur. And most of all I'm done with Netgear doing nothing but passing the blame off to the customers environment.

[Hula_Rock]

"Knock" "Knock" "knock"

Hello! anyone at Netgear reading this thread? and want to address these issues?

-OR-

Are busy updating your Facebook and Twitter threads with pictures of insides of mailboxes, refrigerators, etc.....

[robform]

Seriously I paid $500+ for a system that can't detect a 4000lb car pull up ... What a freaking ripoff... Please fix this.. Gods yeah think some of us bought the system for a reason?

[JamesC]

robform,

How far away from the camera is the motion you are attempting to capture?

Consider posting a screenshot from the cameras point of view, that may help identify the issue.

JamesC

[nngnng]

I am following Netgear guideline on installation.It's still a hit and miss doing motion detection for me.