Geofencing ongoing frustrations and a possible fix

[nochancenine]

I have one camera placed indoors in a room that at night triggers motion detection every couple of minutes.  When I view the video I can see what must be dust particles darting upward quite quickly and regularly (infrared).  But dust particles shouldn't trigger motion detection, should they?

Initially it was at 80% sensitivity.  I have to turn it down to about 30% just to get it to no longer trigger every couple of minutes, but with it set that low it no longer triggers when I walk in the room.  It doesn't seem to have this same problem in the same room with the lights on, only in darkness with the infrared.  And I never see anything moving other than what must be dust particles.  Does this just sound like a bad motion detector on the camera?

Anyone else have a similar isse?  Thanks for any info or feedback.

[TomMac]

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nochancenine wrote:

I have one camera placed indoors in a room that at night triggers motion detection every couple of minutes.  When I view the video I can see what must be dust particles darting upward quite quickly and regularly (infrared).  But dust particles shouldn't trigger motion detection, should they?

snip...

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No, the dust particles shouldn't really set off the motion sensor as it's an IR type...

But, the fact that you say the dust particles in the recording are "darting upward quickly" to me means that the camera may be in a heated air flow area.  The heated air could/would set off the IR and turn the camera to record.

First thing I'd do is put the camera back to about 75% sensitivity and RELOCATE the camera for a while to see if it's the heat flow or the camera.

Make sure the camera is not in a natural flow of heat from the system you have in you home...  just place it on a table/shelf away from the updrafts and re-test.

hope this helps

[nochancenine]

Thanks for the reply.  I will try this out tomorrow night.  Like I mentioned, this only happenned when the lights were out.  I had the camera in the same location all day and night and iit only started happening right when the lights were turned off at bedtime.  I found that strange and thougjt it must be something related to the inrared sensor or something  

Also, we have not been using the heater at all, so that was not running.  Maybe some nayural heat or temperature air flow in the room?  The camera is in the corner of the room, but on the opposite side from the windows and door.

[nochancenine]

I have lowered the sensitivity to 75% and it doesnt happen as often, but still frequent triggers occurring.  But I also tried 2 other things.  I have two cameras, so I swapped them and the other camera has not triggered motion detection in that same location.  It's set at 80%.  Then I put both cameras side by side in this same location and the first camera is still the one that is triggering motion detection.  It really feels like something isnt right with this particular camera's motion detection in that particular locarion and with no light, running infrared.

[TomMac]

Good idea swapping the cameras, didn't think of that. I would guess now you have more info to go on.

Sounds like you should contact Netgear for assistance in this issue.

[MrWoo]

I have one of these set up in my driveway about 11 feet high facing my gate. 15 to 20 feet away at 100% motion. I have never caught my mailman in any alert. This is killing me. $200.00 bucks down the drain. I can tell you every car that runs up and down the street. If i puit it any lower or closer im sure someone will just walk in the yard and take it. I'm going to try another system with my next check. They're company moel is probaly like microsoft. sale it now fix it later. 

[JamesC]

MrWoo,

It may take some trial and error to find the best placement for your Arlo cameras. Take a look at this article to make sure you are positioning your cameras for best performance: How do I place my Arlo camera?

Consider posting a screenshot of what the camera is point toward, that may help us identify what could be causing the issue you are describing.

JamesC

[MrWoo]

[MrWoo]

All I want to see is my mailman come in and out of my yard then i know it will catch everyone else. If this is too wide of a range for this camera to catch then its a kids monitor. 

[jguerdat]

Best detection is ACROSS the FOV, not directly at the camera. Your setup, assuming that the gate a bit to the left of center is what you're after, means the camera is poorly placed to capture the mailman.  A view from more of one side would work much better. It doesn't have to be perpendicular to the motion but at least some motion across the FOV would be preferred by far. Also, rather than trying for a nice photographic view, set it so motion is first seen near and edge. That not only helps detection but gives the camera a better chance to catch faces instead of the inherent lag of a couple of seconds maybe allowing the subject to move out of view.

[MrWoo]

The mailman walks from left frame on sidewalk to right and enters the small gate. This camera should work from this position without issue. As for scenic view, I like this frame. it see's alot. We have kids on our street and a school around the corner. Cars fly down the street plus there's alot of bad actors in the area. I would like a camera that can help be eyes for the neighborhood watch club on the street as well. But it seems this camera an not be used for such matters. It has to be where someone can reach up grab it and walk away with it for it to work like i may want it. I think Arlo it reaching a bit far and this cam is really a indoors one room camera. I'll put my money on some real equipment soon and ebay this thing. 

[Schorschi]

You have the wrong camera. If you want to watch your whole street and get scenic views you need the Arlo Q running 24/7.

Arlo Wireless is for tight spaces with limited reach of 15-20 ft.

[dfp42]

Like just about everyone in the Arlo community, I have a hate-hate relationship with Arlo's buggy implementation of geofencing. Recently, my wife and I upgraded our phones to iPhone SE2. Geofencing worked, occasionally, for me, but my wife's phone was listed as "In Zone" no matter where she was. I tried restarting the hub, restarting apps, rebooting phones, removing and re-installing apps, removing my wife's account and re-adding it -- and combinations of some/all of the above. The only change I managed to effect was that my wife's phone went from a constant "In Zone" to a constant "Unavailable". Great.

I stumbled on a posting somewhere on this forum that suggested changing the name of the device (I know, impossible on Android, but doable on iPhones). My wife's iPhone's name was "[name]'s iPhone". I changed it to [name], removed her from Arlo an re-added her with access, and geofencing now works.

A long time ago, passwords could only be letters and numbers because anything else couldn't be processed; coding was really primitive.  We all learned to sanitize all input 20 years ago, which is why passwords and other entries can now be heinous combinations of alphanumerics, punctuation and even spaces. If this name change is the answer, it suggests that Arlo developers don't sanitize inputs like device names, which if true is incredibly lame coding. And if a device name can corrupt geolocation, also really lame and incompetent. But, aside from some crazy coincidence, appears to be the only answer.