Motion Detection Delay - Arlo Pro

[adamsup]

Received our Arlo Pro about a week ago and the response time to kick on recording is poor at best.  We have had several UPS packages delivered during that time period and the package magically shows up at our doorstep; there's no sign of a delivery person carrying it to our doorstep (not even a recording of them walking away!).  We have the motion sensitivy from the phone app set to 100.  It does record if you very slowly walk into frame and walk away.  If you run up to the front door step and run away then it does not start the recording in time.  Also, it does not record anyone walking by on the sidewalk in the attached picture.  Sometimes it records when we pull into our drive but sometimes not.  I tried reviewing archived questions and haven't found a solution yet.

This is very frustrating considering the cost of this system.  Please let me know if you have any suggestions and attached is an image of one of the packages that just appeared this morning on my doorstep (who knows who delivered it).   You can see the box on the front door step with blue Amazon packaging tape on it.  If we can't find a solution then we'll be forced to return our 3 camera Arlo Pro system.

Thank you

[reynoldswrap0]

Aside from the motion sensitivity, what have you done to try and correct?

[adamsup]

I've re-angled the camera.  It seems like there is plenty of left to right motion on the current shot now for the motion detection to kick in. 

[reynoldswrap0]

It looks like you have the camera setup behind a window, yes? This is likely interfering with the Passive Infrared detection.

[reynoldswrap0]

Set that up outside and you should get the behavior you're looking for.

[adamsup]

Yes, through a window.  I will try this tomorrow (since I'm at work and it will be dark before I get home) and let you know if that fixes it.  I didn't realize the Pro uses something different than a pixel based detection and therefore didn't think to look for that type of solution.  

That makes sense; I will most certainly report back and list as solved if that fixes it!  Thanks for the quality advice and I will post back tomorrow!

[TomMac]

I didn't realize the Pro uses something different than a pixel based detection and therefore didn't think to look for that type of solution. 

The Arlo and Arlo PRO use PIR detection ( tho the Pro model is much improved in sense level ) and neither will work thru glass ( as 95% of glass used will reflect IR )

The Q cameras use pixel based detection and will works thru glass as the detection process is what the camers 'sees'.

[adamsup]

OK, mounted the camera outside the window with the exact same outcome; failed motion detection.  FedEx delivery guy dropped off a package this afternoon and the motion detection, now outdoors, didn't capture the delivery.  Since she heard the truck park outside my wife took a screen shot from her iPhone in live view (I have edited the screen to remove personal information).  It's interesting to note that the camera records my wife walking outside a few minutes later to get the package...fail.

Note that before all this, I removed the camera completely from my system and reconnected it to reset all of the settings.  Same outcome unfortunately.  Ugh...so close to returning at this point. 

 

[steve_t]

Motion sensing is way better on the Arlo Pro than on the original Arlo. You may, however, still wish to move the camera a little bit closer to the area you want to capture. You have probably already correct placed the camera so the subject crosses the field of view from side to side rather than walking directly towards the camera. This is useful for PIR detection also

[reynoldswrap0]

If your wife was watching through live view that may have prevented a capture. I've only been using mine for about a week and it seems when I anticipate something and am watching live, the camera doesn't record. That may be why the record button is available along the bottom of the screen in live view. Would love to have received more than just a quick start guide to answer curiosities like this.

[adamsup]

I had wondered the same thing with regard to live view preventing the typical motion detection recordings from kicking off. Glad to hear your suspicions as well. I'll stay out of live view the next few days and see what kind of results we get.

I'm still disappointed with the ability to detect motion from a distance. In these pics there's no good reason why someone walking on the sidewalk in a bright orange shirt in broad daylight should not kick off recording.

Thanks for your help. For the sake of others experiencing the same issues, I'll report back in a few days.

[reynoldswrap0]

Remember the PIR detection is specified at 23' I believe. The technology is trying to imitate what our brain can make sense of, so while it may seem like a piece of cake for us to notice an eye-catching orange shirt coming down the sidewalk, the camera is waiting to "see" light waves in the IR spectrum before it will wake and capture. Not trying to be snarky, just that we need to think in a different perspective than what comes natural.

Have you used the motion detection test when positioning the camera? Should be an option under that camera's settings screen alongside the position mode. You can walk the route up to your porch and watch for that amber LED to flash.

I mounted an add-on camera last night on the far wall in our backyard and did the motion tests, realizing it was a bit too far from the patio around the house to reliably trigger on its own. So, I created a rule that when the nearby patio camera is triggered the one on the back wall should record as well and I'm quite happy with that setup so far. If you have another camera out front near your driveway, perhaps adding a rule for this one to also record the porch when that one triggers could be a solution for you.

Hang in there! Really loving this system, but it can take some patience to fine-tune.

[kmiller8821]

As others have said, using the motion detection test and making sure the camera has a good "left to right" angle is key.  My arlo's actually record my mailman zoom by on the street and it's at least 25' away.  I've been very impressed with how well they detect "real" motion.  My ring doorbell, on the other hand, seems to go off when the wind blows so having arlo has been a great way to confirm actual events.  I can also confirm that you will not get a recording if you are watching in LIVE VIEW mode, I stumbled on to that by accident.

The setting that reynoldswrap0 is describing can be seen here:

[icculus479]

I'm in the EXACT same situation.  WIth all my research, this is not supposed to happen and the reason why I spent more on the Pro.  My recording always start super late as well.  Even though it can see the driveway, the recordings for me always start when someone is leving my porch or standing there.  My levels are set to 100 as well.

I feel the notification if very quick, however the recording is slow.

I'm in the same boat, don't want to return the Arlo, but this sorta sucks

[Bgile198]

I am thinking about buying this product and this string has me second guessing myself.  Is it possible that the temperature outside is affecting the speed in which the camera turns on?  I thought I read somewhere about the cameras having an ideal temperature range.

[Bprice46]

I had the same issue with the regular Arlo system. I had hopped they had fixed this problem. That is a deal breaker for me. I dont want any footage lost due to the poor lag time. My 19.00 dollar Walmart dash cam has a better motion responce time. Time to look for a new system. This product is way to expenseve to have this kind of issue. Especilly since it has been a issue with the first Arlo. Fix this problem guy,s lag time is unacceptable. Any you lost my bussiness and probley others to a simple solition. 

[icculus479]

I dont think weather is a factor at all.

This weekend I messed with it and its actually a lot better as of now.  I rebooted the system, re-did the Smartthings integration and physically moved the camera a little bit to make it more level (was more at an angle earlier), and played with the sensitivity settings.

Currently, its a lot better.  It starts recording pretty close to instant when something enters the frame.  Which is a ton better than before where it took almost a second or two to start the recording.

One big thing I noticed, the iphone app sucks!  It is NOT consistent at all with its settings.  For instance, sometimes it gives me video options and sometimes it doesn't.  I've noticed that I should only change the settings using the browser portal.  The minute i mess with settings in the iphone app, is when i have issues.  So big FYI there

[ramsgoms]

Try recording on audio detection as well.

[rottielover]

I've had a 4 camera Arlo Pro system for a couple of weeks now and I'm noticing a similar issue.  The motion detection seems to trigger about 3-7 seconds too late pretty typically.

The problem with Audio trigger is that you cannot combine them with an AND type trigger that I've found (is there a way to do this???)  IE,  Trigger recording if Motion AND Sound,   So far all I have found is OR  (if Motion OR sound record)...

I used to have the older Logitech Alert, if I recall correctly they had similar issues, but what they did was to keep a buffer of video and when the trigger fired X number of seconds before and after the trigger would be recorded to the video clip.  Since the Arlo Pro's are battery opperated I'm not sure if that's a possibility or not?

I mentioned it on another thread but I'll mention it here as well, I'd really like to see motion zone's so that sections of the image can be masked out to the motion trigger.

[arnshar]

How do I desengage the motion detection option from the camera, so that I can just view what the camera is seeing?

[jguerdat]

That's what live viewing is for.  Just click on the camera in the Devices tab that you want to view from.  If you mean that you never want to record from that camera and just use live view, you'll need to create a custom mode in the Mode tab that has rules for only the cameras you want to record.  Any camera without a rule will be disarmed.

[mkillin]

I was ready to buy before reading this post...  very doubtful now...

[rottielover]

Well after a little more experience with the camera's I've managed to tune them a little better. I think (and this is wild guess) that the passive IR must have a fixed range and the sensitivity slider basically can be thought of as how big a movement in the area before trigger. That's a horrible roughy description, but it might explain what I've been seeing. They trigger fairly well when a human is near to the camera (like when we walk out of our doors or garage (under the camera) they trigger every time fine. It's when objects approach or stay far. Now that said I have not encountered a time when someone came to the door and I did not get a clip of them.

So my verdict: I'm keeping them, especially with the promise of the smart features coming (like human detection). I'm going to supplement my front porch camera with a ring doorbell as well, but that's mostly for coverage and the extra feature of being the doorbell and an alert if pressed.

Hope this helps

[mmmmm]

I can confirm this. The Arlo Pro is just too slow to detect motion and to buffer. By the time I want to see what's happening, the action is already gone. I hope they are able to fix this in an update!

[kreppart]

I had the same problem with the v1 version.  I wound up buying a 2nd camera and positioning it in the front yard.  When it detects motion it turns on the camera at the door which increases the chances of catching whoever is there.

The perfect solution would be an infrared beam sensor that we can use to trigger the cameras.  That would give a much lower false positive rate and could activate faster.  Arlo/Netgear are you listening?