Sensitivity adjustment.. Is this normal?

[danramos]

I installed one camera on one side of my courtyard looking over the main door through the front of the house including the street which is at 60 feet from the camera. The main door is about 10 feet from the camera. If I set the sensitivity at 100% the camera would sense people coming into the house through the main entrance as well as any car that would pass in front of the house. If I set the sensitivity at 95%, the camera won't sense neither the cars or people coming into the house. If I walk toward the camera, it would only sense motion when I am like 5 feet from it. I have been trying to get it to work so it detect people coming towards the house but not the cars, so I would be switching the sensitivity from 100% to 95% one percentage point at a time. From 100% to 96% the camera would sense both cars and people, and then again at 95% it won't detect either. This really doesn't seem normal to me. Camera is running FW 1.2.2412. Base is running FW 1.3.2261. Any advise? Thanks. Here is a video shot of my camera set at 96%. https://arlo.netgear.com/hmsweb/users/library/share/link/66089F439B9DC22F

[TomMac]

Try and aim the camera down just a bit more...and a bit more towards the house

If aimed down and in a bit you would eliminate the street/cars but still see the people, it might solve your problem

[danramos]

I'll try your suggestion as well as swaping out the camera with another one to see if I get the same behavior. I'll report back tonight or tomorrow. Thanks.

[danramos]

I switch cameras and the same thing happened. So it is not a hardware issue but a camera location issue. However, it is kind of annoying that the sensitivity bar when set at 95% won't sense me walking (side to side) at around 20 feet from the camera but will detect cars not even seen in the camera but on the same plane at around 100 feet from it. Here is an example: https://arlo.netgear.com/hmsweb/users/library/share/link/815308D6C82D1181

Behind that wood fence there are about 60 feet to a low traffic street (maybe 20 cars a day pass by). Every time a large vehicle drives by, the camera will start recording. It is set at 95%. If I walk parallel to the fence where the camera can see my feet, the camera won't detect my movement. I wanted to be able to see at least a couple inches of the fence so I know if the door has been left open or not. 

I guess I will need to set another camera looking backwards that is set to activate the recording on this one when it sense motion. Because the additional camera won't be facing the street in anyway, I believe it should work as intended. I might do the same on the front entrance as the location I set it up initially will trigger every time a vehicle was driving by but none of the delivery guys walking towards the door:

https://arlo.netgear.com/hmsweb/users/library/share/link/86E70066B2590C95

This is how I put this morning:

https://arlo.netgear.com/hmsweb/users/library/share/link/D00726E7A252686A

So my plan is to put a camera facing the door and leave the existing one facing the street as initially installed so it gets activated with the second camera. 

I think that Arlo should come out with standalone motion sensors, battery powered/wireless, so you can place in other places to trigger actions on your cameras. This could be more cost-efficient method than using another camera to achieve the same objective.

What do you think?

[TomMac]

"I think that Arlo should come out with standalone motion sensors, battery powered/wireless, so you can place in other places to trigger actions on your cameras. This could be more cost-efficient method than using another camera to achieve the same objective."

I believe this was put in the request area  ; https://community.netgear.com/t5/Arlo-Idea-Exchange/idb-p/arlo-idea-exchange

if you see it give it kudos, more kudos more chance of it happening. If not add the request

[Schorschi]

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danramos wrote:

Behind that wood fence there are about 60 feet to a low traffic street (maybe 20 cars a day pass by). Every time a large vehicle drives by, the camera will start recording. It is set at 95%. If I walk parallel to the fence where the camera can see my feet, the camera won't detect my movement. I wanted to be able to see at least a couple inches of the fence so I know if the door has been left open or not. 

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I'd mount the camera directly above the filter, or wherever the center of the fenced-in area is. Face the camera down enough, so that it just doesn't see the street. Adjust sensitivity accordingly. That way you don't have a sliver of street in the camera's field-of-view and it should not be triggered unnecessarily.

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danramos wrote:

I guess I will need to set another camera looking backwards that is set to activate the recording on this one when it sense motion. Because the additional camera won't be facing the street in anyway, I believe it should work as intended. I might do the same on the front entrance as the location I set it up initially will trigger every time a vehicle was driving by but none of the delivery guys walking towards the door:

So my plan is to put a camera facing the door and leave the existing one facing the street as initially installed so it gets activated with the second camera. 

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What about only placing one camera facing the door? I'd put it on the awning above the black wall (closest to the street) pointed at the front door. Set the recording time to what it takes a person to enter the area (and trigger the motion sensor), go to the front door, and walk back out again; 20 seconds should be enough. On the way back from the front door you'll get the person's face. (That's assuming your front door is on the left in the sample footage). I have a similar setup, though, with shorter distances:

[danramos]

Schorschi, thanks for the suggestions. On the first one, I wanted to know if the door (small section in the fence) was left opened when the pool guy comes in to service the pool, also the angle seem to be good enough to check on the door and the pool equipment at the same time as I initially set it up (https://arlo.netgear.com/hmsweb/users/library/share/link/543BF90914AE8F76). However, this angle doesn't work because it gets trigger everytime a vehicle drives by the street behind that fence. Your suggestion will get a nice view of the pool equipment but nothing else. I'm going to try putting it facing the backyard including the pool equipment. That way I will be able to check on the pool equipment or anyone else walking towards the backyard through that side of my residence.

I like your second suggestion. I'll make that change and see how that goes. 

Thank you very much for taking the time to share your ideas.

[Schorschi]

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danramos wrote:

However, this angle doesn't work because it gets trigger everytime a vehicle drives by the street behind that fence. Your suggestion will get a nice view of the pool equipment but nothing else.

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That is indeed odd that vehicles outside the field-of-view would trigger the motion sensor.

I would still try to install the camera directly above the pump and orient it at the fence to see if the motion detection reacts differently. 

Something else you might want to consider is to turn the camera upside down in your current setup, and invert the image in the settings to compensate for the new orientation. This will place the IR sensor above the camera lens and possibly slightly modify the region that triggers motion detection. Perhaps passing cars will not trigger it then, but passing people will.