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The goal here was to mount our front-of-the-house cameras in such a way as to cover the entire driveway & approach to the front door, but without having them trigger on every single flippin' car that drives past (we live on the main street through our neighborhood).
Disclaimer: This solution was not my idea—I totally ripped it off from StuBee, based on a post he made back in May. Since he never followed-up regarding whether it worked or not, I figured I'd give it a try and report my results.
I started off with a 1.5" tube, as StuBee described, but I cut the end on a 45º miter so it wouldn't be visible in the camera's field of view. This resulted in a very tightly focused motion detection range; it seemed like the "hot zone" was just a couple of square feet of driveway. My final version wasn't so much a tube as an awning above the motion detector dome, with camera mounted upside-down so the lens is below the detector. It might not be necessary, but since the cameras are upside-down and exposed, I covered the 1/4-20 threaded socket and the battery compartment release latch with a piece of clear packing tape for a little extra weather protection. Cheap and easy to replace when batteries are swapped out.
One cam is mounted 9-ft high on the left side of the garage by the front porch. The other is at the same height on the opposite side of the garage, aimed higher to view the entire driveway and part of the street.
The left-hand camera is hard to see in the first shot above, but is just visible against the brick of the next-door neighbor's house. The second shot is a straight-on view to better show the shape of the shield.
Each shield is made from a piece of 3/4" PVC tubing that I cut on a miter saw and shaped with a file and emory paper. Right now, they are just stuck on with a bit of adhesive putty, but that will lose its grip as soon as our East Coast December heat wave is over. When I'm ready to attach them permanently, I'll use a small bit of outdoor-grade double-sided tape.
I knew right away that this solution was going to work, since it's trash day today and neither the garbage truck nor the recycling truck triggered motion when they emptied our cans. Same with the mail truck, several school buses, and numerous cars. Previously, every single passing vehicle going in either direction would trigger the cameras, so during the morning and afternoon drive times, the cameras were being triggered every couple of minutes.
I had mitigated this somewhat by turning the motion sensitivity all the way down on the camera furthest from the front porch and created a rule to make it record whenever the porch camera senses motion. This is no longer needed, so I now have both cameras set at 100% percent sensitivity. Each camera also has a rule to activate the other when motion is sensed, so I always get two recordings for every event on driveway & front porch.
Here is the view from the driveway camera...
...and from the front porch camera:
As a result of this little project I am much, much happier with our Arlo purchase and I hope someone else finds this to be helpful (Hula_Rock?). When walking up our driveway, recording now starts about even with the sideview mirrors on our cars (most of the time). If Netgear is able to shave a few seconds off the camera startup delay, I suspect our recordings will start when someone reaches the cars' rear bumper. My only other complaint is that it's now painfully obvious how badly I need to go out and pressure wash the driveway!
Next project: Installing a duplex receptacle above our kitchen cabinets to power Arlo Q when we get one.
Hula_Rock wrote:
3/4 PVC cut at 2 inches?
Hula, the PVC pipe I used began life as the frame for a laundry sorter, so it might not be exactly like the off-the-shelf PVC pipe you'll find in the plumbing department. It measures 0.846" O.D. and 0.700" I.D., but I don't think the diameter is nearly as critical as length.
For my first attempt, I simply followed StuBee's guidance and cut a pair of 1.5" tubes, but mitered them at 45º so the tube wouldn't appear in the camera's FOV. I also painted them flat black to minimize reflections, as shown here:
I quickly discovered these turned the motion sensors into a PIR equivalent of shotgun microphones, limiting the detection zone to a very small circle on the driveway. I also realized that we don't want the area directly beneath the PIR dome to be obstructed at all, as this would inhibit motion detection close to and immediately below the camera. Thus, I changed the shape to a "half-pipe" with only the area above the PIR sensor obstructed, with the goal of limiting motion sensing range without doing the same for the camera's visual FOV, as follows:
So, instead of tubes, these end up being shields similar in shape to the ones we see on traffic lights. On my garage camera, I ended up with a shield measuring 7/8" at the top, while the one on the porch camera measures 3/4". The steeper the downward angle of the camera, the shorter the length of shield, for an equivalent detection distance.
The length of the garage camera's shield is just about perfect for our purposes. This is the camera that shows the entire width of our street, but using the amber LED, I confirmed that motion detection extends out to about 12-ft. from the end of the driveway. We have a grassy strip & sidewalk along our street, so I don't want the camera to trigger on every kid on a bike or neighbors out for their evening strolls.
The porch camera shield currently measures 3/4" and I might make another one 1/16" to 1/8" shorter. This camera triggers near the back doors of our cars, so I want to extend that range a bit.
Since I've been making so many test samples, I haven't bothered painting them, but you'll definitely want to at least blacken the inside surface to prevent nighttime reflections at the top-center of the frame:
I decided I like the look of leaving the outside white, so I'll mask that off and paint just the inside surface of each shield flat black when I'm done.
Also, a tip on cutting PVC pipe: If you're using a power miter saw with a general purpose (coarse) blade like I did, you'll want to cut very slowly. Otherwise, the PVC will gouge and possibly shatter. It also produces lots of white, static-clingy "sawdust." If I can find it, I think I'll use my old miter box and handsaw to cut the next one.
Hope this helps!
PS to Hula: Yes, we're in Tidewater but not Va. Beach. We finally got rid of city stickers, but I think we'll be stuck with those yearly inspection stickers forever.
hmm this might be a solution to my problem. Did you angle it on purpose and i contacted arlu and they told me to put my camera 7' off the ground and i noticed that yours is a lot higher then that. I had to put is so close and low to the ground to stop detection of cars passing by my driveway as well. Everytime i leave for work it does not detect me getting in my car or driving away. I wonder if that has to do with it being directly in front of the vehicle instead of being angled. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks
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