Inconsistent motion detection and recording

[DKwekSG]

Hi,

I recently purchased my first Arlo (and first CCTV) - Pro 4 Wireless. (Details below). The camera is positioned right above my front door in my condominium, facing a long corridor towards the common lifts. Distance from lift to my front door is about 5 meters and is well lit during the day (natural sunlight) and night (corridor lights). See image (dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8ruiyzyg3sdgk8k/2022-09-18%2008.14.21.jpg?dl=0) of the camera view.

My problem is the Pro 4 is inconsistent in the motion detection and hence, I assume, the recording. About 90% of the time, it records everything including my neighbours coming out of the lift towards their homes, deliveries to my flat, me entering and leaving. But there are times when my partner and I reached home and there's a lot of motion and noise, yet it did not record anything in the library.

I followed the FAQ on positioning of the camera, and my camera settings are listed below as well. The activity zone covers just the corridor areas (ignoring the walls). See image (https://www.dropbox.com/s/jgc8sesuk3i3dun/2022-09-18%2008.18.43.jpg?dl=0)

My questions:

1. Given the settings I have below, what else can I do to make sure that it records every person near my front door (including me, my partner, cleaners, delivery people etc)

2. In the Library are the catalogs of the recordings. I can see the videos that detected "Person" movements, yet for some reason, sometimes it didn't capture me entering my flat or leaving. Am I supposed to adjust the filter and it will somehow process the recorded streams in the cloud and chuck out updated stuff eg if I select the filter "all other motion"?

3. In the filter selection, I can see "All Other Motion" and further down I have "Motion" as well.. What is this "Motion"?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Arlo Pro 4

Firemware: 1.080.18.2_26_c79416e (latest version)

Hardware: VMC4041PAerH4

Connected to home wireless network (Asus AIMesh) 

Device Settings:

Flicker Adjustment Auto 50Hz

Camera LED: On

Video Settings: Brightness: 2, Auto HDR ON, Auto Zoom OFF, Rotate Image 180 Off, Low Light Settings: Spotlight OFF, Night Vision ON. Power management: Optimized. VIdeo Mode: Full.

Audio Settings: Microphone ON, Speaker ON, Speaker Vol 100%

Smart Notification: People ON, Animals ON, All Other Motion ON. Rest are OFF.

Camera Positioning: Video Bandwidth Strong

Motion Detection Test: 100 (High) - it seems to work when I walk around in front of the front door.

Mode: Armed. If Motion on camera - Detects Motion - Record Video - Push Notification

[Dannybear]

The motion detection is initially performed by a infrared sensor to detect changes in heat in front of the camera.

When a change in heat occurs it starts the camera streaming to the cloud server to process the activity zones applied and to match the object type as per your smart notification settings applied. 

You should get all motion triggered recordings into the library and any that are object recognised will be tagged accordingly.

You will only receive notifications as per the object selections selected in the mode camera rules. This is the same location to set the motion sensitivity for the initial trigger event. The test utility is only for setup checking only.

Also you would not require activity zones to eliminate walls that don’t move unless you have a lot of animals crawling over them that you don’t want to know about.

When you view the library you can use the filter option to only show recordings that you choose to see.

[StephenB]

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@DKwekSG wrote:

My problem is the Pro 4 is inconsistent in the motion detection and hence, I assume, the recording. About 90% of the time, it records everything including my neighbours coming out of the lift towards their homes, deliveries to my flat, me entering and leaving. But there are times when my partner and I reached home and there's a lot of motion and noise, yet it did not record anything in the library.

I followed the FAQ on positioning of the camera, and my camera settings are listed below as well. The activity zone covers just the corridor areas (ignoring the walls).

I agree with @Dannybear that you don't need activity zones.  I'd remove them, as in your case they can't help, and could hurt.

One aspect is that the entrance appears to be at the top of the field of view.  The camera is most sensitive at the bottom of the field of view.  So you could try inverting the camera (and using the invert setting in the app to flip the image rightside up).

Another is that the camera is most sensitive to motion across the field of view - and in your case, someone coming through the entrance is moving directly towards the camera.  I don't see much you can do about that, just pointing out that is is a factor.

Raising the motion sensitivity will of course also help.

Can you get AC power to the camera location?

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@DKwekSG wrote:

2. In the Library are the catalogs of the recordings. I can see the videos that detected "Person" movements, yet for some reason, sometimes it didn't capture me entering my flat or leaving. Am I supposed to adjust the filter and it will somehow process the recorded streams in the cloud and chuck out updated stuff eg if I select the filter "all other motion"?

The filter just lets you choose what you are seeing in the library.  It isn't deleting anything or re-processing streams.  It is just matching the tags you select against the tags already applied to each recording in the library.

The "smart" classifications certainly aren't perfect, so you will have cases where people are misclassified as something else.

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@DKwekSG wrote:

3. In the filter selection, I can see "All Other Motion" and further down I have "Motion" as well.. What is this "Motion"?

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All automatic recordings are either triggered by motion or audio.  And there are manual recordings as well.  Selecting "motion" will include all automatic motion recordings (excluding audio and manual), no matter what the smart classification is.