This is me waving at my camera (Side). Detection Sensitivity is set to 8. Camera still does not detect me (or much of anything). Any help?

Just bought these cameras last week. Front one seems alright, but the side one doesn’t detect hardly anything. It once caught my car pulling out of the driveway, but not me getting in or out of the car. Any suggestions?

1 Like

Return them and get your money back while you can. It’s been a on going problem with these cams.

2 Likes

It could be the angle. The motion detection is not the field of view. If you get closer to the building and it picks you up I would think that is the case. I think they recommend no more than a 20° downward angle when located 7-8 feet above ground.

I agree with jmiller so would suggest if looking to change the angle to get some mounts that give you the freedom to.

I have found that the mounts that come with the cameras a little restrictive to achieve a good angle.

So you’re saying that a massive chunk of the camera view is not in the motion detection zone? I always assumed if it was in the frame it was in the motion detection zone. What is the point of the activity zone boxes if it doesn’t even detect motion in half the frame?

Yeah I sort of felt the same way when I figured it out myself. I have trouble with activity zones not working so don’t get me started on that. :slight_smile:. Yeah I had one pointed down a ways and realized it only picked me up if I within 10’. If you could lower it and raise the angle you should be able to pick up more. It took me my 30 days just to tweak them and I’m still tweaking one of them. Good luck.

1 Like

I mean, it’s on the overhang of my roof, I can’t bring it down any further unless I drill it into my siding, which would look janky. Maybe these cameras aren’t going to work out for my needs after all.

Just going off jmillers comments about the motion detection, could you angle your camera so the lower portion is directly over the cars (presuming that both are yours) as a large portion on the right is aimed to the grass.

I have also seen comments of detection not being picked up if your motion is directly towards the camera “line of sight” instead of across. So less vertical more horizontal.

Try without selecting any activity zone (Default setting) - activity zones and geofencing are buggy

Don’t wait till the return date is expired to decide. Plain and simple if it’s in the activity zone it should pick it up. You should not have to do all this tweaking. what is the purpose of the activity zones.

Can’t they make some indication in the activityzone how far the detection goes ?
If they can put in a sketch, why not in the camera ?
This way you can better ‘aim’ the camera.

Camera didn’t record someone parking in my driveway and coming 20 feet from my door. But it did record the person getting in the car and driving away

Agree with this. My Arlo Q’s picked up anyone in my zone over 100’ away. Angle or no it works 99% of the time. Not the case for my eufy video doorbell. Which constantly sees “humans” in pots and mulch.

Do thes use PIR motion detection or pixel detection. Because this is a battery powered camera i would expect it to be PIR. Which is dependent on what the PIR sensor array is designed to do. As other have said it may not do the whole area, and in many cases you need motion across the camera not just in one place.

As another poster noted the Arlo Q detects motion across the entire field of view, but it is pixel based detection, that brands wireless cameras suffer similar issues unless being powered by a reliable source. Once powered from the wall continously they also revert to pixel detection. PIR detection is always a bit more finicky.

1 Like