My Pan Cam V3’s are getting annoying. They would rather track trees waving than they would people and have identified the tree waving as both people and cars. The one in my back yard is the most annoying because there is a line of trees behind the houses here and the last two days it’s been very windy.
I have my backyard cam under a dome corner mount so it can see two sides of the house via waypoints. In the last two days it has been doing nothing but tracking the trees waving (which is actually above where I want it to track anything) so it’s been missing kids and some adults walking behind the houses. I was getting notifications like every 15 to 30 seconds on a car during the day which turned out to only be tree waving, so I turned off notifications to do with vehicles on that cam. Then it started identifying the tree waves as people. I had to turn off motion tracking so it would stop tracking the tree waves. I need motion tracking on because there are wild animals that go behind our houses and I am trying to see where the possums and racoons are going, plus I am trying to catch the coyotes in my area on camera. I am going to see if there is something I can wrap around the edge of the dome cover that hangs down about an inch so that it can’t track anything up there. I am not even sure that will work with these pan cams.
Has anyone else had this issue and was it solved, it so how?
I just realized another issue I am about to have with the pan cam on my covered deck. I am putting up a bug zapper (area is bad for mosquitos this time of year) and that pan cam will more than likely be “engulfed” in watching that thing zap bugs. They really need to put some kind “do not detect in this area” function on the cam pans. much like the “detection zones” for the non moving cameras.
I’ve thought about putting regular cams in the backyard area but I would need at least 3 cams in not 4 to cover the area the pan cam v3 does.
Based on how you’re describing the issues your experiencing, I suspect non-pan/tilt cameras would be better suited to your application, as you suggested. Although Cam Pan v3 has the Detection Zone feature, I have never used it because I’ve placed that model of camera indoors only and have Track Motion enabled. When the camera is allowed to move and change its view, setting a Detection Zone isn’t much use, I don’t think.
Reportedly, setting a Detection Zone even with motion tracking enabled used to have some utility by having the effect of setting a “home” Waypoint for the camera to return to when otherwise idle, but it’s been described elsewhere in the Forum that recent updates (possibly app; likely server-side) have caused this behavior to no longer work that way. If you’re using Pan Scan (you mentioned “[seeing] two sides of the house via waypoints”, but I don’t know if you’re using that feature), then a Detection Zone wouldn’t be very useful for that, either.
Even with stationary cameras, though, my experience has been that setting an effective Detection Zone requires some trial and error, especially living in a windy area where the cameras can potentially see trees and flags. Even tree shadows can be problematic.
Your issues with motion tracking (having a camera pointed at trees and suggesting a solution of physically masking part of the view area) remind me of a couple of relevant Wishlist topics, in case you’re interested in voting and commenting on those:
I like Cam Pan v3, though I’ve been disappointed with some recent changes, and I think there’s definitely room for improvement and features that I believe could be implemented via firmware and app changes.
They will track any and all motion. For me it is generally not an issue as I’ve got the “home” position set to not have any trees in view, but the one in my driveway tracks the reflection of the IR light off raindrops, bugs, dust, etc.
It has been mentioned several times that it would be good to have a “tracking zone” with limits, and separate sensitivity control (though I think the main sensitivity does affect the motion tracking, I’ve just never been able to confirm it 100%). I suspect if we do get something like that, it will be in the Panv4.
For the tracking of bugs, raindrops, dust, etc when the IR lights are on, that can be solved by using an external IR light mounted away from the camera. For tree branches and the like, unfortunately the only options are to set your cam up where it won’t see those normally, use pan/scan instead of track motion, or just use it static and move manually when needed.
Decreasing the motion sensitivity might help, I can’t say for sure, like I said have never really be able to figure that out to any degree of certainty.
So I came to the forum to complain about how the pan feature stopped working on my two v3 cams with the latest update only to realize they never worked right to begin with.
Previously, I could set a detection zone AND follow motion. Only I was constantly frustrated because it would follow cars in the “ignore” zone. Now that I’ve read this thread, I realize it wasn’t supposed to use both. When I went to turn panning back on, I got a message saying DZ has to be off for Pan to work, which confirmed what you all were saying.
All these years and it was a glitch that made me think they could work together. And they really should because I may not want to follow something in the street but I may want to save it to the SD card for reference.
They just recently added that “enforcement” that doesn’t let you use them together. Many of us had to figure it out, that the Detection Zone doesn’t actually affect the motion tracking at all (not even clear if the sensitivity setting does). BUT it was handy because having a detection zone set, even if it didn’t change the motion tracking, ensured the camera always returned to the home position if you moved it manually. Not a huge deal, just have to remember to tap a waypoint now, which honestly I nearly always remembered to do anyway.
I’m guessing it was just an oversight originally that allowed them to both be enabled, and they were getting so many support inquiries about “why is my pan cam alerting to stuff that is excluded” they enforced the restriction now.
I’d love to see a separate motion tracking zone and also a limit as to how far it will track. But I don’t think we’ll see that on the Panv3, it seems this cam is mostly in “maintenance mode” right now and the changes to the app recently may actually be in preparation for release of the next version Pan cam, it is certainly due.
Over the last couple years I’ve gotten used to the fact that you can’t really exclude anything when track motion is enabled and have just adjusted my “home” position and where I have them mounted to account for that, I’m still happy with them and they work well, I was actually quite surprised about how versatile they are for the $30 I spent on them. And the fact that they’re still going 2 years later (one of them tracks every single car that goes by on a busy street, constantly moving around) has impressed me as well.
Maybe we’ll see some of these gripes addressed with the v4.
Yes, I had voted on one of those topics before.
To better detail what was mentioned in another reply, you can’t enable pan scan and set a detection zone on these cameras.
Understand that I mentioned why using stationary cameras would not be ideal because I’d need to have 3 or 4 cameras in one spot to cover what the pan cam covers. That would end up being a mounting nightmare with up to 4 cameras and needing the outdoor adapter plugs and forget trying to hide all that cable…
I don’t keep an eye on my cameras 24/7 and usually don’t look at them except for when alerts come up.
Decreasing the motion sensitivity to the point where it will not track the trees has the side effect of barely tracking anything else. I’ve tried it and had all kinds of issues with tracking. It took me some time to get the tracking working correctly again so I really don’t want to mess with that to much anymore.
I am also unable to position the camera in a spot where it does not see the trees or their branches because they are all along the back of the houses.
Quoted from another reply “Understand that I mentioned why using stationary cameras would not be ideal because I’d need to have 3 or 4 cameras in one spot to cover what the pan cam covers. That would end up being a mounting nightmare with up to 4 cameras and needing the outdoor adapter plugs and forget trying to hide all that cable…”
I’m aware you mentioned that, but if the Pan cam is not working for you, your options are a fixed camera or explore other brands that may have some way of excluding areas from automatic motion tracking.