I just purchased a Pan Cam for the backyard, installed it yesterday, and have been having issues with it since. I mounted it on the wall beside our patio door, set the waypoints all the same (middle of the yard) and also set the detection zone to block out a tree that is beside the deck to the left of the camera. Since last night, the camera has been centred on the tree, and cannot be refocused back into the middle of the yard. I touch the waypoints to move it back into the centre, and then it immediately defaults back to the upper left and focusses on the tree. I have turned off the Motion Tracking, but it still immediately defaults back to that location.
It was working for a while during the day yesterday, but after night fell all of these problems started. I thought it might be an issue with shadows, but now that the sun is up it is continuing. Two questions:
It seemed that the camera was picking up the motion of the tree even though it was well within the excluded detection zone. Anyone have an idea why it would still pick it up, even with the buffer between the extent of the tree and the edge of the detection zone?
And why does the camera default to the upper left of it’s range, rather than centred?
Is that view from the screen shot, what all your waypoints are also?
Does it move as it detects motion? or does it move after 15 seconds? Does it move to the point where your waypoints are? Do you want it to scan across your waypoints, or just staticky aim at the location in the screen shot?
I’d remove all your waypoints, remove the detection zne, make sire motion TRACKING and pan scan are disabled, then manually point the camera to where you want it to face THEN enable and set your detection zone (leave the waypoints empty). See if that helps this out.
Note that detection zone does NOT impact motion tracking. Any motion in view of the camera will be tracked, even if excluded from the DZ.
I’ve found detection zone when used with motion tracking or pan/scan to be relatively useless for this reason. It won’t record a clip or send a notification when the camera is in its “home” position and there is motion outside the detection zone, however it will follow that motion and since it is now looking at something other than the detection zone, it will log an event.
If the tree is moving in the breeze, then it is not surprising that the camera is constantly looking at it. Your best option in that case is to set the camera’s “home” position to not show the tree at all in that case.
To properly set “home” - first turn off motion tracking, pan/scan, and detection zone. Then aim the camera where you want its home to be. You can set a waypoint here (not required, but nice to be able to force it home), then go in and set your detection zone. By setting a DZ (even if only one square is blocked out) you’ve now locked that as the home position for the camera.
Now you can turn on motion tracking or pan/scan if you want, but just be aware that the detection zone does nothing in that case other than giving the camera a home position to return to when motion stops.
I did a reset of the camera, and since then it seems to be acting normally. That being said, I’ll have to see what it’s like on a windy night. If there’s still an issue, I’ll try your suggestions - thank you!
