I have a OG Cam set up outdoors about ten feet from a heat pump that I use to capture small animals like skunks going under the house near the heat pump. Thia is in a dark environment but the heat pump creates an even darker shadow from the ambient light. When a skunk or other small animal passes in front of the camera, and in the shadow, it captures the motion and records to the camera, but the spotlight never turns on automatically as it is set to do in settings. You can barely make out the image when the animal is in the shadow. What am I missing here? That’s why I set the spotlight to turn on with motion detection, but it never does turn on. I can turn it on manually but it does NOT turn on automatically as it should.
Change the spotlight to manual mode.
Then create an automation for “detects motion” and “turn on the spotlight for x minutes”. Then set the schedule to “dusk to dawn” or whatever times you want.
That’s how mine are set up. If it isn’t dark enough, the spotlight won’t turn on. It is approximately the same threshold as the camera going into black and white (IR) mode, but not exact. So if your cam always has enough light to stay in color mode, the auto spotlight won’t work, and the automation is the way to go.
In my case I have street lights and mine never go out of color mode, and for the most part there is plenty of light, but if someone walks up to my door, I want the extra light on them, so I use the automation for that.