The detection zone on my v3 aren’t bad. I might have to set it a little further than the area I want because of accuracy. But the v4 detection zone is really bad. I have to set the blackout zone almost TWICE as big as the area. This isn’t good because it blacks out areas that I want covered.
And this has nothing to do with shade, shadows, etc. One of the cameras is in the back yard. I have a barbecue grill with a cover. When it’s breezy, the cover on the grill moves and sets off motion alerts. To black it out in the detection zone so it doesn’t alert every 5 seconds, I have to black out a very large area. An area so large it blacks out areas I’d like available for motion detection. Definitely not happy.
I’ve tried tweaking the blackout zone, but if the zone isn’t at least TWICE THE SIZE of the area I WANT covered, it’s useless. I then get an alert constantly.
If you turn on the motion tagging (green box) you can basically see what needs to be blocked. I replaced an OG with a v4 and the only thing I found to be an issue is the OG added an improvement a while back to ignore lighting changes, where the v4 is always set off by headlights washing across the detection zone. But during the day I’ve found it to be about the same accuracy.
Using the green box might give you an idea of what is going on, it could be a reflection or something you aren’t expecting it to be (so the wind could be blowing something else, not just the grill cover, and making light move somewhere).
I have motion tagging on. And when I view the event recording alert I see the green box motion tag. And the area tagged is WELL INSIDE of the area that I set to black out in motion detection. There’s no sun now. It’s just the wind and the grill cover.
Like I mentioned, I can get it to work (at about 90-95% not sending false alerts), but I have to set the detection zone almost TWICE THE SIZE of the area I’d like it to be.
It could be just this individual camera, but the accuracy on the detection area is really bad. My v3’s all work fine for detection areas. Like you said, you might get the occasional false alert, even at night, because of a light, shadow, wind blowing something, etc… But this camera, where it’s at is really sheltered. Except for the wind, it doesn’t have any real affects.
If I can’t narrow it down, I might swap it with another v4 I have set up in the house. In the house I don’t have/need detection zones. Maybe/hopefully it’s just this one particular camera. Probably built on a Friday at 4pm on a holiday weekend and the employees wanted to go home.
To clarify, you have to make the detection zone bigger than it needs to be? I was reading the opposite. That doesn’t seem to make sense that you get less false alerts when the DZ is larger.
Maybe something flaky with the camera. Detection zone is done in software so it seems unlikely though.
You sure you don’t have things backwards? Stuff greyed out in the DZ picture is ignored, stuff that looks normal is detected. I only ask because someone with a similar complaint was greying out stuff they wanted detected, instead of greying out stuff they wanted ignored.
It does seem that with certain models of cam and certain angles/lighting conditions, you need a full grey box between your detection zone and the edge of the green box for it to be ignored. But I believe they’ve improved on that.
If possible, post a screenshot of your detection zone and another of a detection you didn’t want showing the green box, sometimes someone can spot something that isn’t obvious.
Dave, we are on the same page. Let me expand my vocabulary a little so we aren’t confused. I’m going to call the area that I “DON’T WANT DETECTED” as the “Blackout Zone”. “Detection Zone” will be the area “I WANT DETECTED”.
So the blackout area I create, (Grayed out) around the grill has to be set to almost twice as big as I set it for in my V3 cameras. Unfortunately, that means there are areas that I would like to be detectable for motion, that aren’t. I’ve been doing some more tweaking, but it’s not as tight as I’d like.
I do have another V4 that I can swap with to see if it’s any better at discriminating the “Blackout” area I don’t want detected. The other v4 is in the house and I don’t use detection zones there. We’ll see how it goes.
Thanks
Mike
With the exception of headlights washing across my walkway (which is my detection zone/want detected) my v4 is pretty razor accurate, so are my OGs. Not sure about my Panv3s as detection zone doesn’t do anything on those when using “track motion” which both of mine are doing. The OG was better at ignoring those headlights though (after they specifically added a firmware improvement to ignore lighting changes).
Give the other one a try, I’m curious if it could somehow be tied to hardware. Who knows, maybe some dust in the lens is enough to confuse it or something. But then you’d think the green box would be in your detection zone, not outside of it.
Only thought I have is the camera must have some sort of calibration in it telling it what spots on the image sensor map to what coordinates in the software, maybe that is corrupted or shifted. If that’s the case, replacing the cam should help. Maybe there is some calibration they do at the factory and yours was done on a Friday at 4:55PM.
I’ll experiment some more. Do a little more tweaking. The “Blackout” area really shouldn’t have to be this large. It’s not like this on my V3’s. But I’ll figure out a way. Thanks for your insight and suggestions. I’ll definitely try the other camera too to see if there’s a noticeable difference.
Thanks
Mike
My detection zone is about 1/2 box from the sidewalk (sidewalk greyed out). Nothing on the sidewalk has ever set it off and it is a very busy one, nor on either side of the DZ either. It is pretty much the boundaries of my front walkway and nothing outside of that ever triggers it. Occasionally someone walking their dog, the dog will be like 1/2 to 1 box in the DZ and it triggers an event. So mine is pretty accurate.
My sensitivity is at 30 to try and cut down on the headlight issue, but when it was at the default 50 I didn’t have any more false alerts (other than perhaps more frequent headlight ones, I don’t think turning it down helped much though).
Only thing I’ve noticed with 30 vs 50 is a rabbit hopping across near the far edge of the DZ won’t set it off where it would have before. Actually I think they’ve learned that, they used to set off my spotlight all the time and scare themselves, now they seem to stay closer to the sidewalk. But the coyotes looking for rabbit stew will set it off at the further area, since obviously they’re much bigger.
Thanks Dave. My sensitivity is at 40. I set it that way on all my cameras. It’s possible this camera is just really sensitive. As I mentioned, I do have another v4 I bought at the same time. When I get a chance, I’ll swap them out and see if there’s a noticeable difference in setting up the blackout area.
Thanks
Mike