Camera motion detection for beginners

Two layers of filtering

Your video goes through two filters before you get an alert.

1. The camera decides if something changed enough to count as motion. 2. Silarius Cloud decides how sure it must be before it alerts you. This is the confidence number.

Both must be set right. A perfect confidence number can't fix a camera that doesn't see motion. And the cloud can only work with what the camera sends.

How a camera sees motion

Picture the camera image as a grid of small boxes. Each moment, the camera compares how bright each box is now to a moment ago. If enough boxes change enough, the camera calls it motion.

Sensitivity controls this. On most cameras it controls both how big a change counts and how many boxes must change. Many cameras also have timer settings. On a lot of cameras the timers do nothing at all. So the sensitivity slider is doing most of the work.

The timer that hides real events

Some cameras have a timer that tells the camera to ignore new motion for a few seconds after an event ends. It may be called Suppress Alarm, alarm off delay or something similar.

Here is how it can hurt you: 1. A light flickers. The camera sends a false motion event. 2. The event ends. The ignore timer starts. 3. Two seconds later, a real car drives in. 4. The camera ignores it, because the timer is still running.

The fix: lower that timer. The lowest value catches the most events. About 5 seconds has tested well. Some cameras ship with it set as high as 15 seconds.

Finding the right sensitivity

There is no one magic number. It changes by camera model and even by software version.

• Start at 75%.
• Let it run for a couple of hours.
• Check the web app. Are there too many events or too few?
• Adjust in small steps.

If you get nonstop events when nothing moves, the camera is too sensitive. Lower it. Some cameras need to go as low as 25 to 30%.

If you get no events at all, the camera may only work in a very narrow range. Try 90%, then go up 1 or 2% at a time and test each time.

Be patient with a new camera

Default settings work fine most of the time, but not always. A new camera may send no events or nonstop false ones at first.

Some cameras even come with motion detection turned off. If the camera is used for real security, you must tune its sensitivity and motion areas. Don't leave it on factory settings.

Common mistakes

• Motion detection is turned off in the camera after setup. Turn it back on.
• The camera's schedule is empty or backwards. The camera then misses events or sends them at the wrong hours. Turn on the schedule and set the right hours.
• Line crossing points the wrong way. You miss the important direction and get alerts for the other one. Think about which way people or cars go.
• The wrong object types are picked in your AI rule. Pick what matters for each camera. No one setting fits every camera.