Tree shadows setting off motion

MCanon160

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Hey all,

First time posting. I’m having issues with trees blowing in the wind and the shadows from the branches setting off the motion detection. Should I use the tripwire option instead or should I just reduce the sensitivity so tree shadows don’t set off the alarm all day?
 

mat200

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Hey all,

First time posting. I’m having issues with trees blowing in the wind and the shadows from the branches setting off the motion detection. Should I use the tripwire option instead or should I just reduce the sensitivity so tree shadows don’t set off the alarm all day?
Welcome @MCanon160

Motion detection is not perfect, so do expect shadows and the like to cause issues.

If you can, depending on your cameras / kit also look at using the alarm in/out ( not on all NVRs / cameras ) and getting an appropriate sensor to trigger the alarm.
 

MCanon160

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Thanks for replying everyone! I’m gonna set up tripwire and alarm in/out tomorrow. My NVR has a decent amount of IVS features. The first week my motion section worked nicely but with the wind and rain the last couple days I’ve probably got 50-75 false alarms between the three cameras.
 
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Thanks for replying everyone! I’m gonna set up tripwire and alarm in/out tomorrow. My NVR has a decent amount of IVS features. The first week my motion section worked nicely but with the wind and rain the last couple days I’ve probably got 50-75 false alarms between the three cameras.
Even using Tripwire/Intrusion zone triggers, you will get false positives. For me, on partly cloudy days, the sun constantly appearing/disappearing causes the problem. It's just unavoidable. It can be minimized somewhat by setting up proper 'target' sizes, and that really requires alot of playing around.
 
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I just figured my problems were the result of lack of knowledge, but I face similar challenges on motion detection.

On my front yard is a small tree, if I disable motion detection zone on the tree itself, it addresses the problem about 50%, but late in the day the sun casts a long shadow over my driveway (dead center of my important motion zone), and because the tree is little (more like a tall bush), if there is ANY wind it triggers motion detection no matter how I have tried to set the detection size etc.

Related to mat200's recommendation, since I know this is a challenging area, but it is in the front of my house so I want to pickup any motion (activity), I hope to evaluate some Bosch PIR/Microwave sensors to improve my detection accuracy in that space. For some another option might be the invisible beam-type sensors but I have no where in front of the house where I would be allowed to mount those. I will post a thread when I get them ordered, in case it works and will help others. I don't have cameras with alarm inputs, so will probably use SeaLevel DAC (quite a few threads on these forums for this hardware, but kind of expensive) to interface to Blue Iris unless/until I can figure out Raspberri Pi (possibly using MQTT, see here: 4.7.0 - March 2, 2018 - MQTT IoT (Internet of Things) protocol )
 

Sybertiger

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How about the opposite....at night when a car turns in the cul-de-sac and the the headlights shinning on your property triggers the alerts. What a pain.
 

MCanon160

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How about the opposite....at night when a car turns in the cul-de-sac and the the headlights shinning on your property triggers the alerts. What a pain.
I have that issue in the front yard. I’m definitely going to try the tripwire mode and hope it relieves the issue. Just need a spare few minutes which I don’t have lately.
 
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I have that issue in the front yard. I’m definitely going to try the tripwire mode and hope it relieves the issue. Just need a spare few minutes which I don’t have lately.
Not to burst your bubble, but depending on how bright the light is, it won't. Tripwires and Intrusion zones can be easily tripped by headlights, or any kind of light.
 

J Sigmo

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If you don't want to miss anything, then it is often recommended to record continuously. Doing that, you can then set up the motion-zone-tripwire, etc., to be less sensitive because you know that you always have the footage regardless.

For some of my cameras, the relatively heavy vehicle traffic in front if my house results in thousands of triggers every day, anyhow, if set sensitively enough to capture what I'm after. So those locations might as well record continuously. I can then set the triggering to be far more selective and only use that for finding events, etc.

Other cameras look at much less active areas, and can be set to trigger only on detections. They still get fooled by car headlights sweeping across the area, or shadows from wind-blown trees, etc., but it is acceptable.

I do not use motion alerts from most of these cameras to notify or otherwise "alarm" me. I do think true motion detectors are better for that sort of thing unless you can put up with a LOT of false alarms or the camera is in a very "quiet" location.

I might enjoy seeing footage of squirrels, cats, etc., prowling my yard, but I don't need to get an alert when it happens.
 

Maximo101

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I've had the same issue since setting up a couple of cameras last week.
I turned off Motion Detection and have set Intrusion Detection and Line Crossing.
Spent days tweaking the min and max sizes but I think I have it set perfect now with only a could of false settings per day and none st night from bugs.
 

MCanon160

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The tripwire setting seemed to have stopped all of the false alarms I’ve been dealing with besides one or two here and there.

I have my front cameras to run continuously in conjunction with the tripwire alerts. The backyard is just tripwire alerts which works for me.

I can’t get the min/max size to work tho in the settings. I was able to draw one box but not one large and one small box. A little help would be appreciated (Dahua OEM NVR).
 

icecoffee

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I can’t get the min/max size to work tho in the settings. I was able to draw one box but not one large and one small box. A little help would be appreciated (Dahua OEM NVR).
You have to draw 1 box at a time, not both. Tick min option -> draw the box -> save. Then tick max option, do the same.
 

Sybertiger

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Respectively, I would suggest trimming your bushes down by 2 feet to begin with. They'd look nice shaped up and might help your situation.
 

bigredfish

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I get very very few false alerts out of tripwire/intrusion on 5442's and the new 4K-X,T I mean VERY few

Now I do have some first gen 5442's, some of the very first, that still like to pick up cats, but I cant recall the last shadow, tree or headlight alarm
 
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The Automation Guy

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I'm reading the original posts in this thread and I am wondering why no one is suggesting AI as the solution to false motion triggers...... Then I look at the dates of those posts! :cool:

Seriously though.... AI (either in camera, or something you set up separately) is the best and easiest way to get rid of 99% of the false triggers we used to get for shadows, moving trees, etc. I use the IVS in my Dahua cameras and it works great. If your camera doesn't have this type of AI option, then you can always set up AI yourself. There are several options and lots of threads on the forum that discuss them.
 

Sybertiger

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Good point. I just assume nowadays most are using AI/IVS

There are a few isolated use cases for MD, I use it sparingly on two cams IN ADDITION to IVS to pick up critters.
Ditto....I use MD just to create some extra zones on cams used as spotters for the PTZ since there is no reporting back to BI for individual IVS zones on the cams I have. Would be nice if BI supported cam specific IVS zones to allow for more customized action to be taken by BI.
 
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