As the title says....
Front porch package cam triggered by squirrel or deer....
- Thread starter TonyR
- Start date
sebastiantombs
Known around here
What kind of camera, Tony?
Nice. That really is good for a $45 Dahua camera that isn't gray-market.
Thx...and I agree. And it was overcast, prelude to some rain, etc. On brighter days it REALLY stands out.
area651
Getting comfortable
Well that used to be the case. They've dropped the everyday price now down to that. (I used three or so of these around the house and really like them.)
area651
Getting comfortable
Tony I've been thinking about putting mine outside on my porch. Its dry but humid here. Do you ever worry about the humidity or temps about putting them outside? I'm debating.
Go for it, I don't worry, especially at that price. It replaced a Trendnet 640x480 PT/digital zoom that resembles the Amcrest in appearance. It was out there in the indirect weather...blowing mist, heavy fog, temps from 15 to 90 F for 8 years without a peep.
The old Trendnet has now been relegated to armadillo-spotting duty in the summer.
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smoothie
Pulling my weight
- Joined
- Dec 19, 2015
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If you are using the Blue Iris alert zones to trigger someone on your porch and it is being triggered by the wildlife you can set a more targeted zone for alerting. If you are not using Blue Iris to perform the alert you may want to consider doing so as it will afford you a great level of customization that may help you reduce or eliminate false-positives.
If you set the alert zones to the red areas below I would think it would reduce your false-positives while keeping alerting for humans walking up your front steps. You might need to trim the tree branches that are covered by the right side of the larger red patch or reduce the area of the larger red patch. If a ninja crawls up your front steps you might be in trouble using this method. The red zones I suggested are just examples, you can tune it to your preferences and situation far better than I can. My basic idea was have the trigger zones where a person walking would cross into them but wildlife would not.
The best way to visualize these is to think of them as 3 dimensional cones made of solid matter that extend from the camera lens to the target zones. You wan to arrange them in such a way that deer walking on the grass and squirrels on the desk and railings do not collide with those cones but humans would. For example the head of the deer in the footage does not get high enough to cross into the large red area I marked but a human walking up your steps would.
The alert zones seem to be happiest when they have a static or nearly static background to compare against, this also helps reduce false alerts from movement of branches and leaves. Depending on the direction the Sun takes through this scene there can be shadows around noon that could cause false-positives if tree branches out of frame cast shadows on the shed while the wind is moving them.
Just a few thoughts that may help.
If you set the alert zones to the red areas below I would think it would reduce your false-positives while keeping alerting for humans walking up your front steps. You might need to trim the tree branches that are covered by the right side of the larger red patch or reduce the area of the larger red patch. If a ninja crawls up your front steps you might be in trouble using this method. The red zones I suggested are just examples, you can tune it to your preferences and situation far better than I can. My basic idea was have the trigger zones where a person walking would cross into them but wildlife would not.
The best way to visualize these is to think of them as 3 dimensional cones made of solid matter that extend from the camera lens to the target zones. You wan to arrange them in such a way that deer walking on the grass and squirrels on the desk and railings do not collide with those cones but humans would. For example the head of the deer in the footage does not get high enough to cross into the large red area I marked but a human walking up your steps would.
The alert zones seem to be happiest when they have a static or nearly static background to compare against, this also helps reduce false alerts from movement of branches and leaves. Depending on the direction the Sun takes through this scene there can be shadows around noon that could cause false-positives if tree branches out of frame cast shadows on the shed while the wind is moving them.
Just a few thoughts that may help.
Thanks for the info but I kind of like my setup as is. Humans hit a zone pretty much like you have shown and critters trip a zone on the flat of the porch. I want things on the porch to trigger recording. Besides, I ran the clip through BI's "test run video through motion detector" and it showed that the squirrel triggered BI, not the deer....the deer was just passing by.
But thanks.....it could help someone else.
But thanks.....it could help someone else.
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