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Motion Detection Tips
Consider how important it is to be notified of motion events as they happen. Using
email or app alerts are a great way to be kept up-to-speed on what’s happening, but
may quickly become annoying if something occurs which will generate a number of
false triggers. As a rule, we suggest employing email or app alerts only on interior
cameras during times that no one should be moving about in front of them. It can be
important to have a complete record of a subject’s movements and actions for legal
reasons.
If your cameras capture an illegal event (typically an intruder) it is important to have as
much information as possible. For example, images of someone in your home may not
actually prove that they broke in - but footage of them breaking a window does. If you
use a camera inside the home to trigger all exterior cameras with pre-record enabled,
then you will have a record of how they entered in addition to what they did.
Always consider what’s really important. Which is the bigger problem - a dozen false
triggers per day, or missing one critical event? There’s no magic setting which will
make motion detection work perfectly. There will always be some events that are not
sensitive enough to catch, or minor happenings that will trigger an overly sensitive
camera to record. Typically, the best motion detection settings are one’s that give few
false triggers but don’t miss anything.
Even motion detection which false triggers a few times per hour will still save a sig-
nificant amount of hard drive space compared with a constant recording schedule for
the same duration -
• Position your cameras well
• Many issues seen with motion detection and security cameras can be traced back
to poor positioning of the camera itself
• Make sure the area in front of your cameras is as clear as possible so it has an
unobstructed view of potential activity
Consider the centre of the camera image is the “sweet spot” which gives you the high-
est detail and the best image clarity so the centre of the image should be right where
you need to see the real activity.
Position you camera so that any potential intruder’s face will have to pass the centre
of the image as closely as possible without allowing the camera to be tampered with.
Also note that while having the cameras show some sky in the image might make the
picture look nice it is also a higher level of contrast the camera has to deal with, keep
the sky and any other bright objects to a minimum so that the camera has the best
chance of getting the image you need to identify the intruder or licence plate -
• Keep the view distance to the shortest possible
• Place the cameras as close to the subject as possible to ensure you get the best
possible level of detail
Digital zoom can make the image bigger but if the camera is too far away then no
amount of digital zoom will make the subject any clearer.
Where possible have some overlap for your cameras. Overlapping camera views make
it difficult for someone to access and tamper with one camera without another camera
capturing some video of the event.
Keep your cameras clean. Dirty lenses can affect the image quality; give the lens a
clean from time to time.
Note that spider webs are almost invisible during the day but are extremely reflective
at night which can dramatically affect the night vision from your cameras, so keep the
spider webs away from your cameras too.
