Floodlight cam false detection at night

Still figuring out this floodlight and app.

I have the detection set to “people only”. While its terribly slow to react when it does detect something, it works most of the time in daylight as I’ve been testing.

From 12:59 to 1:37 AM the floodlight detected motion 14 times. None of the video’s showed anything. Good thing I didn’t have the phone in the bedroom, it would have woken me up for no reason. I know this floodlight picks up on people from a distance. In fact I am pretty happy with it’s detection distance. Anyone walking up to the camera is caught from a decent distance away in my daytime tests, you simply cant sneak up on this camera easily.

I know it wasn’t anyone in a vehicle, that then got out, because we have driveway alarms that go off at both ends of the driveway and they were not triggered.

Anyone know what could have triggered the camera 14 times in about 40 minutes yet record no human…when its set on people detection only?

Camera activated at 6:13 am this morning due to a cat. I have it set to only detect people.

I think the Ring floodlight cam has flaws operating at night regarding the people only detection setting.

It would be nice if customer service actually monitored all of these questions/complaints.

I have the same issues. My floodlight cam gives false alerts all night. Bugs, rain, wind all give alerts. An averege of 10 a night but sometimes 20 or more. Any time day or night the response is so slow that UPS can park and drop off a package at the front door then walk back to his truck and leave before I get a warning. I am about ready to pull it down and trash it. My plan was to get several of these for around the house, but not now.

I also have a ring doorbell that works pretty well.

Glenn

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So far it detected rain or something blowing around the lens, a neighbors cat and now my wife’s van pulling in to the garage, all while supposedly on “people only” detection.

It simply does not discern the difference in movement between a human and everything else at night.

They advertise/specify this:

From the web site:

  • Hardwired devices: If you toggle the People Only Mode on, your device will only record and alert you to human being related events.

BUT! This could be a problem:

Note: Occasionally when in People Only Mode, light reflection, as from an outside window, can activate motion detection. If you’re getting a lot of unwanted notifications look for reflective surfaces that may be shining light onto your device. Alternatively, you can turn off the People Only Mode setting.

I keep a truck parked not far from this light. Hard to believe they would make a light/camera that people would use to monitor parked vehicles for crime that couldnt work with windshields. I also have a stainless steel worktable outside near this camera that could be reflecting. And this may be why its doing this at night and why it picked up my wifes van pulling in the garage…at night, the lights come on of course, and if reflection from, say, a car window can trigger the motion/camera…THAT might explain some of this. Of course I’d have to cover everything reflective out there to test this…and I may just do that to see.

It seems like covering the stainless steel table in the view of the camera/sensor may have solved the night triggering of everything while in people only mode.

So it must have been the reflective nature of the stainless triggering it. Since covering the table, not false alerts at night. Working well.

Too bad you cant turn recording off though. It will record video and audio of everything in its motion zone regardless of whether you snoozed it or not. So be sure to dress well, smile and dont say anything you dont want someone to possibly hear!

I think I may send mine back and get a camera that records only to a personal storage device.

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My first 24 hours with a spotlight; I found at night reflected light off a puddle in my driveway is triggering motion alerts. I changed to detecting people only for now. Hoping for a fix in the future.

You can always try putting a privacy zone on the one spot. Setting up privacy zones is putting an custom adjustable little black box on a specific spot that tells your camera not to trigger record for anything that’s in the box. The good thing is the box is able to be set pretty small… The only issue is the privacy zone will only work for motion detection for recording, lights will still set off if it’s within the zone you set. You would have to mess around with the lights setting trigger range if you don’t like the lights going off. If it’s just a camera recording and sending notifications issue for you, privacy zones might be your best bet. Or set up a motion schedule to not notify you during specific hours if you know exact times. I think it’ll still record and save to server if you have subscription, but the schedule settings just won’t notify you during those hours you set. I recall that being the case but not 100% sure about that last part lol.

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