I added a couple Stick Up Cams a few months ago, and they seem be somewhat regularly identifying animals (birds and cats) as “Person.” Smart Alerts is set to only notify for people but record everything. The late night/early morning alerts are particularly annoying.
Lots of animals walk in front of the cameras, so it’s not clear what is causing some instances to trigger as a Person. For example, skinnier birds are more likely to set off, but fatter birds do not…
I don’t have previous experience with Stick Up Cams so do have not reference point. The Floodlight Cams seemed to have improved greatly over the years regarding people detection. I would have assumed that they would work similarly.
I did call Ring Support. There isn’t really much Ring Support can do. She tried to to explain Smart Alerts to me. But I already had it set up, and it’s is what is essentially not working. I asked her to log the issue and escalate, which was the only reason I called. So, hopefully if enough other people call in, they will investigate or try to improve.
I think this is common. I have an indoor stickup cam for my dogs and it often identifies them as a “person”. haven’t had the issues with other animals since this one is in their dog house, but I’ve definitely noticed it happening with my dogs.
This happens occasionally with my wired doorbell and floodlight cam, as well. The documentation says that it will alert as a “person” if it can detect head and shoulders. I think it will depend on how the animal approaches the camera area. It’s gotten better over time, but still happens once in a while. No system is perfect!
When we first got them, we would often get alerted when deer came through our yard, but that doesn’t happen too often now.
Thanks for your replies! Interesting about the detection of head and shoulders… Birds and bunnies don’t really have shoulders…
Yeah, I guess the detection has gotten better but not as much as I had hoped.
Earlier today, one camera didn’t identify me as a person, and one time it didn’t even record me when I walked right by it. I mainly got them to monitor wildlife, and as backup security cameras to other more reliable cameras. However, the cameras do record lizards!
Hi neighbors, thanks for sharing your feedback and experiences here. Smart Alerts are an option to help refine your motion alerts. However, it may not be the best option for everyone. Some neighbors find that the Smart Alerts feature works well from them, while others prefer not to use it. Various factors such as your environment, your device’s installation location, and the traffic your device receives can impact how well Smart Alerts might work for you. Regardless, thanks again for your feedback on thoughts on this feature, we are always trying to improve the Ring app and features provided.
This is a MAJOR problem with Ring cameras. I literally get hundreds of “person” notifications every day because we live in a warm climate with many outdoor cats and chickens. Our previous system (Nest) never made this mistake, and yes I have the sensitivity set to low. Ring, are you going to fix this???