Motion Sensitivity picking up pets when set for People Only

Manny,

I too have less false alarms lately. I reduced my floodlight sensitivity range which might have helped, but a spider spinning a web around the floodlight sets off the lights and recording/notification. That has happened once in the past week.

Also, same thing with an opossum. It walked right through the middle of the motion zone, set the lights off and the recording/notification.

This only happens at night and I think the lights set the video recording off. Who knows. I don’t count on or expect this device to be the security for “human forms only” I had hoped it would be, based on the claims and the available people only setting. I’ve given up on that. I don’t want to be woken up with false alarms any day of the week, so until the device stops all false alarms for a significant period of time, I’m keeping it “do not disturb”.

I also noticed another disappointment not on this topic. Someone came to pick something up and I observed them through the camera, and not only live, but recorded, I could not zoom in and read the license plate maybe 40 feet from the camera. So even if the camera caught a vehicle doing something nefarious in my driveway, it would not provide a license plate number for police to search.

So, this device to me is almost just an amusement or interesting toy. It’s just essentially a camera, the recording can let you see what happened, but may not provide a clear face image for crime solving or a license plate. I’m home almost all the time (even before COVID-19) so the remote features aren’t even regularly useful.

The one thing it definitely does that I could not do before, is allow me to look out that end of the house without running all the way upstairs to the only window that faces that way. Sadly, when I get an alert…IF I’m actually near my phone, by the time it allows me to actually see the view, a lot of stuff has already passed by. It’s useful in combination with my driveway alarms in that, when I hear them, I can pick up the phone and see if and what just drove down my driveway without peering through that window

@Dude wrote:

Manny,

I too have less false alarms lately. I reduced my floodlight sensitivity range which might have helped, but a spider spinning a web around the floodlight sets off the lights and recording/notification. That has happened once in the past week.

Also, same thing with an opossum. It walked right through the middle of the motion zone, set the lights off and the recording/notification.

This only happens at night and I think the lights set the video recording off. Who knows. I don’t count on or expect this device to be the security for “human forms only” I had hoped it would be, based on the claims and the available people only setting. I’ve given up on that. I don’t want to be woken up with false alarms any day of the week, so until the device stops all false alarms for a significant period of time, I’m keeping it “do not disturb”.

I also noticed another disappointment not on this topic. Someone came to pick something up and I observed them through the camera, and not only live, but recorded, I could not zoom in and read the license plate maybe 40 feet from the camera. So even if the camera caught a vehicle doing something nefarious in my driveway, it would not provide a license plate number for police to search.

So, this device to me is almost just an amusement or interesting toy. It’s just essentially a camera, the recording can let you see what happened, but may not provide a clear face image for crime solving or a license plate. I’m home almost all the time (even before COVID-19) so the remote features aren’t even regularly useful.

The one thing it definitely does that I could not do before, is allow me to look out that end of the house without running all the way upstairs to the only window that faces that way. Sadly, when I get an alert…IF I’m actually near my phone, by the time it allows me to actually see the view, a lot of stuff has already passed by. It’s useful in combination with my driveway alarms in that, when I hear them, I can pick up the phone and see if and what just drove down my driveway without peering through that window

Hey!

Thats good to hear! i am also kinda following what you have ended up doing, disabled notifications during the night as it does seem this is when most of the false alerts happen even though they have heavily reduced.

Also i do find it hard to pick up plates, as soon as you start to zoom the footage/picture is unusable, however the image and footage as it is without tinkering with it seems really good even more so when there is some sort of ambient light around the area.

The delay in motion notifications when you need them is a pain and you tend to catch who it is when they have already been in the zone for a while or have walked away - not all the time but it does happen. The 4 cameras are covering areas closer/better than my normal CCTV system so i suppose thats a bonus!

I have spent more time looking for alternatives that have the same features but they all seem to have some downfalls… my advice is always check the community forums for any device thats where you will pick up any issues the devices have before you buy so you are then fully aware of what you may suffer with - but not everyone has the same enviroment that a particualr product/device may be installed in so that is also a factor to bare in mind, as some may have a particular issue and others do not - and lets not forget that is may just be that the user has not set up something correctly etc.

Holding onto the next updated version of my Ring cameras (hopefully with 5ghz and improved detection) and Ring kindly provides me with some free upgrades/replacements :laughing:

1 Like

I am thinking a way to get rid of cats. They come into my property everyday at 10pm and 2am. I tried lemons and will have dogs soon. Ring, please help us with a major announcement. You can see how many complaints in the last few days.

Hi,

There has been no difference in my 4 Elite stick up cameras motion detection. I constantly detect cats, spiders other small animals. I have now resorted to turning my cameras off every evening and part of every day to escape the constant false alarms. My cameras are only used at present for a live view, which really defeats the object.

I guessing due to this problem being unresolved for such a long time that it may never be resolved.

Despite requests many weeks ago i have not received any updates as to a possible fix for this ongoing problem. I was contacted by a Ring advocate who promised to provide a personal service until this issue was resolved but unfortunately my emails are no longer answered and just bounced back - i understand this could be due to the worldwide problems we are all experiencing but any acknowledgement would be appreciated.

Guessing its now time to return for a refund!

@phil3985 wrote:

Hi,

There has been no difference in my 4 Elite stick up cameras motion detection. I constantly detect cats, spiders other small animals. I have now resorted to turning my cameras off every evening and part of every day to escape the constant false alarms. My cameras are only used at present for a live view, which really defeats the object.

I guessing due to this problem being unresolved for such a long time that it may never be resolved.

Despite requests many weeks ago i have not received any updates as to a possible fix for this ongoing problem. I was contacted by a Ring advocate who promised to provide a personal service until this issue was resolved but unfortunately my emails are no longer answered and just bounced back - i understand this could be due to the worldwide problems we are all experiencing but any acknowledgement would be appreciated.

Guessing its now time to return for a refund!

Hey

I was also at a point of returning for a refund, but i emailed the founder and my countrys distributions head. Like i have said before i got a reply the same day from Jamie and the head and a few days later i was assigned a helper.

We worked through all the issues and solutions (now you will never get rid of alerts for spider, cats etc.) because thats what its designed to do pick up motion, however i agree they pick up far too much of them even though when on “People Only Mode”.

But with some remote software checking, updating and readjusting the motion zones things got a lot better to what i was going through (mind you the cameras were replaced a few times prior to this).

Dont get me wrong it took a few weeks of support from the assigned person at RING and testing to get to this point.

If you have the ability to get a refund by all means go for it, but i decided against this option as i was unable to find another device offering the same features trouble free!

“Ring, please help us with a major announcement. You can see how many complaints in the last few days.”

Ha! Dont hold your breath, did you notice one of the mod’s has marked this issue as solved?

“We worked through all the issues and solutions (now you will never get rid of alerts for spider, cats etc.) because that’s what its designed to do pick up motion, however i agree they pick up far too much of them even though when on “People Only Mode”.”

The issue is when the lights come on. I never have a problem with this in the daytime. I think the lights, which are supposed to pick up all motion, are triggering the camera/record/notification. There is never a time when the lights aren’t on when I have false alarms…like a little spider that may have crawled out of vision of the light sensor but did trigger the camera for instance, giving a night vision recording of the spider. It’s usually some sort of weird string of beads looking thing attached to the web (egg sacs? I don’t know, I cant find anything out there to identify it) that swings in front of the floodlight. Then sometimes the spider is visible like in a subsequent video just a minute or two later, but the lights are always on with recordings at night.

I have to say, this is not happening as much for me, but still happening. I don’t feel like losing sleep over it so I keep do not disturb on my phone when sleeping. Fortunately I am in a low populated area with not much crime and hardly ever people walking our road…and my house is hundreds of feet off the road. I have driveway alarms that detect any vehicles coming down the driveway. The camera is a neat little toy though.

I’m seeing similar problems with my hardwired security cam / floodlight. If I disable People Only Mode it triggers on just about anything - cars, people, animals… even bugs. Turning the sensitivity down to the minimum makes zero difference, it still goes off every few hours at night. People Only Mode seems to work as advertised, but naturally it ignores cars which makes it somewhat useless in a driveway. So now I’m stuck with a hardwired camera that doesn’t really work particularly well mounted on the front of my house.

Any ideas on how to make this thing detect people AND cars without triggers every time a bug flies past would be appreciated.

Wish I could help you. These simply don’t work the way we would want or expect them to. It’s that simple.

My false alarms have been less but I have no idea if that’s because what triggers them is less or if the camera and software are working better.

To point a special point on it, I got a false alarm at around 4AM the other night…and in the video is both a cat AND a spider. I had to laugh…more out of insanity than humor because it was quintessential

Personal Opions based on my experience :flushed:

‘People mode’ and motion detection are 2 different things, and t the moment I doubt they work as they should together.

poeple mode from experience just reduces the amount of false alerts from things without a heat signature, the issue here is that it’s not able to 100% notice the difference between a cat and a human - you will find that it mostly false alerts during the night on these as all the sensors are working together.

the motion dectection is basically doing its job as in detecting any kind of motion - just a shame that at this stage the ‘people only mode’ isn’t fully ready yet. The only way to reduce the false motion alerts is to readjust the motion zones so they kind of avoid the particular area where the false alerts are picking it up from or slightly reposition the camera.

keep reporting to RING if you haven’t done so already and best to do this via email. Get them to check the feed into the camera and make sure they software is up to date! (i was originally told mine was a few times but then someone realised not all of them updated properly and did them remotely).

Yes I still get false alerts for spiders (nighttime), cats (nitghtime) and birds early hours of the morning usually between 6am - 7am - any other time the cameras never picks them up. But the amount has deffo reduced - no longer get alerts for bushes, trees, steam/smoke, shadows and car lights.

I am still yet to find a similar camera that does not have issues like this!

1 Like

On my video doorbell 2, people only mode works as intended… but on my wired spotlight cam I get alerts to my dog, neighborhood cats, birds, and even leaves moving.

Phone support reset the device and it worked fine for all of 5 minutes, but I’m guessing that may have just been due to an update after resetting.

I have been advised to share any video not containing people to help@ring.com explaining why I’m sending the video; “people only mode is turned on the spotlight cam wired but has detected bird…”

I am having the same problem. I have had to turn off motion detection which means the security camers are now just recording devices NOT security camers. For the price you would expect this function to work properly. Even a little spider can set off the motion detection. Utter Rubbish product!

1 Like

How is this SOLVED? I have spent over £500 on security camers that don’t allow me any security whatsoever unless I am prepared to be woken up every night by any moving object no matter how small. Cat’s, Mice, Leaves, Even little spiders. Utter rubbish product which I shall be returning to where I purchased it from and buying somthing else.

2 Likes

@Jennifer_Ring wrote:

Hi neighbors- the team needs examples! Please give our support team a call at 800-656-1918 or here, describe the situation you’re having and share videos with the them. That way, the team can take a further look into this and continue to improve the ‘People Only’ motion detection feature.

@Jennifer, the ring team customer support needs to be made aware of this issue and how customers should submit videos. I only found this after my own searching after several calls with support agents who knew nothing about this.

i would suggest ring implementation of a “flag” option within the app for users to flag videos directly to support as “this is not a person” or have multiple options to improve accuracy such as; “this people only motion event was a cat,” “this people only motion even was leaves/tree/Bush blowing”

3 Likes

I am presuming that as our backyard camera is picking up spiders on their webs some 93 times/alerts a night, that the issue of people only motion detection has still not been resolved?

Any updates from the developers as to a functioning people only mode setting? Both of our floodlight cams still get triggered by many non-people movements. This includes birds, plants, cats, moving spider webs, moths, etc. For example, it’s windy tonight, and the cameras are getting set off every few minutes. I have zones set to avoid some of the branch movement. But if the zones ignore that whole area, then half the yard is zoned out.

And the video doorbell 2 still regularly records and triggers on cars. Not all the time, but enough to be a little bit annoying. Also, not entirely sure if this is related, but it seems that with the people only setting, it is more likely to miss actual people more often. Several package drop offs have not been recorded.

There are thousands of posts over the internet for this issue. Had I known that this would be such a huge problem I would have never ordered the product. The claims and application are completely fraudulent regarding this product being able to detect human sizes. They will give you excuses about whether, then when that changes, that excuse fails on its own merits as soon as the weather clears. It’s dry here and a nice 70 degrees, yet s small car still alarms…
Who wants to join a class action lawsuit for fraudulent advertising and leading the public to believe they were getting one thing, when in fact, we were getting the same old crap the snake oil salesmen have been selling for eons?

2 Likes

Hi @Justchad555! Our team is constantly working to improve or add to our devices and features. At this time, the People Only mode is intended to reduce alerts to those that are triggered by humans only. Of course, this feature paired with the other available motion settings in your Ring app, will help to fine tune the experience. Adjusting these through trial and error can really help to optimize detection in your area.

Keep in mind, certain objects such as reflective surfaces might still trigger motion. If the People only setting is not working as expected for your environment, feel free to try motion without the setting enabled and other settings fine tuned. Check out our help center article about People Only Mode for more information on its operation. As we always value our neighbor feedback, we will certainly share this with our teams here for future consideration. :slight_smile:

Amazing the response you get in here. As fraudulent as the sale activity! Didn’t even read that I spent days and hours on the phone with tech support and got nowhere, yet somehow the FAQ is going to solve this

BELIGERENCE!!!

Lol- my new floodlight cam thinks that chickens are people, I get alerted every 2 minutes! Definitely needs another fix.