Activity Zones

If you're experiencing issues with Activity Zones, it's important to understand how Activity Zones work. The way Activity Zones detect motion is slightly different than a typical clip. In a typical clip without Activity Zones enabled, the camera uses only the Passive Infra-Red (PIR) sensor. The PIR sensor detects changes in temperature in the image to know when there is motion. So if a person walks past the camera, that person has a different temperature than the background image that the PIR sensor has been looking at.

With Activity Zones, the camera not only uses the PIR sensor, but it also analyzes the actual image to look for changes. To explain this, we'll use the same example as above. If a person walks past the camera, the PIR sensor detects the changes in temperature. When Activity Zones are enabled, the camera wakes up for 2 seconds. 

During those 2 seconds, the camera analyzes the 2 seconds of video and looks for pixels in the images changing. If the camera only sees pixels changing in the gray (inactive) zones, then the camera turns back off and stops recording. If the camera sees pixels changing in active zones, then the camera continues to record and will send the notification.

The reason that this is important to understand is because in certain situations, pixels can change in active zones when there technically isn't motion. An example of this would be if your camera is pointing toward the street, but you have all of the zones with the street disabled. During the day, Activity Zones will function as expected. However, at night, the car's headlights could shine into active zones, which would be perceived as motion by the camera, as it would see pixels change.

To fix the above scenario, you may need to play around with the positioning of the camera, as well as the zones that you have enabled/disabled so that you can find out what works best in your environment. 

Lowering the sensitivity setting to a 4 or 5 value may also resolve activity zone issues, which enables the detection of larger objects in motion. Consider this as 'fine tuning' after you have taken care in camera placement.

Doorbell

The Blink Video Doorbell can use Activity Zones to block off areas of activity where you do not want alerts. Blink offers the Wedge and Corner Mount to help you shift the camera view enough to avoid unwanted motion alerts.

When the doorbell is pointed toward a street for instance, traffic may cause unwanted alerts. Using a Wedge to point the camera 5º down can help this situation by moving the main activity zone below the horizon.

The Wedge and Corner Mount attach to your chosen location, and the back plate is attached to them. Click for more details about installing a wedge or corner mount‍.

The Wedge changes the doorbell camera view up or down 5º.
The Corner Mount changes the view 25º to the left or the right.