Outdoor Camera is Detecting Cars in "People Only" Mode

@krstrick​ yes, exact same thing with car lights here as well.

@krstrick​ yes my doorbell camera is also sensitive at night to vehicles without the porch light on. We just have to keep it on and that solves the issue.

As far as the outdoor camera is concerned, maybe try changing the angle of your outdoor camera if possible. There may be a “sweet spot” like I have found. Basically, it involved just cutting out the camera’s long view of oncoming traffic from down the road at a distance. Now there is more of a “flat” horizontal view that it is looking at vehicles only traveling by very briefly now, where previously looking at traffic coming both toward and away from the house must be doing something to trigger it. You might try slightly rotating the camera clockwise or counterclockwise within the current view it has as well. Hopefully some trial and error will get it working correctly for you!

@blondebrainscans​ yea angle is the key as well as it took me some time to get it right as well so hope it all works out for you

@lance843​ Yes! I was able to get it working correctly it looks like. I have had no false alerts from vehicles, or any false alerts at all for that matter. It looks like it is working perfectly this evening in the dark as well. 

@franksellsrvs​ The Outdoor Camera has two motion detection types: People Only and All Motion. With People Only on, the camera will only detect human-shaped objects - with All Motion on, it will detect any motion. Since you want your camera to register both people and cars, I would recommend setting it to All Motion.

You can also set up Activity Zones to control the areas that your camera will monitor. For example, if your camera faces a busy street and you don't want it to notify you whenever a car drives by, you can create an Activity Zone for it. If you don't want your camera to monitor areas outside of your yard, it may be helpful to use the Activity Zone feature. 

You can learn more about the different settings the Outdoor Camera has in this Help Center article. 

I never figured it out. I cycled the battery a few times (which only took a couple days since it was getting triggered constantly) and eventually it started working as it should. Now it just triggers as people walk away so it never catches their face or doesn’t catch them at all. This system is useless.

Mine picks up hanging baskets and shadows. So we can’t have flowers on our porch, but there’s nothing I can do about the trees. Windy days are especially bad.

@iroquoisplzkn​ Do you have Activity Zones set up on your Outdoor Camera? With Activity Zones you can block the camera from detecting motion in certain areas, like anywhere where there's tree branches. You can enable Activity Zones in the SimpliSafe mobile app by navigating to My System > Camera Settings > select [your camera] > Motion Detection > Activity Zones. 

Regarding the camera's wake up time, to preserve battery life the Outdoor Camera enters deep sleep when it is not actively recording motion. To wake up, the camera relies on its connection to the Base Station, so it can help to move the Base Station closer to this camera. We are also rolling out a new Performance Mode feature that disables the Outdoor Camera from entering deep sleep when it's plugged into a power source. You can learn more about Performance Mode here.

@diva1104​ I'm sorry to hear about all of this trouble. I just connected with our internal teams and I can confirm that a specialist will reach out to you soon to get to the bottom of this. Keep an ear out for their call!

@brian2204bf​ I stacked two of the wedge mounts and it detected less cars but still did. I went back to Ring and haven’t had an issue since. 

@brian2204bf​ Are you using the Outdoor Camera's magnetic mount? If so, you should be able to slightly adjust its position to angle it down a little bit. It could also help to refresh the camera's settings by resetting it. We list out the steps to reset the Outdoor Camera in this Help Center article.

its not the outdoor camera it is the doorbell camera.

I wanted to report back.  After making some changes to settings it seems to be working better now.  The main change was setting to all motion and back to people only.  Since then it is mostly working.  It does seem to always trigger if there is a large vehicle like Ambulance, trash truck, snow plow etc.  Normal sized cars and trucks do not seem to set it off any longer.  It does seem to have random times it triggers and i have seen some snow (flake or two not a steady snow) so not sure if that is it or not.  

Yet another update. When it is sunny out and or snow on the ground the false positives are greater. This is during the day or night. As a caveat at night appears to be with large vehicles with flashing lights. Last couple of days has been overcast and warmer. The snow has melted. My issues have minimized and tolerable. 

wondering if there is a correlation with colder weather and snow. 

@lexusladyone​ Is this camera detecting any motion at all? Or does this only happen when you walk past it? As a first troubleshooting step, it can help to do a reset of the camera by firmly pressing and holding the pairing button on the back for 30 seconds. Once you release the button, you will be prompted to set it back up in the SimpliSafe mobile app.