Motion not detecting people

[LostArloMan]

I have the 3330 series, it's currently 91° with a "real feel" of 111° here. My cameras, even those mounted in shade, will not detect people. The Yardman was 4 feet from the camera with a weed eater in two places and never picked him up. However, it picked up the cars much further away.

[steve_t]

It probably is just that with such high background heat, the IR signal of people is not easily distinguished. Does it work better again when it's cooler outside?

[LostArloMan]

It worked great last night. This is my second day having it up. I even tried to filter out vehicles, still recording them. They say they function up to 122° but that doesn't seem to be the case. I spent more money on this system over others because I was concerned about these type of reasons. I'm gonna to try and relocate them and see if it works. If not, I'm returning it.

[steve_t]

Have you turned up your motion sensitivity? And figured out how to save the new sensitivity setting? The menu isn't that intuitive

[LostArloMan]

Oh yeah. I've tried up and down. Same results. My neighbor tested it for me today, she was literally a foot away before it kicked on. That's walking from its side and towards it straight.

[manfredz]

the motion detection system used in battery operated cams is good for detecting movement across the cam but not very good for movement into the cam.

[LostArloMan]

All angles have been tested. From walking left to right, to straight at it. Every angle is the same. Tonight as I was coming in from work through the back door, the camera that is in a corner of my courtyard didn't go off at all. Even as I flailed about on the patio.

[jguerdat]

I've found arm movements don't work well to trigger detection, even at high sensitivity settings. They're relatively small compared to your body and the IR signature will be smaller, too.

Post screenshots of your cameras' views for suggestions.

[LostArloMan]

Here are the pics of walking paths by the lines for testing and the circles where it is picking up people. It grabs damn near every car on both the cameras facing the roads., but not people.
https://ibb.co/e2MNPk
https://ibb.co/kBtxqQ
https://ibb.co/g17Jx5

[jguerdat]

The first two have a couple of issues - 1) the cam should be rotated down to eliminate the street which will reduce false detections and 2) distance to the subject since there's a significant amount of vector more or less directly at the camera. Repositioning the cameras for more side to side motion would help as would being closer to the action. People only detect out to 20-25 feet and then there's the startup lag to the system of at least two seconds. 

Number 3 is primarily a system lag issue altho rotating it down some may help.