Floodlight in Auto Mode switches randonly to on

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Shadow
Posts: 1
Joined: 29 Jul 2017, 04:26

Floodlight in Auto Mode switches randonly to on

Post by Shadow »

Hello
I bought and installed a Netatmo Presence. Now it is the second night where i mentioned that the Floodlight is on.
My Settings are Floodlight to "Auto".
My last action was at 22:45. It detects a big moth as an animal. It is okay.
After that i mentioned at 01:00 that the floodlight is on. I switched from Auto to off and then back to Auto and the Floodlight stays off.
Now we had 4:35 and i take a look out of the window and i can see that the floodlight is again on. Opening the APP and still the last detection was at 22:45.

Why switches the light in Auto Mode on without that anything happened?
Can i make a factory reset or something else to fix this? I can not us a light which is always on.
DAJ
Posts: 282
Joined: 28 Dec 2016, 21:47

Re: Floodlight in Auto Mode switches randonly to on

Post by DAJ »

Hi Shadow, I am having a similar issue. The floodlight switches on without recording any event in the timeline on specific detections. The Floodlight does not stay on permanently though and switches off when no more movement has been detected. I have reported it to support to investigate further, I would advise you also do this if not done already.
jofre_netatmo
Posts: 828
Joined: 18 Jun 2014, 15:09

Re: Floodlight in Auto Mode switches randonly to on

Post by jofre_netatmo »

Hello both,
This behavior is normal: Presence will turn the floodlight on as soon as it detects a motion that could be meant to turn the light on. It takes a quick decision for faster reactivity.
However, it checks the event again with a more powerful algorithm (that takes more time): if the second check confirms the event, the light stays on and the event appears in the timeline; but if the second check says that it was wrong to turn the light on, the event will not appear in the timeline and the light will be turned off.
We of course keep working to make this algorithms better, improvements will come with firmware updates in the future.
Regards,
Jofre - Netatmo Team
DAJ
Posts: 282
Joined: 28 Dec 2016, 21:47

Re: Floodlight in Auto Mode switches randonly to on

Post by DAJ »

Hey jofre,

I really wish this was the case. I have been communicating with Support and testing this over the past two days (and was told a camera correction script had been run, which didn't fix it) and it's simply not the case that if the second check decides it was wrong in determining the first event that the floodlight switches off, else the second check is only performed 1 minute later which I find very hard to believe. The floodlight always stays on for a minimum of 1 min (which I believe is the default setting) and where multiple non-event triggers have been involved I have seen it stay of for 3-5 minutes then off for 10 seconds then back on again without any event registered in the timeline. I have had to adjust my alert zones over the past two nights due to non-events as the light would be on for the majority of the evening without any event being recorded.

Even from day one, when the Presence thought it detected a person then subsequently changed this in the timeline to an animal the light remains on (I do not have the floodlight activated for animals), and the same for when an event is a Motion detected, the light is never switched off if the camera determines it makes a mistake, until the 1 min default has elapsed.

Thanks
fsf976
Posts: 88
Joined: 03 Mar 2017, 10:31

Re: Floodlight in Auto Mode switches randonly to on

Post by fsf976 »

I see the same issue (and contacted support about it when I first got my light). The events don't appear in the timeline as described but the light does stay on for at least a minute even so.
DAJ
Posts: 282
Joined: 28 Dec 2016, 21:47

Re: Floodlight in Auto Mode switches randonly to on

Post by DAJ »

@jofre

Any response to this? The floodlight is not performing as detailed by the development team, it never switches off (until no more non-events are detected after a minimum of 1 minute) if it determined a false detection occurred (no event on the timeline) where I assume the SD card is also recording during this event, which results in additional usage on the SD Card and LED's reducing their lifetime expectancy. As mentioned, the light was on for the majority of 30 minutes before I got fed up and reduced the alert zone (not ideal for a security camera). I have also had no response to my support emails sent on the 2nd, 4th and 8th August concerning this after the reply on the 1st, where a camera profile correction was performed. Can you confirm if the light will perform as you described in the next firmware update and when this release can be expected. As always, happy to help test a new firmware.
DAJ
Posts: 282
Joined: 28 Dec 2016, 21:47

Re: Floodlight in Auto Mode switches randonly to on

Post by DAJ »

Hi @jofre, any chance we could get an update, it's been 7 weeks and still haven't received anything from the support department either, as to whether this will be fixed in the next firmware. The floodlight is coming on too many times with nothing in the timeline to classify this as "Smart-Sight" , please, either delay the light for a few milliseconds until the second check confirms an event, or switch it off if it made a mistake. I have lots of animals detected that are also switching the light on which I am sure is related to the first check.
AlexK
Posts: 6
Joined: 24 Dec 2013, 22:44

Re: Floodlight in Auto Mode switches randonly to on

Post by AlexK »

Hi,

I have exactly the same situation. Floodlight switches on randomly during the night and not event recorded. Bad thing for me - the camera is below my sleeping room :( So as a result: I bought a security cam, where I have to switch off the floodlight function to be able to sleep at night undisrupted, but have one of the security features not available. Dear Netatmo team, build a fix quickly - this is beta quality product software - and that for a price tag of 299€! It cant be that difficult to build in a "floodlight on delays" parameter that delays the flood light on by the time the more elaborte algorithm takes a decision, until a better solution is available.

BR
Alex
DAJ
Posts: 282
Joined: 28 Dec 2016, 21:47

Re: Floodlight in Auto Mode switches randonly to on

Post by DAJ »

There are numerous posts across the French/English Beta and Standard forums concerning this throughout the past year, all we want to hear is when this fundamental issue will be fixed.
DAJ
Posts: 282
Joined: 28 Dec 2016, 21:47

Re: Floodlight in Auto Mode switches randonly to on

Post by DAJ »

Hello Jofre, 6 months since reporting this (inherent since the product was released in 2016, which became much more prevalent from Fw101), 3 months since Support understood and confirmed the issue. One year on and detection algorithm improvements have made this worse. The other night after 3 hours of on/off activation of the light with only 3 events shown in the timeline from approx 40-60 light activations I had to switch off the light which sorts of defeats the point of an intelligent floodlight. Netatmo certainly are not "Creating Smiles this Christmas" for me or my neighbours.

Could you consider the following:
  • Only switch the light on after second confirmed detection
  • Switch light on at x% brightness on first detection then UserMax% at second confirmed detection or Off (without waiting for the default 2 mins) if second confirmed detection is false
  • Option for the user to choose whether they want Light Activation - Faster Detection. E.g. Faster activates on first algorithm detection, if not enabled, only activates light on second algorithm confirming the event
Would also be interesting to hear what happens with the false detections (no event recorded in the timeline) currently, are they automatically sent to Netatmo for improving algorithms, if not how will this improve the algorithms as they do not exist in the TimeLine for us to manually improve the detection?

Response from Support in September:
"After a lot of investigations we manage to understand what happen with your camera's floodlight, In fact the first algorithm think to detect a movement, the second analyse further this information and find there is no significative movement, so the camera take the decision to stop the floodlight, but the time by default is 2 min, so in this case the floodlight will remaining on during at least 2 min, this could be more if during this 2 minute another movement is detected and canceled later, It is the reason why the floodlight remain on sometimes during the night and there is no event on your timeline.
Our engineer are actually working on this behavior and try to improve it and make it more conformable.
A new firmware should be available soon."
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