After a few break-ins in the area, I decided to add a camera to the back garden. The Floodlight cam 2 Pro seemed (almost) the ideal option, to give both full coverage, and some much needed lighting.
Now I’ve only had it installed for one night, but have to confess so far I’m sorely disappointed
I understand it doesn’t record 24/7 (hence the almost above) and assume this will never be the case, fine, I was planning to supplement it with an outdoor cam pro, and the rest of the features let me overlook that issue, however my experience since installing it yesterday has me seriously considering returning it to replace with a competing brand - posting here in the hope it’s just my setup and someone can point me in the right direction, as I want to like it! Issues below:
constant false alerts, I have 4 cats and they frequently trigger it. I had 4 human detection warnings during the night - no humans, a few cats, and some windy trees.
there doesn’t seem to be a pre-roll/buffer on recording, despite the cam being wired, so I miss several seconds of the start of any motion (I can walk half way across the garden before the clip starts - if I was running I could probably be out of sight in that time!)
Those 2 factors alone make it essentially useless. If I can’t rely on alerts being A) accurate & B) actually capturing something useful then I might as well save £100+ and just buy a dumb pir light and camera
The other minor issue is the lack of privacy zones - seems a major oversight on a camera with such a wide field of view - part of my neighbours garden is covered by the camera, and I don’t need to be recording him going to work in the morning!
I know I can create motion zones, but why do I need to activate auto cruise for that functionality?!
Maybe the HB3 integration (“late 2023”) will help with the motion detection, but do I really want to take the risk it doesn’t?
Speaking of the homebase, by adding my doorbell to it, it seems I’ve lost the functionality of having a convenient chime, and not really gained much in exchange?!
Im in the exact same boat as you. For 300 dollars I really would have liked 24/7 recording and accurate motion detection. I can deal with no 24/7 recording but the unreliable motion tracking and all the false detections from the AI really upsets me. The dome cover also annoys me as I have to clean it very often and the light reflects off it causing a glare at night. A new version of this floodlight is coming soon and im going to replace my floodlight cam 2 pro with it. Its rumored to have 24/7 recording so that will be nice. If the motion tracking isnt reliable ill just get a regular floodlight and pair it with the new wired 4K E330 thats coming this month.
Hmm, new Floodlight camera seems intriguing, do you have any links to further details? Over night I had alerts about
my cats
1x shed door
5x oregano bush (seems to like this one!)
2x laundry drying on the line (ok I can forgive this one, a pair of trousers blowing in the wind does possibly look a bit like a human)
0x human
Meanwhile, when I went out to bring the laundry in this morning it failed to pick me up until I was several metres across the garden, and made no effort to track me at all
As you mentioned, for the price of this light I could get a basic 24/7 camera and a nice multicolour Hue floodlight, and set up an automation to switch it on when motion is detected
I’ve noticed the tracking/object ID seems to be getting better, not sure if these have some kind of tracking algorithm, but definitely getting less false alerts, and it doesn’t seem to be missing any real humans (e.g. me and the family )
Unfortunately the lack of 24/7 recording is starting to bug me - I hooked it up to a frigate system and it caught all sorts of fun stuff, like a fox wandering around, which triggered the motion sensor and turned the camera on but wasn’t detected by the AI (but was caught by Frigate)
)