In Angelcam we believe it's crucial you - or someone you trust - is verifying all incident notifications as quickly as possible, ideally under a minute, to be able to respond fast.
The big advantage of using Angelcam is you can use almost any sensor, alarm panel, panic button, doorbell, or even built-in PIR sensor or motion analytics in a security camera as the event source.
Yet some of these devices are generating a lot of false alarms. The record men are generating over 5.000 notifications a Month! Such a huge amount of false alarms can be still used for triggering event recording, while will generate "just" useless internet traffic.
👉Anything generating more than several false alarms a month is condemned to be ignored sooner or later. We actually believe you should target one false alarm a Month at maximum.
That's easily said than done 😇. Yet we are committed to helping you to achieve it.
In general, the only option how to get close to zero false alarms is the combination of:
using a solution that allows you automatically or manually, but painlessly, arm and disarm the site/zone ➡ Angelcam offers both
not causing false alarms by entering an armed site/zone ➡ check out our Prevent plan that does just that https://www.angelcam.com/prevent/
using a device not generating false alarms, or enabling you to customize sensitivity ➡ Check our recommendation bellow
💡What's causing false alarms and possible solutions
1️⃣Security camera with built-in video motion detection
Most of these cameras are using very simple algorithms and can't detect a difference between suspicious activity and e.g. rain, snowfall, or a pet wandering.
➡ In general, we don't recommend using security cameras with built-in motion detection as the source of notifications, unless it's advanced technology able to determine specific objects, typically humans and cars. We encourage you to use some other hardware with a low false alarm ratio, it's starting from $25.
2️⃣Sensors and alarms with no arming and disarming support, or not using that feature
➡ Use the arming and disarming features in our mobile app:
3️⃣Sensors generating events way too often
Some devices are reporting ongoing suspicious activity even every few seconds. While it helps us to record a complete possible incident as one continuous footage, it doesn't make sense to bother with notifications constantly.
➡ Angelcam has a built-in "Notification Timeout" feature that causes you will get notifications less often if the event source is the same device repeatedly. To change the default value, enter your notification settings and choose from several options from 1 minute to 1-hour range:
4️⃣ Devices with PIR (Passive infrared) sensor
A device with a PIR sensor monitors the ambient heat emitted by all living beings. That’s why it’s sometimes referred to as “heat vision.” When a PIR sensor detects sufficient movement of these warm “objects” and/or a significant temperature differential between the object and the background scene, it signals Angelcam. While these devices are typically very reliable with a low amount of false alarms, most of them are still easily interfered with by the variety of heat sources and sunlight.
➡ Lower the sensitivity, or consider using PIR-based sensors only indoors which is a closed environment, and avoid using PIR sensors close to air conditioners where cold wind or hot wind flow.
😇 We are here to help
Just say hello@angelcam.com or check out Angelcam Community to connect with other users sharing their own experiences and insight into various security topics.