Battery-powered camera-detection failures, different setting options on client and app

[user_588567793635436_588567793635436]

I have a battery powered (Argus PT) that is not detecting a person who runs quickly through the detection zone. Other cameras (E1 Outdoor) are detecting this person properly. A person who moves slowly through the Argus PT detection zone is properly detected.

I’ve tried a variety of settings on the battery powered camera. I noticed that on the PC client there is a pre-motion record option for the battery powered camera that offers a pre-motion record of 8 to 30 seconds. I’m wondering if this setting on the PC client is causing problems for the battery powered camera. Specifically, in order to do pre-motion record I believe the camera has to be recording all of the time. This seems contrary to battery powered operation. Furthermore, my Reolink Android App does not offer the pre-motion record setting for the battery-powered camera. Why is the pre-motion record setting available for the battery-powered camera from the PC client but not the android app? Why is this setting there at all for the battery-powered camera? Could this confusion be causing my battery-powered camera to fail to detect in some cases?
 
I decided to reboot my battery-powered camera.  The android app offers a setting to reboot the camera, but the PC client does not offer an option to reboot the battery-powered camera. I’m beginning to suspect that there are problems with the way the PC client is managing the battery powered camera.
 
I turned off pre-motion record for the battery-powered camera using the PC Client and then rebooted the camera from the android app. I plan to monitor for a few days to see if the camera will start detecting the running person. In the meantime could anyone please answer my questions above?

[md]

@user_588567793635436_588567793635436 Settings can vary a little between the phone app, computer client app and NVR. All Reolink cams can post-motion record but not pre-motion. I have a pre-motion record setting on my newer Argus 3 Pro in the client but it's not there on my older Reolink battery cams. Battery cams are inferior to wired cams. Battery cams use PIR motion detection, wired cams use pixel based detection. PIR has limited range of about 30 feet. PIR detects better with movement across the view rather than motion coming straight to the cam. Battery cams stay in low power mode to save battery life. It can take a little bit for it to detect motion and trigger to start recording. If a runner is only briefly in the cam's view or at the limit of detection range, it's understandable the battery cam will miss it. I assume you've experimented with the sensitivity, set to maximum.

Pre-motion recording works well on my wired cams. For the pre-motion setting in the client for battery cams, there's a page on Reolink support that says it's only for recording during live view. It's not for detection recording. Recording live view would have a limit, the firmware would time out I assume after a few minutes so save battery life. I don't know if it works recording live view, haven't tried it. I suppose it's a new feature for new battery cams. See the note at bottom of link:

https://support.reolink.com/hc/en-us/articles/900000784786-Introduction-to-Pre-Motion-Record/

[joseph_1979]

@user_588567793635436_588567793635436 As you correctly stated pre-recording entails for the camera to be constantly recoding which is not the case for any Reolink battery operated cameras (it will drain the battery within a few hours). So if this is shown on the PC client then it must be a bug. I do not think that disabling it through the client has any impact on the camera. To know whether this is available set it to 30s from the PC client and exit the program. Run the client again and check if it retained the value you set, namely, 30s. Kindly take a snapshot and email Reolink support.

Furthermore go to the Reolink Download Center and check if there is a newer firmware for your camera. If there is one then download it and apply it using the Windows Reolink client.

From the Windows client you can either restore or reboot the camera as illustrated below. It is under Maintenance.