August Facial Recognition Not Working? A Troubleshooting Guide
The facial recognition feature on August smart devices, like their doorbell cameras, is designed to add a layer of convenience and intelligence to your home security. It allows you to receive specific notifications about who is at your door, distinguishing between family members and strangers. However, when it fails to work correctly, it can be frustrating. This guide provides solutions to common problems with August's facial recognition.
## How Facial Recognition Works
August's system uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse the faces of people who approach your door. It compares these faces to a database of people you have enrolled in the app. To work effectively, the system needs clear images and good data to learn from. Most issues stem from poor image quality or an incomplete facial profile database.
## Steps to Improve Facial Recognition Accuracy
If you're finding that the feature is inaccurate, failing to recognise people, or not sending notifications as expected, follow these troubleshooting steps.
### Step 1: Optimise Camera Placement and Lighting
The quality of the image the camera captures is the single most important factor for accurate facial recognition.
- Camera Angle: Ensure your August doorbell camera is mounted at an appropriate height (typically around 1.2 metres from the ground) to get a clear, straight-on view of a person's face. If the camera is too high or too low, it will have difficulty seeing facial features.
- Lighting: The camera needs good, even lighting. Strong backlighting from the sun can cast a person's face into shadow, making recognition impossible. If your doorway is dark, consider installing a porch light to improve visibility, especially at night. Infrared (night vision) is good for detection, but facial recognition works best with visible light.
### Step 2: Build a Robust Facial Profile
The AI is only as smart as the data you give it. A single photo is often not enough for the system to learn a person's appearance from all angles.
- Enroll Multiple Photos: For each person you want to be recognised, add several photos to their profile in the August app. Use clear, front-facing photos with different backgrounds and lighting if possible.
- Avoid Obscured Faces: Do not use photos where the person is wearing sunglasses, a hat, or making an unusual facial expression.
### Step 3: Actively Teach the System
The facial recognition system is designed to learn over time. You can help it learn faster by correcting its mistakes.
- Review Your Activity Feed: Regularly check the event history in your August app.
- Tag and Correct: When the system fails to recognise someone you've enrolled, or tags them as the wrong person, there is usually an option on the event to correct it. Tap the event and assign the correct name. This provides valuable feedback to the algorithm, improving its future performance.
### Step 4: Check Your Notification Settings
If you're not receiving notifications, the issue may be with your settings rather than the recognition itself.
- Open the August app and navigate to the notification settings for your doorbell camera.
- Ensure that you have notifications for recognised people enabled.
- You can often set different notification rules for different people, so check these individual settings as well.
By optimising your camera's environment and actively managing the facial profiles, you can significantly improve the reliability and accuracy of the August facial recognition feature.