Troubleshooting Your Canary Motion Detection
Your Canary camera is a smart home security device designed to alert you to unexpected activity. When it fails to detect motion, or bombards you with irrelevant alerts, it can be both worrying and frustrating. This guide will help you understand and configure your Canary's settings to ensure its motion detection works exactly as you need it to.
### Understanding Canary's Modes: The Key to Notifications
The most critical concept to grasp with Canary is its use of Modes:
- Away Mode: This is when you want to be alerted to all activity. Typically, both recording and notifications are enabled.
- Home Mode: This is for when you're at home. You might want the camera to record motion, but you probably don't want a notification every time you walk past it.
- Night Mode: You can schedule this mode for when you're asleep. You can customise it to, for example, monitor for motion but not send notifications unless it's a person.
- Privacy Mode: The camera and microphone are completely off.
Most notification problems stem from the device being in a mode that has notifications disabled.
Step-by-Step Solutions for Canary Motion Detection Issues
Let's solve the most common problems you might encounter.
### Problem 1: Not Receiving Any Motion Notifications
This usually happens when you are at home and expect an alert, but don't get one.
- Check Your Current Mode: Open the Canary app. The home screen will clearly state if your location is in "Home," "Away," or "Night" mode.
- Review Mode Settings:
- Tap the gear icon in the top right to go to Settings.
- Select Manage Modes.
- Tap on the mode you want to check (e.g., "Home").
- Ensure that "Watch Live" and "Record Video" are enabled. Crucially, check the "Send Notifications" setting. If this is toggled off, you will not get alerts in this mode.
- Check Geofencing/Auto-mode Switching: Canary uses your phone's location to automatically switch between Home and Away. If this isn't working correctly, it might think you are home when you are away.
- Go to your phone's settings and ensure the Canary app has "Always" access to your location.
- In the Canary app settings, under Manage Members, ensure your location is being reported correctly.
### Problem 2: Receiving Too Many Unwanted Notifications
If your phone is constantly buzzing with alerts from minor movements, you need to fine-tune the settings.
- Adjust Motion Sensitivity:
- From the app's home screen, tap the gear icon for your Canary device.
- Scroll down to Motion sensitivity.
- Lower the slider. This will make the camera less likely to trigger a recording from small movements like shadows or dust particles. Test the new setting to find the right balance.
- Use Motion Masking: This is a very powerful tool. If there's a specific area that causes false alarms, like a plant that moves in a draft, you can tell Canary to ignore it.
- In the device's settings, find the Masking option.
- You can drag and draw on the screen to create zones where motion will be completely ignored.
- Enable Person Detection: Canary's premium service includes AI Person Detection. This means you can set your notifications to only alert you when the camera specifically sees a person, which dramatically reduces alerts from pets or other general motion.
### Problem 3: Camera Isn't Detecting Obvious Motion
If you've reviewed footage and seen an event that should have been recorded but wasn't, try these steps.
- Increase Motion Sensitivity: The sensitivity might be set too low, causing the camera to ignore all but the most significant movements. Try increasing the slider in the device settings.
- Check for Obstructions: Ensure nothing is blocking the camera's view. Also, check that the camera is not positioned behind glass, as this can interfere with its ability to detect motion accurately.
- Reboot the Canary: A simple reboot can often resolve temporary glitches. Unplug your Canary from power, wait 30 seconds, and plug it back in. Give it a few minutes to come back online.