Getting False Alerts? How to Fix Canary's Person Detection
Canary's AI-powered person detection is a fantastic feature designed to provide you with more intelligent and relevant security alerts. Instead of being notified for every movement, the system aims to tell you when an actual person is detected. However, when the system gets it wrong—mistaking shadows, pets, or other movements for a person—it can lead to a flood of false notifications, defeating the purpose of the feature.
This guide will help you understand why your Canary camera might be making these mistakes and what you can do to fine-tune its performance for greater accuracy.
The Role of AI and Your Environment
Canary's person detection relies on a sophisticated algorithm that analyses motion to identify human-like shapes and movements. However, no AI is perfect, and its performance is heavily influenced by the camera's environment and the feedback it receives from you.
1. Provide Feedback to Train the AI
This is the single most important action you can take to improve accuracy. The Canary system is designed to learn from your input. When you tell it that it made a mistake, it uses that information to refine its algorithm.
How to Do It:
- Open the Canary app and go to your Timeline.
- Find an event that was incorrectly labelled (e.g., a notification for a 'Person Seen' that was actually just your dog).
- Tap on the event video.
- Below the video, you will see a prompt asking if the notification was helpful or correct. Provide feedback by selecting the appropriate option, such as 'This is not a person' or indicating it was a shadow or a pet.
Consistency is key. The more feedback you provide, the better the AI will become at understanding the specific nuances of your home environment.
2. Optimise Your Camera Placement
Where you place your camera has a huge impact on the AI's ability to correctly analyse motion. A poorly positioned camera is far more likely to generate false alerts.
- Avoid Direct Light and Reflections: Do not point the camera directly at a window or a source of bright light. The changing light, reflections from passing cars, or sunbeams moving across the floor can easily be misinterpreted as motion.
- Minimise Moving Shadows: Be mindful of objects that cast moving shadows, such as leafy trees outside a window or a ceiling fan. The AI can sometimes mistake these dynamic shadows for a person.
- Consider the Field of View: Place the camera in a location where a person would be a clear and reasonably large part of the frame. If a person would only appear as a small figure in the distance, it is much harder for the AI to make an accurate identification.
- Angle and Height: A camera placed at a high, downward-looking angle often has a clearer view of a person's overall shape compared to one placed at a low level.
3. Adjust General Motion Sensitivity
While person detection doesn't have its own sensitivity slider, it is built upon the foundation of general motion detection. If the overall motion sensitivity is too high, it will trigger an analysis for every tiny event, increasing the chances of an error.
How to Adjust:
- In the Canary app, tap the gear icon to go to Settings.
- Select your Location.
- Tap on Modes and choose the mode you want to adjust (e.g., 'Away').
- Here, you will find a slider for Motion notification sensitivity.
- Try lowering this setting slightly. This will make the camera less likely to trigger on very minor events, which in turn gives the person detection AI fewer opportunities to make a mistake.
4. Ensure a Stable Connection and Updates
For the AI analysis to work correctly, the camera needs to be able to reliably upload video clips to Canary's cloud servers.
- Wi-Fi Signal: Ensure your Canary device has a strong and stable Wi-Fi connection. Intermittent connectivity can lead to corrupted video uploads and poor analysis.
- Firmware Updates: Canary regularly pushes out firmware updates that include improvements to its AI models. Make sure your device is online and able to receive these updates to benefit from the latest enhancements.
By taking a proactive approach to providing feedback, optimising placement, and adjusting settings, you can significantly reduce false person detection alerts and turn your Canary into a much more reliable and intelligent security tool.