Canary Vehicle Detection Not Working? A Troubleshooting Guide
Canary's vehicle detection feature is a powerful tool, designed to provide you with more intelligent and specific alerts about what's happening around your home. When it's not working, you might be flooded with generic motion alerts or, worse, miss an important event entirely. If your Canary camera is failing to detect vehicles, this guide is here to help.
We'll walk you through the common causes of this issue and provide clear, actionable steps to get your smart alerts working as they should.
Step 1: Check Your Canary Subscription Plan
This is the most common reason for vehicle detection not working. Vehicle detection is a feature of Canary Premium.
- Verify Your Subscription: Open the Canary app and go to your account settings to confirm that you have an active Canary Premium subscription.
- No Subscription?: If your subscription has lapsed or you are on the basic plan, the camera's AI will not analyse motion to specifically identify vehicles. You will only receive standard motion notifications.
Step 2: Optimise Your Camera's Placement and View
The effectiveness of any AI-powered detection, including vehicle detection, is highly dependent on what the camera can see.
- Clear Line of Sight: Ensure your Canary camera has a clear, unobstructed view of the driveway, street, or area you want to monitor. Trees, bushes, or other objects can block the view and prevent the camera from properly identifying a vehicle.
- Avoid Pointing Through Glass: Placing your Canary camera indoors to look out a window can severely impact its motion and vehicle detection capabilities. Reflections and glare on the glass can confuse the camera's AI. For outdoor monitoring, it's always best to use a weatherproof outdoor camera like the Canary Flex.
- Sufficient Lighting: While Canary cameras have good night vision, vehicle detection works best when the area is well-lit. If you are trying to detect vehicles at night, consider installing a motion-activated security light.
Step 3: Review Your Mode and Notification Settings
Your Canary's settings might be configured in a way that prevents you from receiving the alerts you expect.
- Check Your Current Mode: The Canary system uses different modes (e.g., Away, Home, Night) which have customisable recording and notification settings. Ensure that the mode you are currently in is set to record motion and send you notifications.
- Customise Notifications: Dive into the notification settings within the app. You may have inadvertently turned off motion notifications, which would also prevent vehicle detection alerts from coming through. Make sure "Motion notifications" are enabled for the relevant modes.
Step 4: Perform a System Reboot
Sometimes, a simple refresh is all that's needed to resolve a software glitch that could be affecting AI features.
- Reboot Your Canary Device: Unplug your Canary camera from the power source. Wait for at least 60 seconds before plugging it back in.
- Reboot Your Router: While the Canary is powered off, it's a good idea to also restart your Wi-Fi router. This can clear up any underlying network issues that might be affecting the camera's ability to communicate with Canary's servers.
After both devices have fully restarted, allow a few minutes for the Canary to come back online (it will glow solid white at the bottom when ready) and then test to see if vehicle detection is working.
When to Contact Canary Support
If you have confirmed you have an active Canary Premium subscription and have tried all the troubleshooting steps above without success, there may be a more complex issue at play. It's time to reach out to the Canary support team. Provide them with the details of the steps you've already taken to help them assist you more efficiently.