Receiving Too Many Alerts From Your Friedland Doorbell or Chime?
Friedland products are designed to provide security and awareness, but a constant stream of unnecessary alerts can quickly become more of an annoyance than a help. If your phone is buzzing every few minutes or your chime is constantly activating, it's time to fine-tune your settings.
This guide will help you understand why you might be receiving too many notifications and show you how to adjust your Friedland system to ensure you only get alerts that are genuinely important.
Understanding the Cause of Excessive Alerts
The first step to solving the problem is to identify what's causing it. For systems with motion detection, the cause is usually one of the following:
- High Sensitivity: The motion sensor is set to be extremely sensitive and is picking up very minor movements.
- Wide Detection Area: The sensor is monitoring a very large area, including places with a lot of irrelevant activity like a public footpath or a busy road.
- Environmental Triggers: The sensor is being triggered by non-human movement, such as swaying trees, moving shadows, pets, or even car headlights at night.
How to Reduce Unwanted Notifications
Now let's look at the practical steps you can take to regain control over your alerts. The exact steps may vary slightly depending on your specific Friedland model, so always refer to your user manual for detailed instructions.
1. Adjust Motion Sensitivity
This is the most effective way to reduce unwanted alerts. Lowering the sensitivity means a more significant movement is required to trigger a notification.
- Locate the Sensitivity Setting: For many wireless Friedland products, this setting is a physical switch or dial inside the sensor unit or doorbell push. You may need to remove the cover to access it.
- For Smart Systems: If you have a smart doorbell connected to an app, the sensitivity settings will be located within the app's "Motion Settings" or "Device Settings" menu.
- Test and Adjust: Lower the sensitivity one level at a time. It may take some trial and error to find the perfect balance between receiving important alerts and ignoring minor disturbances.
2. Refine Motion Detection Zones
If your model supports it, setting up motion zones is a powerful tool. This allows you to draw specific areas within the camera's view that you want to monitor, while ignoring all movement outside of those zones.
- Access Motion Zone Settings: This feature is typically found in the app for smart Friedland doorbells.
- Exclude High-Traffic Areas: Adjust the detection zone to exclude busy pavements, roads, or your neighbour's property. Focus the zone on your pathway, porch, or garden entrance.
- Create Multiple Zones: Some advanced systems allow you to create several distinct zones, each with its own sensitivity level.
3. Optimise Physical Placement
The position of your doorbell or sensor can have a huge impact on the number of alerts it generates.
- Angle the Device: Angle the device downwards slightly to focus on the area directly in front of your door, rather than the street in the distance. You can often purchase an angled mounting bracket if needed.
- Avoid Environmental Triggers: Try to avoid pointing the sensor directly at bushes or trees that move in the wind. Also, be mindful of how the sun moves across your property; long shadows moving across a driveway can sometimes trigger an alert.
- Consider the Height: Mounting the sensor at the recommended height (usually around 1.2 metres or 4 feet) helps it to distinguish between people and smaller animals or passing vehicles.
4. Use Notification Scheduling
If your Friedland system has an accompanying app, you may be able to schedule when you receive notifications. For example, you could disable motion alerts during the day when you are at home and only have them active at night or when you are away. This won't reduce the number of events recorded, but it will stop your phone from buzzing constantly.
By carefully adjusting these settings, you can transform your Friedland system from a source of constant interruption into a precise and reliable security tool.