Troubleshooting Unifi Protect Facial Recognition
Unifi's facial recognition, part of the Smart Detections suite in UniFi Protect, is a sophisticated feature that transforms your security system. Instead of getting generic 'person detected' alerts, it allows you to identify known individuals and be notified when a stranger appears. When it's not working correctly, you lose a valuable layer of security intelligence.
This guide will help you diagnose and fix common issues with Unifi's facial recognition, ensuring your system is as smart as it can be.
How Does Unifi Facial Recognition Work?
The feature, which Unifi calls 'Person Detection' with face identification, relies on a few core components:
- AI-Enabled Cameras: Specific Unifi camera models have the processing power to run AI algorithms that detect human shapes and faces.
- UniFi Protect Controller: This software (running on a Cloud Key, NVR, etc.) analyses the detected faces.
- User Profiles: You 'train' the system by assigning names to faces detected by the cameras. Over time, it builds a database of known people.
Failure can occur at any of these stages.
Step-by-Step Guide to Fixing Facial Recognition
Let's work through the potential points of failure to get your system running smoothly.
1. Ensure Your Hardware is Compatible
The first step is to confirm your equipment supports this feature.
- Camera Model: Facial recognition requires AI-powered cameras. This generally includes models in the G4 and G5 series (e.g., G4 Pro, G5 Bullet). Older models may only support basic motion detection. Check the specifications for your camera on the Ubiquiti website.
- UniFi Protect Controller: Ensure your UniFi Protect application is up to date. New features and bug fixes are released regularly.
2. Enable Smart Detections Correctly
You need to switch the feature on for each camera.
- Open your UniFi Protect dashboard.
- Go to the Devices tab and select the camera you want to configure.
- In the camera's settings panel, find the Recordings or Detections section.
- Make sure that Smart Detections is enabled.
- Within the Smart Detections menu, ensure Person detection is turned on.
3. Build and Manage Your Face Database
The system learns from your input. If you haven't identified anyone, it can't recognise them later.
- Go to the Detections tab in UniFi Protect.
- Filter the events to show only 'Person' detections.
- When you see a clip with a face, click on it. You should see an option to 'Add a name' or identify the person.
- Create profiles for all family members and regular visitors. Be consistent with naming.
- If the system incorrectly identifies someone, you can correct it. This helps to refine the algorithm. Go to the Insights or Users tab to manage existing face profiles.
4. Optimise Camera Placement and Lighting
The quality of the image is critical for accurate recognition.
- Camera Height and Angle: Mount cameras so they can capture faces head-on, not just the tops of heads. A height of 2-3 metres, angled slightly down, is often ideal.
- Distance: The person's face needs to be large and clear enough in the frame. If a camera is too far away (e.g., watching a long driveway), it may detect a person but fail to recognise their face.
- Lighting: Good, even lighting is key. Avoid pointing cameras directly at a light source (which creates a silhouette) or into areas with deep shadows. At night, ensure the camera's IR illumination is effective and not causing glare.
- Clean the Lens: A smudged or dirty lens will degrade image quality and impact accuracy. Regularly wipe the lens with a microfibre cloth.
5. Check System Resources
Facial recognition is a resource-intensive task.
- If you are running UniFi Protect on a Cloud Key Gen2 Plus or another controller with limited resources, having many cameras with smart detections enabled can slow the system down.
- Check the CPU and memory load of your Protect controller. If it's consistently high, consider disabling smart detections on less critical cameras.
By ensuring you have compatible hardware, correct settings, and have properly trained the system with clear images, you can significantly improve the reliability and accuracy of Unifi's facial recognition feature.