Delayed Intervals for Notifications

[Walt Dockery]

I am new to Sighthound and like what I see so far, particularly that there is a forum like this where you actually listen to user requests. I have a number of features I would like to see added and will start with this one. Forgive me if this already exists or has already been discussed.

For event-based notifications, for this feature to be useful for many of us and avoid being inundated with emails, there really needs to be the ability to create a delay interval for a user-specified period of time in between notifications.

For example: I have a camera pointed at my front yard (and front door, back yard, back porch etc). My lawn guys show up. I get an email of a picture of them telling me they showed up - cool. Maybe I even get multiple emails from multiple cameras as they enter each region of my yard - also cool. What follows is I then get bombarded with 35 emails from the same camera/event showing the same guy blow off my driveway. Not so cool. Same story for the bug man, the pool guy etc.

For each notification event, there needs to be an ability to tell it to delay sending the user another notification for a user specified period of seconds and minutes. Lawn guy shows up, I get a shot of his truck pulling into my driveway, and my driveway came then doesn't send me any more emails for say, 20 minutes. Cool.

Again, sorry if this function already exists, but I am new and couldn't find it if it does. At my old house with my old software (which had it's own problems), I found this feature to be invaluable.

[ryan]

Hi Walt,

Thanks for the feature request. We may introduce some sort of rate limiting in the future, but generally this isn't necessary in Sighthound Video as you can create specific rules. For example, I might have a rule for my front yard camera looking for "Any object, anywhere" and marking those clips to be saved, and another rule "Any person loitering on my driveway" configured to send a push notification to my phone. This lets me create different classes of rules such that I don't need throttling - if I get a push response I know I always want to check it.

For more information on creating rules please see http://www.sighthound.com/support/rule-editor

[Walt Dockery]

Eh, I don't see how that solves the problem.

I'm using multiple rules as well. One for each zone to save clips for any object anywhere, similar to what you mentioned.

But say for my front door, I have one rule saving clips for any object anywhere, and another rule for an email notification for any people > 40 pixels approaching my front door (using the "on top of" a region I defined in front of my door). When my lawn guys (or any other workers) are at my house, the same guy will walk past my front door maybe 20-30 times over a 20 minute period. I don't need 20-30 email notifications of that. I'd rather the rule automatically disable for 20 minutes after the first email.

Is there something I'm missing as far as push notifications vs. email?

[ryan]

Hi Walt,

I wasn't aware of your specific scenario and was trying to provide information on some functionality that might have helped within the current release of the app - some users don't explore much with rule creation. There isn't particularly a difference between email and push notifications other than the delivery mechanism, push was just a response example.

[Walt Dockery]

Yeah, this isn't going to work for me in its current form.

Lawn guys have been at my house longer than usual today, I've probably gotten 300 emails in the last 3 hours. I have notifications like cross boundary on a path to a gate, front door etc.

Time delay is basic functionality required to make notifications usable in the real world. Hopefully this will be on an upcoming update.

[Semper Vaporo]

I don't have an answer to your need, but I see a problem with the requested feature, as stated.

Given the scenario that the Lawn Guy shows up and triggers an e-mail alert, if the rule is then suspended for the time it is expected he will be in the area, say 20 minutes, then you'd get no more notifications for that whole time. That is all well and good, except it might be mailman walking past and he is there and gone in less than a minute, and that leaves you with no notifications for the next 19 minutes. This may not be a high probability, but lots could happen in that time.

The feature should disable alerts only for motion detections in a very short period, and each motion detection within that time, extends the time again.

Given that the Lawn guy will walk past the camera multiple times while pushing the mower, maybe making a pass every 10 to 45 seconds, depending on how long it takes to turn the mower around and traverse the yard again, you would get one alert when he starts and no more unless he takes a longer time than expected to get back across the scene again to reset the timer to wait another 10 to 45 seconds. That way if he then goes to the back yard and someone else approaches the front after that short 10 to 45 second period, they will trigger another alert to you. It would be best to keep the time as short as possible.

Granted, you might get more alerts than you want this way, but the likelihood of missing an intruder is reduced.

I like the idea of a "Delay Interval for Notifications" (and it has been suggested before) but it would need to kept as short as possible, or at least some words in the documentation as to how to use it, and maybe a warning of possible problems if someone sets it to more than, say, 1 minute.

[ryan]

Yup yup, the time period would definitely have to be user configurable.

[Walt Dockery]

Semper has some legitimate concerns but I'd reply w/ a few things:

1) The delay would have to be user specified. 20 minutes might be right for me, 45 seconds might be right for you, and I suspect we'd all have to experiment a bit to find what works for us.

2) The delay would be specific to each rule. A delay on a notification wouldn't stop the same camera from saving clips, and wouldn't affect notifications from other cameras. Yes, I might miss a notification of a potential intruder, but the camera could still be saving clips. Also, going back to point 1, the user could specify different delays for different cameras (i.e. maybe 20 minutes for my back yard and 5 minutes for my front door, etc).

3) Cameras used properly are part of a multi-layered security plan - the delay might cause missing a notification of an intruder walking around my house, but if he attempted to enter my alarm would send me (and the central monitoring station) its own notifications.

4) It's a trade off. Yes, a delay might prevent a notification that would be useful. However, getting bombarded by 200+ emails when the lawn guys are here results in me ignoring notifications altogether (or shutting them off) which IMO is worse. If you don't want delays, don't use them, the feature would be invaluable to some of us but would be an option, not a requirement to setting rules.

[Walt Dockery]

Is there a time frame for getting this implemented? This really is a necessary feature for notifications and I'm really blown away it wasn't incorporated already.

[ryan]

Hi Walt,

I've added this to our feature request list and we'll consider it when planning a future release.

Best,
- ryan