Potential Customer - Cats triggering recording

[rjanssen]

Hi there,

I'm currently demoing your software and love the interface and functionality. Currently I'm using a Foscam FI9821W V2 and a Microsoft HD webcam connected directly to the Mac Mini that's hosting Sighthound.

Unfortunately I'm getting constant recordings of our cats walking around. I've experimented with different settings with no luck. I was under the impression that part of the functionality of this application is to know the difference between a human and other objects. Is there something I need to do to enable this feature?

Currently on the main cam (Foscam) I have a notification rule setup to notify via app and email when a person crosses a barrier. I have another rule setup to record any person in the room with no notification. The cats are triggering recordings on the person in the room rule.

It looks like the software does know at some points that the cats are not people but they occasionally are detected as humans during the same movement. I.E. - A cat walks across the room and the software knows the cat is a cat for about 90% of the trip.

Anything I can do to improve detection?

[ryan]

Hiya,

Glad to hear you're enjoying the app. Assuming that the lighting in the scene is sufficient and the contrast on the cameras is not completely out of balance, you might try positioning the camera at a slightly different angle (though I'm not sure if this is possible with your cameras or scene).

There aren't any settings within the app that change recognition accuracy. While our current tracking and recognition algorithms stand above the competition, we certainly aren't perfect, and we'll continue making improvements as we move forward.

[Stu2001]

If you can (assuming the camera is not open to attack) position the camera low and define an area to detect "people" but only above two feet and more than "X" pixels that should exclude cats on level ground and the odd tail.
Just an idea.
Stu

[rjanssen]

Thanks everyone.

I'm experimenting with different rulesets that I think might help. Instead of a notification rule for crossing a barrier and a separate save rule for the whole room I've switched to a single notify and save when barrier is crossed rule.

I'm hopping this may eliminate most of the false positives.