Calibrating an Alarm.com Camera for Video Analytics
Description
In this video, Joe walks you through the process for calibrating an Alarm.com Security Camera for Video Analytics. Although many Alarm.com Cameras support Alarm.com Video Analytics, only a tiny number require calibration. However, this is an important step for ensuring proper function of the camera.
Alarm.com Video Analytics is a feature used with Alarm.com Security Cameras that helps ensure that an end user will only be alerted for important camera events. By using Alarm.com Video Analytics, you can set up detection zones for your cameras and only have alerts sent when activity occurs within the zones. Additionally, the cameras can determine whether any activity was caused by a person, vehicle, or animal. You can set what type of detection activity will trigger alerts being sent out. For example, you might want to get alerts from activity caused by a person, but not an animal or vehicle.
In order to ensure proper detection and performance, some Alarm.com Cameras will require you to complete a calibration process prior to using them for Video Analytics. This process is completed by first putting the camera into calibration mode using the Alarm.com website or mobile app. You will need to take five (5) videos of a person's entire body from different angles and positions. A bounding box must be adjusted to fit the person. This will help the camera properly detect people, and it will also use its calibration configuration when detecting vehicles and animals.
One important consideration is that any existing Video Motion Detection rules that have been set up for the camera will be deleted after performing the calibration process. As a result, you will need to add these rules back later after completing the calibration process. It is advised that you calibrate an Alarm.com Camera before setting up Video Motion Detection rules in order to avoid needing to set these rules up twice.
https://www.alarmgrid.com/faq/how-do-i-calibrate-an-alarm-dot-com-camera-for-video-analytics
http://alrm.gd/get-monitored
Transcript
[SOUND EFFECTS] Hi, DIYers. Joe from Alarm Grid. And today we're going to show you how to do video calibration for your alarm.com video camera that requires it. Now right now there's only two cameras that do require video calibration. And this is for video analytics for alarm.com. So just keep that in mind. Before we jump in though, the one that we're going to be calibrating today is one of the two cameras that you can do this with, the ADC-V723, which is this guy right here. It's a great camera, outdoor use and indoor. Just wonderful. Check it out. So to calibrate this for video analytics, we have to log in to the website user log in. So if you have a phone or a tablet, keep in mind that the app that you've downloaded onto that device, you can't do the calibration through that app. What you actually have to do is load up a web browser, somehow find the alarm.com user log in. If you Google alarm.com user log in, you'll go right to the page. Click on that. And then login into that portal and that actually lets you do the video calibration. So let's check it out. So on my iPad right here, I have the alarm.com app in the bottom. But I'm not going to do that. I'm going to click on safari. And we'll see that I'm already logged in to my profile So from here, I'm going to click the hamburger button in the upper left corner, and then do video, and then settings. Now on settings, you'll see the video device selected is the ADC-V723. Down on the menu, what's that? Five down from the top, video analytics calibration is my option. So I'm going to click that. Video object detection setup. Blah, blah, blah. Yes, we want to go forward. Keep in mind that this does delete all of your video schedules. You'll have to add them all back in. So do this before you finish your complete camera setup. I'm going to hit OK. And now it's going through setting up video analytics on our ADC-V723. If you haven't checked out video analytics yet on alarm.com, definitely do so because it adds a ton of great features to your video system. In fact, alarm.com video analytics puts it far out in front of all the competition right now as a thing that it lets you do, really open up your system and expand all of the possibilities that you're going to get out of your feature set. One of the coolest things about it is that it can actually ID if it's a person, an animal, or a vehicle showing up on your camera. It's really neat because if you're away from the home and you get a text on your phone, you'll be able to immediately see if it's a car, a person, or an animal that's triggering the camera. That's just one of the many features, though, that it has. And the combination that it lets you setup with the existing features on the system really make the amount of possibilities very, very wide for what you can actually do with the system. So again, check it out. As you can see, video object detection was set up. Video analytics setup was successful. And we can now create a video analytics rule on the camera. I'm going to go ahead and close this. And here's the camera calibration. So to help the camera identify people and objects in the scene needs to start off with a few good examples. So it says please take a few moments to take five photos in different spots at varied distances from the camera. You can probably hold it there, and I'll get the feed. If you hold the camera, you'll see me. And you'll be able to calibrate me with this thing. Yeah, you hold it up over there. Perfect, yeah. That's good. That's good. Awesome. So I have my co-worker holding the camera up right in front of me. So let's try to do the calibration. I'm going to hit Continue. So I need to take five photos in different spots at varied differences from the camera. Oh, there we go. OK, so this photo needs to cover the entire body from the head to the bottom of the feet. So if we move the camera down, maybe just angle it down an inch, there you go, I'm going to try taking the photo again. I think that you'll have a much easier time doing this on a computer or a laptop as performing these functions on a tablet. The video streaming isn't really built for the website access through a tablet. So I know this is a mouthful. But really, if you're going to do this, get a laptop or get your desktop and have a friend help you out. Then you'll have a much easier time. Now, I've taken a shot where I have my head and my feet in the photo. That's what they've requested. So I'm going to hit Next. So now I need to get the photo in a different place. So I'm going to move over here. And I'm going to hit take photo. And there we go. So that's another one. It looks pretty good. And now, I'm going to stand in a different spot and hit take photo. You pretty much can see my head and feet. Hit next. I'll stand in another spot over here and hit take photo. If we angle it down just slightly, let me try to retake it. There we go. And now I need one more. So I'm going to do another one in a corner that I haven't taken a shot in yet. Looks good. I'm going to take that photo. It looks great. So I'm going to submit these. Thank you. Calibration is complete. I have calibrated the camera. And now I have access to rules which can trigger recordings and notifications when your criteria is met. Those are the rules that I was telling you about before. The list is big, though. So if you are curious about all the specific individual rules that you have with alarm.com, feel free to reach out to us. We'll be happy to tell you all about it. I'm going to click Done as my calibration is complete. And that's it. Now our cameras ready for video analytics. And we're good to go. If you do have any questions about alarm.com cameras, video analytics, calibrating a camera, or really anything at all alarm related, give us a call at 888-818-7728. Send us an email to support@alarmgrid.com. Or head to our website, www.alarmgrid.com. Did enjoy the video, feel free to subscribe. And if you want to be notified when we post future videos, hit the notification button below, and we'll send you an update when we do so. Thanks for watching and have a great day.
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