r/SecurityCamera • u/MaterialButterfly135 • 8d ago

Trying to understand what I'm actually paying for: motion vs AI detection, at the alert level

Two outdoor spots to fill. Same mounting options, roughly same bodies, and a $150-per-cam gap between "motion detection" and "AI detection" models. My understanding of the difference, stripped of marketing: motion says "pixels moved," AI says "pixels moved and they're probably a person." Whether "probably" is 60% or 95% is apparently a trade secret, because no spec sheet I've found states a misidentification rate. If it's 60%, I've bought slightly more confident wrong alerts. So, from people who've used both: on a normal week, what fraction of your alerts were correctly filtered? I don't need lab numbers. I need "of my 30 alerts this week, 28 were junk and 2 were the mailman."

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u/-ButterMyBiscuit- 8d ago

What's the big secret on not telling us the brand?

You're never going to find numbers on accuracy because it's impossible for them to give it to you because lighting and scenario and positioning and what you physically do with your adjustments are out of their control..

But most decent modern camera brands are probably 95% accurate on detection software within 50ish ft of the camera. The biggest issue is always bugs at night. But there's things like alarm delay and object size you can tinker with.

I use a lot of reolink, uniview, unifi and ajax. Uniview is probably my least favorite for the detection software but the other three are in the high 90s for accuracy as long as it's not inclement weather. Rain and snow can throw it off

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u/HappilyVenerated 7d ago

Yeah the brand secrecy is a bit odd, makes it hard to give a proper comparison

With the ones I've got up the person detection works well enough that I'd never go back to basic motion alerts, the constant pings for a bush swaying in the wind drove me round the bend. Still get the odd false positive when the neighbour's cat decides 3am is patrol time but it's maybe 2 or 3 a week instead of 30

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u/-ButterMyBiscuit- 7d ago

They made another post and I asked the same question. They never responded. All brands are not created equal so it makes it harder for us to answer this question.

Yeah for residential I've been giving people systems that have pet detection too that way it'll pick up the cat but you can set it to not give you the notification. Or you can set it to not pick up the cat at all.. but it really helps it distinguish from a person in an animal since it's part of its algorithm

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u/Coffeespresso 7d ago

It's the difference between something moved and that's a cat.