Tip: Use the NEXT installation best practices (PDF) as your reference for camera placement, mounting, and detection distances.
Use these checks when a NEXT camera missed a person, vehicle, or face, or when a face wasn't matched to a name. For faces at a door reader, see Fix a person's door access. If the event is in Search but no alert arrived, see Fix workflow problems.
Check these first
- Confirm the video exists. Open Devices → Cameras, select the camera, and open History at the time of the activity. If the video is missing, see Manage recording, storage, and cloud backup.
- In Search, widen the time range, remove filters, and refresh the page.
- Confirm the detection type is on for both the account and the camera. Face Detection/Recognition (Beta) also needs Person Detection. See Set up analytics and detection areas.
- If the camera has a region of interest, confirm the activity was inside it: a person's feet or a vehicle's wheels, not just part of the body.
Was the subject close enough?
The farther away someone is, the less detail the camera has. A camera can tell that a person is there long before it can show their face. Security teams call these levels of detail DORI: Detection, Observation, Recognition, and Identification.
| What you need | Wide | Telephoto |
|---|---|---|
| Identification: confirm who someone is | Under 30 ft | Under 50 ft |
| Recognition: tell known people from unknown | 31–50 ft | 51–100 ft |
| Observation: follow activity | 51–100 ft | 100–194 ft |
| Detection: confirm a person or vehicle is there | Over 100 ft | Over 195 ft |
Wide means Hardware Zoom all the way out. Telephoto means all the way in. Low light shortens every distance. For installers, Identification, Recognition, and Observation start at 80, 40, and 20 pixels per foot.
A distant subject also makes a blurry event image. See Why event images can look blurry.
Why wasn't this face detected?
- Too far away. Plan for faces in the Identification range. Zoom in or move the camera closer, then review any region of interest.
- Camera too high or too steep. Mount the camera 8 to 16 feet high. For faces, aim for a vertical angle of 15° to 20°.
- Face turned away or hidden. The camera has to see the face. Aim it where people walk toward it, such as an entrance. In a group, it may catch some faces and not others.
- Poor light. Add light, or re-aim the camera so the face isn't dark against a bright background.
If the face was detected but shows as Unknown, Anavio has no name for that person. To add one, see Adding a Person by Photo. If it shows the wrong name, use Not This Person.
Why wasn't this person or vehicle detected?
- In view too briefly. The whole person or vehicle should stay in view for at least 3 seconds.
- Something in the way. Passing behind a tree, post, or parked car can split one event into shorter ones, or cause a miss. Re-aim the camera to clear the obstruction.
- Low contrast. Good contrast matters most at night. Keep the scene above 0.1 lux, and add light if the subject blends into the background.
- Not upright. Detection works best on people who are standing or walking.
- Too much background motion. Swaying trees and moving sky can reduce detection. Re-aim the camera to leave them out.
Did detection stop on a camera that was working?
If live video works but events stopped on a camera that had been detecting normally, the view is probably not the cause. Contact support with the details in Find system details and contact support, plus the date and time of the last event you can see.