No Triggers at Night

[wfsteadman]

Greetings folks,
I have reolink 820a's and I have some triggers set up and when it is light out they work fine, but at night I don't get any triggers for things I would expect to be triggers. I was in my front yard with my puppies at about 11pm last night, and I would have expected that to trigger an alert but it didn't, it did not even indicate that it saw anything. At about 5AM this morning a man was walking his dog and the dog ran on my lawn and went to the bathroom, I found it because I have continuous recording but I did not see it trigger or alert. Is there some setting that I might need to consider to get alerts at night? I am of course using Blue Iris. Very new to this whole camera and security and triggering and alerts so any advice would be appreciated.

[TimG]

Are the IR leds working ? Can you at least see movement in the dark ? Many people seem to have issues with Reolink

[wfsteadman]

I can see the movement on the screen. A bit grainy but that could just be me not having my cameras setup right

[TimG]

My Dahua cams can see the IR leds from other cameras like a torch beam at night. They give a really clear black and white picture in night mode.
One of the simplest ways to check if the IR Leds are on is to look at the camera (at night !) through a mobile phone camera. It will be very obvious. Same trick works to test your IR remote controls for tv's etc.

[wfsteadman]

My Dahua cams can see the IR leds from other cameras like a torch beam at night. They give a really clear black and white picture in night mode.
One of the simplest ways to check if the IR Leds are on is to look at the camera (at night !) through a mobile phone camera. It will be very obvious. Same trick works to test your IR remote controls for tv's etc.

Last night when I was outside looking at the cameras I did see about 6 red lights around the lens, is that something different? Edited. I just found out those lights are on because I am doing continuous recording.

[TimG]

A ring of red Leds around the lens does sound like IR Leds, and they would look dim to the naked eye. Have a check with a mobile phone later and you will know for sure. You shouldn't have a grainy image with IR on, so it's worth checking all is well. The IR is of course just like a torch beam in that close objects will be brightly lit, and far away objects won't.

Have a check now with a tv remote control and a mobile phone camera and you will see what I mean (Unless your particular phone has an IR cut filter !). Then you will know if your phone can check the camera IR Leds.

And be aware that if you see somebody wandering around at night apparently taking photographs with a mobile phone, it is likely that he is searching for cctv cameras with IR on ready for a burglary

[sailing]

Unfortunately I have some 820s. I seem to have them working now. I have a day schedule and a night schedule. The night schedule has the trigger contrast set to the minimum ie 12. Daytime is higher so I don't get every shadow movement. I then use AI.

[wfsteadman]

Unfortunately I have some 820s. I seem to have them working now. I have a day schedule and a night schedule. The night schedule has the trigger contrast set to the minimum ie 12. Daytime is higher so I don't get every shadow movement. I then use AI.

Going to watch this video as i think it might answer these questions on how to schedule and such

[wfsteadman]

A ring of red Leds around the lens does sound like IR Leds, and they would look dim to the naked eye. Have a check with a mobile phone later and you will know for sure. You shouldn't have a grainy image with IR on, so it's worth checking all is well. The IR is of course just like a torch beam in that close objects will be brightly lit, and far away objects won't.

Have a check now with a tv remote control and a mobile phone camera and you will see what I mean (Unless your particular phone has an IR cut filter !). Then you will know if your phone can check the camera IR Leds.

And be aware that if you see somebody wandering around at night apparently taking photographs with a mobile phone, it is likely that he is searching for cctv cameras with IR on ready for a burglary

So I do continuous recording and when I researched the red lights that you can see with the naked eye it said that was the red lights indicated recording. I did in fact look at it with my phone and sure enough I could see the IR light in the bottom center of the camera so I assume IR is working. I think it has something to do with contrast so I guess I need to work that out.