Geofencing Issues / Suggestions for Indoor Cam

Queries
1

I realize that that geofencing is a beta feature. I just want to document the issues I’ve been experiencing and make a few suggestions for geofencing related features I’d like to see added.

Issues

TL;DR

  • false “motion detected” notifications are sent when geofencing changes the camera’s mode from home to away
  • geofencing doesn’t detect when I’m home or doesn’t change the camera’s mode from away to home even after being home for 6+ hours

The Details

I have two 2K indoor pan and tilt cams. The camera’s firmware is up-to-date.
I have an iPhone running iOS 14.1 All software is up-to-date. I do not have the battery saver feature enabled.
The Eufy Security app’s location services setting is “always”.

I have geofencing set to switch between home and away modes.
Both my camera’s have human and pet detection enabled.
My geofence is set to small
The differences between home and away modes:

  • notifications are enabled in away mode
  • the siren is enabled in away mode

Below are the issues I’ve experienced with the current implementation

  • When geofencing switches my cameras from home to away mode I receive a “motion detected” notification for each of the cameras. When I check the camera’s history there is no record of motion for the time of the notification. Switching from home to away mode appears to happen reliably. The false motion detected notifications only happen when geofencing activates. FYI: I don’t have a pet and there’s no one in the house when this happens. The upside to this is that I know that geofencing has detected my location change and has changed the camera mode.

  • Geofencing does not recognize that I’ve arrived home or fails to switch the cameras from away to home mode. As an example: I arrived home yesterday and spent 5+ minutes downstairs before coming up to the main level where one of my cameras is located. When it detected my presence the camera’s siren went off. I turned the alarm off and switched that camera to home mode. I left my second camera in geofencing mode. 6+ hours later when I went in to the room where that camera is located the siren went off. Geofencing reliably detects that I’ve left the home area. I know this because of the issue above. My Nest thermostat’s geofencing works reliably so I’m sure the problem isn’t with my phone or its settings.

Suggestions

  • An an option to receive notifications when geofencing changes a camera’s security mode. The notification should include state change info, see below

  • Always add an entry to the system log to show when geofencing changes a camera’s security mode. The log entry should include state change info, see below

    Example geofence state change message:
    geofencing changed the security mode for family room camera from home to away

  • On the App main screen (the camera overview) add an icon to each camera that shows the camera’s current security mode.

  • In the camera view add a way to change a camera’s security mode.

  • Provide a way to group camera’s together so that I can change settings / modes on a group or camera’s

  • Add support for the geofencing mode to scheduling. I appreciate the geofencing feature and would like to have that active during the day and evening but I’d like to have a different mode enabled at night when I go to bed. I was hopping I could accomplish this via scheduling but I doesn’t support geofencing mode.

3 Likes
2

+1 to these issues. I’ve also been having a similar experience recently. I’ve got geofencing away/home setup for a fix 2k indoor camera. From time to time motion detection alerts fire even after being at home for several hours. Eventually it does pick up. I’m on a Pixel5.

2 Likes
3

Ive benn waiting to see geofencing as a schedule option for a year+. I’m surprised it’s taken this long to add

4

After spending around $3,500 on seven (7) pan & tilt 2K & eight (8) external Eufy cam 2 Pro cameras I am totally disulusioned as I’m unable to successfully use these cameras.
I have checked system & phone (Samsung S21) numerous times. I have worked with such technology for over 50 years. No amount of checking or changes made any difference.
The Geofencing does NOT work. As others have found an hour away at several kilometres, some, but not all still are in “Home mode”. Then when I walk & return home some devices still show “Away” for up to 20 minutes.
I have considered setting just some devices as Geofenckng but this then defeates the security alerts of the all the others!
One thing of interest is that when I Initially had just four pan & tilt 2K cameras the Geofenclng worked far better. I have ALL cameras with identical settings. The phone is fully as advised (Wi-Fi on though I don’t know why this is needed? Power saving off, location on).
The cameras are unreliable, the outdoor ones often show the red LED as triggered but I get no notifications nor recorded video.
I don’t expect perfection but I do expect usable products!

5

Could they not simply set the mode based on whether your phone is connected to the same wifi network?

My Canary security system (which I had planned to replace with Eufy products) uses this method and it works flawlessly.