Many of the new DIY security cameras systems of today are advertising alerts through email and text.
This is not new technology. I was selling this feature back in 2004 when I first started in the industry. Video motion has not been the best system for triggering an alert in the past, because it creates too many false alarms.
In the 90’s, everyone was crazy about car alarms. Everywhere you went, there was a new car alarm system. At first, the new alarms were effective. Today however, if you hear a car alarm going off in a parking lot, you probably won’t even look.
Most security camera systems detect motion through a change in pixels from the previous picture as analyzed by the recorder. This can be done from a change in light, or an actual object moving through the picture. One problem with this type of motion detection method however, is that even a small bug flying in front of a camera will register as motion whereas, a person walking across the street off in the distance of the picture might be too small of a change to set off the motion sensitivity as determined by the recorder which analyzes the video. This can turn into pretty poor video surveillance.
Over the last couple of years, many advances in analytics have happened and there are smart recorders that can now recognize people and animals, etc. This type of technology however, has still not reached the mainstream market in an affordable package. One of the most popular new types of DIY security cameras is the doorbell cameras. Many of these security cameras boast being able to send you an alert when someone is at your door. They send the alert because someone pushes the button, not because the camera is automatically detecting people through software analytics. If the system is sending an email or text based on an actual motion sensor, the signal will be accurate. Be careful to understand what you are buying however, before you use a camera as an alarm sensor and notification system.
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