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HomeKit Logitech Circle View notifications driving me nuts

M

macrumorsuser10

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 18, 2010
359
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I recently bought and successfully installed the Logitech Circle View Apple HomeKit-Enabled Security Camera. I have it viewing from my front porch.

HNRE2


The camera works, and I'm able to see live streams on my iPhone 12. I have not set it up (yet) to do recording on iCloud, as that requires upgrading my iCloud storage to the 200GB tier.

I turned on the notifications, and it's been sending notifications literally every few seconds because it detects motion from passing cars. It's driving me nuts.

From what I can tell, if I don't have it set up to record, then there is no options to send notifications for only people (and not all motion). If I instead set up recording, it can send a notification only when clip is recorded, and clip recording can be set up to detect only people.

Is my understanding correct? Is there actually any way to limit notifications to just people (rather than all motion) without doing recording?
 
You can add activity zones as posted above, which are very useful albeit not particularly reliable, and you can set the recording types. So in your instance you would probably want to disable vehicles

In the Home app, tap the camera, tap settings, tap recording options, tap more options
d0c96e6ac51cb20b1f7a1c4b6d55177b.jpg
 
macsound1 said:
I don't have the camera, but I just found this article that describes how to limit the area the camera is looking at for motion and restrict to humans.
9to5mac.com

Hands-on: Activity Zones for HomeKit Secure Video cameras in iOS 14 - 9to5Mac

iOS 14 packs a variety of improvements for HomeKit accessories, including a new interface in the Home app, face recognition,...
9to5mac.com 9to5mac.com
Click to expand...

I did background reading on activity zones. They are not available unless you have 200GB iCloud account, which I don't have. So it looks like I would need:

1. 200GB iCloud account, which enables
2. Recording, which enables
3. Activity zones

StumpyBloke said:
You can add activity zones as posted above, which are very useful albeit not particularly reliable, and you can set the recording types. So in your instance you would probably want to disable vehicles

In the Home app, tap the camera, tap settings, tap recording options, tap more options
Click to expand...

As I mentioned in my original post, I don't have a 200GB iCloud account, so therefore, I cannot set up recording.
 
Well in that case unless you are prepared to stump up the small amount of money a month for the 200GB plan I don’t know what to tell you.
 
Interesting thought here - If the app requires 200 GB of iCloud to setup the restricted areas, could you sign up for it for 1 month and see if the areas remain after you cancel the iCloud subscription?
 
It now looks like iOS 15 will allow you to use the 50GB iCloud tier to save Homekit Security Video clips from one camera. I already subscribe to the 50GB plan, so that's good news. I didn't want to have to subscribe to the more expensive 200GB plan.

Once I can save video clips, I'll be able to reduce the notifications coming from the Logitech Circle View. I'm following the logic that I found in my research:

1. A sufficiently large iCloud account, which enables
2. Recording, which enables
3. Activity zones, which enables
4. Activity zone-trigged notifications, which enables
5. Fewer notifications

www.macrumors.com

What's New With HomeKit in iOS 15

iOS 15 didn't focus heavily on improvements to HomeKit and the Home app, but there are some notable features like expanded HomeKit Secure Video...
www.macrumors.com www.macrumors.com


The $0.99 per month 50GB ‌iCloud‌+ storage plan offers support for one ‌HomeKit Secure Video‌ Camera, which is a major improvement because previously, the 200GB plan was required to use ‌HomeKit Secure Video‌.

With the $2.99 per month 200GB ‌iCloud‌+ plan that previously offered support for one camera, you can now record with five ‌HomeKit Secure Video‌ cameras at one time. The $9.99 per month 2TB ‌iCloud‌+ storage plan supports unlimited ‌HomeKit Secure Video‌ cameras, up from five.
 
macrumorsuser10 said:
It now looks like iOS 15 will allow you to use the 50GB iCloud tier to save Homekit Security Video clips from one camera. I already subscribe to the 50GB plan, so that's good news. I didn't want to have to subscribe to the more expensive 200GB plan.

Once I can save video clips, I'll be able to reduce the notifications coming from the Logitech Circle View. I'm following the logic that I found in my research:

1. A sufficiently large iCloud account, which enables
2. Recording, which enables
3. Activity zones, which enables
4. Activity zone-trigged notifications, which enables
5. Fewer notifications

www.macrumors.com

What's New With HomeKit in iOS 15

iOS 15 didn't focus heavily on improvements to HomeKit and the Home app, but there are some notable features like expanded HomeKit Secure Video...
www.macrumors.com www.macrumors.com


The $0.99 per month 50GB ‌iCloud‌+ storage plan offers support for one ‌HomeKit Secure Video‌ Camera, which is a major improvement because previously, the 200GB plan was required to use ‌HomeKit Secure Video‌.

With the $2.99 per month 200GB ‌iCloud‌+ plan that previously offered support for one camera, you can now record with five ‌HomeKit Secure Video‌ cameras at one time. The $9.99 per month 2TB ‌iCloud‌+ storage plan supports unlimited ‌HomeKit Secure Video‌ cameras, up from five.
Click to expand...
This was actually the best news I heard at WW. I have an Apple One Premier sub and the unlimited cameras in HKSV is huge now. The prior 5 camera cap was ridiculous. That’s how many cameras I have in my bedroom alone 😇
 
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Itinj24 said:
This was actually the best news I heard at WW. I have an Apple One Premier sub and the unlimited cameras in HKSV is huge now. The prior 5 camera cap was ridiculous. That’s how many cameras I have in my bedroom alone 😇
Click to expand...
The unlimited HKSV cameras is huge and blows the competition away. I just wish Ubiquiti would enabled HKSV for their PoE cameras, I guess I'll just set them up through Homebridge and do it that way. Having 20 or 30 cameras over WiFi is going to soak up a lot of bandwidth, whilst over ethernet it's nothing.
 
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Great news. All the problems that I had at the beginning of this thread have been solved. I am now able to:

  1. Detect people
  2. Set an activity zone in the camera's field of view
  3. Get notifications only when people are in the activity zone.

The fundamental problem was that I needed to be able to save video clips to iCloud. Before iOS 15, you needed to have a 200GB iCloud plan to save video clips. I have the 50GB plan and did not want to increase my iCloud space due to increased cost. Now, in iOS 15, Apple allows you got save video clips even if you have the 50 GB iCloud space plan.

To help others like me, here are some basic steps to get the HomeKit Secure Video camera to work properly with smart notifications.

1. Open up your security camera view and select settings. My Logitech Camera's settings are brought up when I click on the icon that looks like gears. If you are unable to save video clips (because you don't have an iCloud plan) or if you have not set it up yet, then what's missing on the settings screen is a setting for Activity Zones, which I'll discuss later in step 5.

To continue setting things up properly, click on "Recording Options".

hksv_01.png


2. If things aren't properly set up, you'll likely see that Streaming and Recording are set to "Stream". Click on "When Home".

hksv_02.png


3. You'll now have the option to change your recording. You MUST then choose "Stream & Allow Recording" if you want to be able to set up smart notifications and activity zones.

hksv_03.png
hksv_04.png


4. Go back to the main settings screen and select Notifications. It will bring up the following screen. Select "Specific Motion is Detected". You can then have notifications set for people, animals, etc. In my settings, I chose People only.

hksv_05.png
hksv_06.png



5. Go back the main settings screen again. You should now see an option for "Select Actvity Zones." Click on it.

hksv_07.png


6. You can now use the UI to select portion of your camera's field of view. Whenever something enters that zone, you will get a notification on your iPhone. A video clip will get saved.

hksv_08.png
 

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Last edited:
The Home app seriously needs two things…

1. A pull down to refresh. Tired of force closing the app to fix a laggy device status.

2. Snooze camera notifications for a specified amount of time.

iOS 15 does lets you snooze notifications for an hour but I think that’s too long and it’s for the whole app so you might miss other important notification in the Home.
 
Itinj24 said:
The Home app seriously needs two things…

1. A pull down to refresh. Tired of force closing the app to fix a laggy device status.

2. Snooze camera notifications for a specified amount of time.

iOS 15 does lets you snooze notifications for an hour but I think that’s too long and it’s for the whole app so you might miss other important notification in the Home.
Click to expand...
3. leave the clips in iCloud if I don't delete them

My clips stay for few days that they are gone without me doing anything: I looked everywhere in settings but cannot find where to fix that. And I've the 200GB for 1 CircleView.


P.s. I'm going to check how I can change my "forced" monthly plan
Update: waiting Apple to confirm it, I switched to 50GB
 
Last edited:
katbel said:
3. leave the clips in iCloud if I don't delete them

My clips stay for few days that they are gone without me doing anything: I looked everywhere in settings but cannot find where to fix that. And I've the 200GB for 1 CircleView.


P.s. I'm going to check how I can change my "forced" monthly plan
Click to expand...
I thought iCloud saves the recordings for 10 days. Whatever it is, if you have a video that you need to keep, you can do so indefinitely. Just save it to you photos app.
 
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The activity zone solution needs more refinement. I have an activity zone set up. I want to be notified of activity in that zone:

  • At any time of the day or night if no one is home
  • Only from 9:00 PM to sunrise if anyone is home
This is because the activity zone is also where my wife an I sit every evening to have our happy hour and dinner. Getting notified every time I get up to get a beer out of the fridge or check on the progress of dinner or have a pee is, to put it mildly, annoying. On the other hand, getting notified and making a recording of activity in that zone when I'm asleep in bed would be most desirable.

Is there any way to do that?
 
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