Motion Events

Learn about motion events and how to configure them

Updated this week

Motion events are used to alert users when motion, people, or vehicles are detected in the camera's field of view. Motion alerts can be customized to trigger during specific times of day and on specific days of the week, providing actionable information to administrators without requiring active monitoring.

Required. You need Site Admin permissions for the site a camera is in to configure motion alerts.

Configure motion events

Create Alert > Events

  1. Log in to Verkada Command.

  2. On the Command homepage, left navigation, click Alerts .

  3. On the Alerts page, next to My Alerts, click .

  4. On Select Event, choose Camera > People and Vehicle Detection.

  5. On Cameras:

    1. Choose to receive alerts from Sites or Individual Cameras.

    2. Click Done to continue.

  6. On Motion Type:

    1. Choose to receive alerts from People, Vehicles, People and vehicles, or All Motion.

    2. Click Done to continue.

  7. On Motion Areas:

    1. Choose Set up (x) Cameras to configure the motion areas on the cameras individually.

    2. Choose Full-frame Motion Area to select the entire camera frame.

  8. Click Done and continue with the alert recipients.

Create Alert > Recipients

  1. On Recipients, you can search for or select other Command users individually or you can assign the alert to a group.

  2. Select the dropdown menu next to a user or group to choose their notification method(s). Recipients can be notified either via a push notification, SMS, or email.

  3. (Optional) By default, you will be added to the alert created. To remove yourself, select the dropdown menu and click Delete.

  4. Click Done and continue with the alert notification schedule.

Note: Any recipient added to this alert will see it appear under the Shared Alerts section of their Alerts page.

Create Alert > Notification Schedule

  1. On Notification Schedule, you must specify what days and times you want alerts to be sent. By default, events are generated 24/7.

  2. Click Done and continue with the alert device actions or finish the alert.

Create Alert > Device Action

In addition to notifying individuals, you can configure your horn speaker to play when an alert is triggered. These alerts can be text-to-speech or an uploaded MP3 file.

  1. On Device Action, select the horn speaker(s) you want to play your message.

  2. Select your device's notification preference (Text to Speech or Audio File).

    1. For Text to Speech, enter the desired message up to 200 characters.

    2. For Audio File, drag and drop the file or click choose a file to upload your audio clip.

  3. Click Done and continue with finish the alert.

Finish the alert

  1. Click Next on the bottom right of the configuration window once you have configured all the desired alert settings.

  2. Enter a descriptive name for the alert.

  3. Click Done and you will start to receive alerts.

Changes to motion alerts

As updates to motion alerts have been rolled out, existing motion alerts have remained unchanged and fully functional. Below are some helpful tips and information on how to manage motion alerts to best take advantage of all the exciting new updates.

Update motion regions

Alerts that were created before the release of the new motion alerts flow will have the following message displayed, “Update motion regions for selected Cameras”:

Motion alerts now use freeform polygon shapes to identify regions of interest instead of the old grid view. To complete the setup of a motion alert, the existing motion alert should define new polygon-shaped motion regions.

If your motion alert is tracking one specific motion type (ex. People, Vehicles, All Motion), then simply update the motion type to match and then redraw the motion regions on the cameras.

Note: If your Motion alert is tracking a mix of people, vehicles, etc., then multiple new alerts will need to be created for each type of motion.

False-positive motion alerts

If you notice an increase in motion alerts, this may be a side effect of improving the detection accuracy of our cameras. It may also be a side effect of the motion region needing to be changed or constrained in some way. Modifying the motion region for the alert can help to reduce the number of false positives.

  1. From the Alert Inbox or Manage Alerts page, click on Edit Alert.

  2. Select Motion Areas to view the motion regions for the selected cameras.

  3. Redraw the motion region using the polygon-shaped region selector.


Need more help? Contact Verkada Support

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