How each one works
| Motion detection | AI video analytics | |
|---|---|---|
| What it reacts to | Pixels changing in the image | People, vehicles, objects and situations recognised in the image |
| Rain, snow, shadows, headlights, animals | Often trigger an alarm | Told apart from people and vehicles |
| Areas and hours | Usually per camera, sometimes per zone | Per area you draw, with hours and severity per area |
| Repeat alarms | Every movement can trigger again | The same person or vehicle does not trigger the same alert again |
| What the alert says | “Motion on camera 5” | “Person in the yard, 22:14” with snapshot and clip |
| Finding events later | Scrolling through recordings | Search across everything detected, by camera, zone and time |
Why false alarms are the real problem
A system that cries wolf trains people to ignore it. After a few nights of alarms for cats and moving branches, motion alerts are muted or switched off, and the camera becomes a recorder again. Fewer, reliable alerts with the clip attached are the ones people act on.
When simple motion detection is still enough
- Indoor rooms with stable light where nothing should move at night, such as a closed server room.
- A single camera where a person checks every alert anyway.
- Recording that only starts on motion, to save storage, without any alerting.
How ProDataAI Lens handles it
ProDataAI Lens tells people and vehicles apart from rain, shadows and animals, confirms a fire across several frames, applies alerts only to the areas and hours you set, does not repeat the same alert for the same person or vehicle and bundles lower-severity alerts. If you want, someone on your own staff confirms each alert before it is passed on.
Frequently asked questions
Can AI video analytics run on cameras that only do motion detection?
Yes. ProDataAI Lens reads the video stream of standard IP cameras and recorders; it does not depend on the camera's own motion detection.
Does AI video analytics produce no false alarms at all?
No system is perfect. In the pilot we agree how many false alarms are acceptable and measure them on your cameras.