Article Summary:
Here are some guidelines to get the most out of your Activity Zones and alerts for the things you care about most.

Keep foreground and background activity in mind

While people can see a flat picture and understand depth, Activity Zones are 2D shapes and can't process depth. For example, if you create your Activity Zone around your whole front door, you'll get a notification anytime the door opens. However, you'll also get a notification anytime someone passes in front of the door, even if they don't open the door.

If you'd like to receive a notification only when the door opens, set the Activity Zone higher up on the door so that a person walking in front of the door will not trigger an alert.

Create small and selective Activity Zones

If you're interested in a specific view of your video, create a small, selective Activity Zone for it. A big Activity Zone will notice a lot of activity, whether it's inside, in front of the window or outside, behind the window. It'll even capture when the light is turned on or off.

A smaller Activity Zone, like the one below, will make it more likely that Nest Cam will ignore the light being turned on or off and still notice when someone walks past the window.

You can further adjust your Activity Zone so that your Nest Cam pays attention to exactly what you want it to. The Activity Zone below is more likely to pick up activity only when somebody walks by the window outside. It's less likely to notice people sitting down to eat but still might notice a tall person walking past the counter. Experiment with the size and placement of your Activity Zones to get the effect that you want.

Don't overlap Activity Zones

If you overlap two or more Activity Zones, you'll only receive a notification for the Activity Zone where the motion event first occurred. If the motion actually happened in two or more Activity Zones at the same time, you'll only get a notification for one of the Activity Zones.