Anomaly Detector: the catch-all for something being off

What it does

Svid describes every frame of the footage it watches, and the Anomaly Detector reads those descriptions against what a normal, uneventful scene of that kind should look like, then flags what doesn't fit: unusual behaviour, objects where they shouldn't be, smoke, damage, people in odd places. It judges a longer window of recent frames than most alerting checks, because the things it exists to catch tend to build slowly. Loitering isn't in any single frame; a gathering forms over minutes.

When it fires, the alert describes what's unusual and links the exact moment, on screen, by email, or by JSON webhook. One event fires one alert, and a re-fire within two minutes is recorded as the same event continuing.

When to use it, and when not to

If the worry has a name, use the named check: Theft Watch for concealment, Fire & Smoke Watch for smoke, Parking Violation for the blocked lane. Each of those is tuned for exactly one condition. The Anomaly Detector is for the cameras where you can't predict what wrong looks like, only that you'd want to know: the yard at 3am, the empty office at the weekend, the corridor behind the loading bay.

It's also the honest first check for a business that doesn't yet know what its cameras see. Run it over a week of recorded footage and read what it flags. Some of it will be harmless. Some of it will be the thing you end up buying the named check for.

Where it runs

Anywhere a camera points. It's enabled per camera, reads RTSP feeds, uploaded files and live phone cameras, and a whole folder of cameras can have it applied in one action. Live and recorded footage go through the same pipeline, and for sites where footage can't leave the network there's a fully on-prem appliance mode.

What it costs

The Store shows the Anomaly Detector with a live monthly figure computed from your own cameras, hours and watch level, as ‘+$X/mo at your usage’, before you buy. The subscription underneath is priced from your own usage with a $9 a month floor, derivation on screen at signup. The pricing section has the arithmetic.

What actually counts as unusual?

Anything that doesn't fit a normal, uneventful scene of the same kind: people in odd places, objects out of place, damage, smoke, behaviour that doesn't belong. The alert describes what it saw, so judging it takes a glance.

Won't it flag harmless things?

Sometimes. It's the broadest check in the Store by design, and broad means the occasional shrug. Each alert carries a description and the clip, and re-fires within two minutes fold into one event, so the cost of a harmless flag is a glance.

Should I run it alongside named checks?

They stack happily. A named check gives you precision on the risk you know about; the Anomaly Detector covers the ones you haven't named yet. Checks are enabled per camera, so each camera gets the set that fits it.