How to: Create rules for sound detection

Last modified: Wednesday October 11, 2023.

Create rules to alert your Alta Aware operators about certain sound-based events within range of your Alta cameras. These rules can be configured to detect breaking glass, general loud noises, gunshots, screams, dog barks, tire screeches, or the sound of smoke, car, or ultrasonic alarms.

Alta Aware detects sounds that are picked up by Alta cameras.

Prerequisites

To use Preset Camera or Date & Time settings, make sure you have configured them before creating the rule.

Task — Create sound detection rule

1. Choose Tools > Rules.
2. Click Add.
3. Type a name for the rule.
4. Click Sound.
5. Set the Level of importance.
   High importance rules prioritize the cameras displayed in the Video view when a rule is triggered.
6. Click Next.
7. Select the type of noises you want to find:
   1. You can select one or more options from: All unusual sounds, Glass breaking, Loud noise, Gun shot, Screaming, Smoke alarm, Car alarm, Ultrasonic panic alarm, or Dog bark.
   2. The Glass breaking, Gun shot, Screaming, Smoke alarm, Car alarm, Ultrasonic panic alarm, and Dog bark detections are all tuned specifically to the sounds and frequencies found for these audio events.
   3. Loud noise detection is based on sounds that exceed 120-130dB. Avigilon Alta may tune this value as more testing and feedback is received. The Loud noise detections are not directional, they are based on the sound levels received by all microphones on the camera.
8. Set the Minimum confidence level of sound type required to trigger an alarm.
   The options are:
   • Low
   • Medium
   • High
   Low will cause the rule to trigger on more sounds, but more false positive detections are likely.
   High will experience fewer false positive detections, but might miss some correct detections.
9. Select the Avigilon Ava cameras for this rule:
   1. Use Search to help find the required cameras in the list.
   2. Click to filter cameras by site name, device group name, and device name, or click to filter by label.
   3. If you have predefined them, use Camera presets to simplify adding the same groups of cameras to multiple rules.
      
10. Click Next.
11. Specify your required Date & Time and RULE ACTIVATION settings.
    If you have predefined them, use Templates to simplify adding the same date and time parameters to multiple rules.
12. Click Next.
13. Select your required actions. Select from:
    
    • Pop-up — when triggered, pops up a notification on the Aware user interface that includes a thumbnail view of the camera view that triggered the rule. The Pop-up can be expanded to show more detail and allow further actions to be taken by your operators.

      To receive notifications on the Alta Aware mobile app, check Also send a push notification on the mobile app.

    • Email — when triggered, an email message is sent to the defined user or group of users.
    • External link— when triggered, Aware automatically creates a shared external link that can be embedded in an Email or Webhook notification.
    • Webhook — when triggered, enables notification via a webhook to your preferred communication system.
    Alarms are only shown to operators that have access to the cameras that trigger the rule.
To configure Advanced settings:
1. Click Advanced settings.
2. To record more video at the end of the alarm, specify the Additional recording time.
3. To merge similar alarms, specify the Merge similar alarms within time.
4. Select how the triggered rule should behave. To trigger an alarm that shows in the Alarms tool, select Security Alarm (default). To trigger as an event that shows in the Events tool, select Security Event.
5. Click Done.
14. Choose if you require your operators to acknowledge the rule when it is triggered.
15. Click Done.