Frigate is unable to record based on motion alone. Why not?

I am using frigate with various cameras in and around my house, to great success.

We recently discovered that we have a mouse in the basement! Egads! I set up a camera on the floor to try to catch it, but there is no mouse object (other than a computer mouse, I believe!). I would like frigate to record any clips with motion.

Is that possible? Thanks!

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Exact question I had today just starting with Frigate.
If I set up recording for events in config with max 10 seconds but it just seems to record all the time in short sections and create new folders.

I want it to record only when an object is identified.

How do I set this up?

That’s actually the opposite of my question. I wanted it to record on any motion, not just object detection.

Put an object in the camera view that it will detect, like a computer mouse, any time there is motion it will detect that object and record.

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You should checkout this thread

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Hi @jschwalbe, I’ve just been setting up Frigate and had the same question. Things might have changed over the last year, but Frigate can now record based on motion. It can also save additional video clips when it detects objects.

This config should do what you are looking for:

record:
  enabled: True
  retain:
    days: 7
    mode: motion
  events:
    retain:
      default: 14
      mode: active_objects

I wrote up everything I’ve learned so far on a GitHub discussion: I think I figured out how recording and retention works in Frigate · Discussion #4231 · blakeblackshear/frigate · GitHub
(I found the recording / event options to be a little bit confusing, but it’s starting to make sense.)

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