Managing False Alarms in Watchful - Grid Changes, Suppressions, and Maintenance Required

False alarms are a fact of life in video monitoring — but with your feedback, Watchful gets smarter every day.

In this tutorial, we’ll walk you through the basics of managing False Alarms within the Watchful platform.
You’ll learn how to:

• Understand different types of false alarms,

• Follow the correct disposition workflows,

• And provide clear feedback to reduce future noise.

We’ll also cover how to:

• Request motion grid changes

• Request maintenance

• Apply suppressions to objects that frequently trigger unwanted alerts.

Key questions to answer while watching this video:

1. What are false alarms?
   → How does Watchful define them, and why do they happen?
2. What types of incidents fall under the False Alarm workflows?
   → Learn which dispositions are used for system issues, camera problems, or detection errors.
3. What are three important ways you can provide feedback to your administrators or to Watchful?
   → Discover how motion grid adjustments, service requests, and suppressions all play a role in improving alert accuracy.

Managing False Alerts in Watchful - Watch Video

Key Terms

• Disposition - A classification that indicates what is happening within an alert. Dispositions help categorize alerts for clear reporting and follow-up. Examples include Intruder, Possibly Staff, and Maintenance Needed. 
  
• Quill thinks: A box displayed directly below Quill’s suggested disposition. It provides a brief explanation of the reasoning behind her recommendation, offering insight into how the decision was made. 

• False Alarm -  A grouping of dispositions that are applied to alerts that do not have people or moving vehicles within them.  In a perfect world, with perfect hardware, these alarms would never be presented to the monitoring agent.  

• System Issue -  A subcategory of False Alarms that includes three specific dispositions: Incorrect Motion Grid, Request Service, and Incorrect Detection. These allow you to send targeted feedback to your administrators and/or Watchful to help improve system performance. 

• Incorrect Motion Grid -  Use this disposition to alert your administrators that a camera's motion detection zones (motion grids) need adjustment. This helps reduce false alerts caused by irrelevant movement, such as nearby traffic or distant activity. 

• Request Service - Apply this disposition when a camera appears dirty, blocked, out of focus, or improperly positioned. It notifies your admin team that the camera needs physical servicing to ensure reliable image quality. 

• Incorrect Detection - Use this disposition when the system falsely identifies an object — such as a tree, reflection, or shadow — as a person or vehicle. This allows you to apply suppressions, helping Watchful learn to ignore that specific pattern in the future.