Events & detections

When detection fires, camera.ui groups what it finds into an event. Knowing the pieces helps when you browse recordings, set up notifications, or search.

The pieces

• Event. Everything that happens during one continuous burst of activity at a camera. An event has a start and an end, and can update as it goes.
• Segment. A clip within an event. A long event is split into segments, each with its own thumbnail.
• Detection. Something the AI found in a segment, such as a person or a vehicle, with a confidence score.
• Attribute. Extra detail on a detection, such as a recognised face, a license plate, or a semantic (CLIP) embedding used for search.

Triggers vs detections

Two things can start or shape an event:

• A trigger is a signal that something happened: motion, a doorbell, a contact sensor, an alarm sound. A trigger can start an event on its own.
• A detection is what the AI actually recognised in the video, like an object, a face, or a plate.

The difference matters for filtering and notifications: you can alert on a doorbell press (a trigger) or only when a person is seen (a detection).

Where events show up

Events drive the rest of camera.ui:

• Recordings — browse and filter past events.
• Notifications — get alerted about the ones that matter.
• Semantic search — find events by describing them.